Rents are no doubt getting insane, and my hope is that these new condo and apartment buildings are simply charging market rate based on what they think they can get, and not charging the minimum rents they must charge to make the deals pencil. In other words, once leases slow and leasing agents / building owners get hungrier, hopefully rents will come down even in these new buildings.
However, as we’ve said before, today’s new luxury housing is tomorrow’s affordable housing. Eventually these buildings stabilize, get sold off to private equity/Reits, and the units age into lower relative value.
It’s ridiculous now, but it’s great to know that all these new housing units downtown are going to be there for 30-50 years
Finally something we agree on! While I wouldn’t say we’ve skyrocketed into being a more culturally robust city, we most definitely have had a LOT of increase in all the above - even just in the last year or two since COVID, alone!
The Pour House is very much still thriving - in fact, I just played a set there on Sunday lmao. They’re also in process of finishing building out a legit VINYL RECORD PRESSING PLANT (Pour House Pressing, IIRC) just outside the downtown area, and have expanded their upstairs to now include a daytime record store - Pour House has honestly been one of the more consistently growing music venues in the city.
This past weekend’s Hopscotch was nearly sold out, the first time it’s come that close since long before the pandemic shuttered it’s growth, and was actually one of the most successful Hopscotch weekends they’ve ever had. Just FYI.
lol how embarrassing… My mistake on The Pour House. idk why I remember seeing it closed. May have misinterpreted a temporary announcement I saw a couple years ago. (obviously haven’t been there in ages).
And you know what? I retract my comment on Hopscotch too. I know it’s always been well-attended, so I wasn’t talking about that; I was just thinking lineups. I felt like last year was the worst lineup in the festival’s history, both in quality and quantity, which was weird given 2021 was a decent comeback despite having like 1/6 of the acts it did before.
I was out of town this year so couldn’t go, but I just looked at the lineup and it was far better than I remember. We’re still at 90 acts versus 137 pre-COVID, but at least the quality has returned.
Pretty sure @Jake and I both play live music in Raleigh, and we certainly don’t do it alone. There are hundreds if not thousands of musicians that perform in this city that live in Raleigh or the surrounding area. I’ll agree, it’s no Nashville, LA, NYC, or even Asheville, but between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, there are a ton of amazing musicians that live and play here.
Must house everyone in an affordable 1 bedroom while also being able to house a family of 4 who are forced to live in the hellscape of more than one person in a dwelling
Think you found a place cheaper outside of downtown? Doesn’t count
Think there is a more expensive city out there? Not allowed to compare it to Raleigh
We will never get to “affordable” housing if we don’t build middle income housing. Luxury apartments are the bane of affordable housing. Disagree with me. I know I’m right
Build more apartments (and housing in general) of all kinds. Loosen up regulations so less “premium” dwellings can pencil out.
But luxury apartments have a place, too. I lived in one when I moved here and it was great - but demand has outstripped supply so much it’s like 50% more expensive now.
I’m, uh, not sure what you’re getting at here. I generally lived in “luxury” apartments because I could afford to, that’s just my experience. I’m not advocating for their existence or more of them, because most of my friends can’t. The whole point of my post was just calling out that even old low- and mid-income apartments are getting pricier relative to means.
I mean, basically, I agree with you, but there’s some next steps that need to be filled in. How do we sustainably incentivize building lower-margin housing when higher-margin luxury housing is still in such high demand? Our current market system is not providing this. Some kind of intervention seems to be required. What kind?
The city / CASA here was trying one method (buy and manage instead of build) but the outcome hasn’t really met the goal.
"while some housing arrangements are returning to their pre-pandemic levels, a sustained increase in the number of Americans living on their own has been a key driver of rapid price inflation that is currently dominating the housing market…
"Nearly 400,000 Gen Zers stopped living on their own, but as we know, the pendulum swung back quickly and nearly 1 million new Gen Z adults were living alone by the end of 2021…
“In 2020 more than one-half million roommate households disbanded, and despite a slight recovery, the number remains below pre-pandemic levels even as the total number of households reaches an all-time high.”
