Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
This has zero to do with rent burden. You're saying that someone making 50k can more easily buy an 86k asset than someone making 130k buying a $1.3 million asset, which is obvious, and irrelevant.
SF has relatively low rent burden, because incomes are high, and there's a high percentage of non-market housing. Flint has relatively high rent burden because incomes are low and there's a low percentage of non-market housing. The typical SF household is less rent burdened than the typical Flint household.
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The problem with these "rent burden" calculations is that
1) Many households are dual-income. If you're the one single-income household in a neighborhood of DINKs, of course you're going to be in trouble. There's too much heterogeneity in households to make these "median measures" meaningful.
2) Amenities. What people are willing to pay for homes doesn't depend only on income. In major cities, you are also paying for public transportation when you buy a home (which offsets private transportation). If you live somewhere with great weather, beaches, mountains, etc., you'll pay for that. A lot of people will pay $5,000/year to get those amenities. They're consuming amenities paid for through house prices; I consume amenities in Chicago paid for with a credit card.