Right, I didn’t contest that this is a wider national trend. I am specifically talking about Raleigh, where I don’t believe we have a pronounced roommate culture compared to many larger cities. For example, something like 10% of my social circle here had housemates in their late 20s, and I’m in a pretty diverse group socio-economically. Pretty much all my friends who live in NYC and LA have housemates. I was wondering if there was any data to back up the claim that de-roommating is having a significant impact on housing affordability in Raleigh specifically.
Your perspective might be 10% but that is definitely not a very representative sample of the population. For starters about 1/3 of people in their late 20s are married.
But setting that aside, I can’t find data on Raleigh household formation specifically, but to the extent your anecdotal evidence is part of a larger trend in Raleigh with regards to single people it would be much more indicative of our housing affordability to begin with than a larger “culture of roommates” which is not really a thing. Housing is just cheaper here so people can afford more sq footage per person and don’t need to subsidize with a roommate.
To that effect, it is not just ‘de-roomating’ that is driving the rise in housing costs post covid but all types of households desiring more space in the WFH era.
For starters about 1/3 of people in their late 20s are married.
Why is that relevant to my anecdote about roommates? Obviously single folks are the topic of discussion here. And anecdotes aren’t intended to be used as concrete proof – they’re illustration of a hunch based on personal experience. I think we all understand the limits of that.
but to the extent your anecdotal evidence is part of a larger trend in Raleigh with regards to single people it would be much more indicative of our housing affordability to begin with
Yes, I absolutely agree. I think the historical housing affordability is why a roommate culture is less prevalent here, and is precisely why I suspect that de-roomating is NOT the primary cause of escalating costs in Raleigh as you claimed it is. I think it’s important to not assume that national trends are applicable to every metro area, which might have a variety of other factors driving costs. Case in point:
it is not just ‘de-roomating’ that is driving the rise in housing costs post covid but all types of households desiring more space in the WFH era.
I think this is MUCH more plausible, and is also backed up with data specific to our area. Raleigh has the fourth highest rate of WFH in the country – 26%, compared to the national average of 15%. Anyway, I don’t want to needlessly drag this out. I think we each understand each other’s points.
Yea agree to disagree and appreciate the discussion. I’ll just say as a point of clarity that WFH thing is not mutually exclusive with de-roomating - it would be a leading cause.
MY anecdotal example would be my 3 younger co-workers who lived together off Glenwood South when the pandemic kicked off and all 3 moved off to their own one bedrooms since they could not all WFH on zoom together in the same apartment. Not gonna take many times of that playing out in the rental market to really drive down supply.
We don’t have data granular enough to say that something is happening / not happening specifically in Raleigh, but there’s not much reason to believe that a big story affecting millions of Americans is not affecting the many thousands of Americans who live in Raleigh.
We do have data to show that Raleigh does have “a pronounced roommate culture.” Per 5-year 2021 ACS, 11.2% of Raleigh households are “nonfamily, householder not living alone” (i.e., with unrelated roommates). 7.8% of all Raleigh households are roommates where the head of household is young (15-34 years old).
That’s far higher than the 6.8% of all US households who are roommate households, and compares to places that definitely have “a pronounced roommate culture” – e.g., 12.3% in Washington, DC.
In my broke and single days, I was sharing a three-bedroom apartment with three other guys (four total, to be clear) all the way up on Strickland Road and was still struggling to make ends meet, and this was mid-2010s so… I’d be very surprised if there aren’t a ton of people with roommates in the area.
I have several friends in their late twenties and early thirties with roommates .
(Pour House Pressing, IIRC) just outside the downtown area, and have expanded their upstairs to now include a daytime record store - Pour House has honestly been one of the more consistently growing music venues in the city.