I knew that rent had gone way up in the area where I grew up, especially because AirBnBs have taken a lot of units off the market for tourists, but the actual cut-and-dry numbers going around now are really shocking.
Like, a 1BR is $1500 -- utilities and car payments not included! -- and minimum wage is somewhere around $12-13 an hour.
Like, when I moved from the city that I used to live in because of increasing crime and public transportation problems, cost-of-living was also on my mind, because potential increases seemed imminent.
And, at that point, my 1BR was like just under a $1000, and with utilities and public transportation, it was probably around $1250, and I was making somewhere like $17-18 an hour.
And, the tight margins of money left over each month was already draining, and the imminent increases in cost-of-living made it seem increasingly unsustainable, and, that was with a cash flow situation that is BETTER than what people in my hometown are facing now.
It really is shocking, some rinky-dink rural area, with cost-of-living patterns that make it look like what a major metropolis cost five years ago.
An old (computer programmer) friend from high school says it's the natural evolution of tourist area housing markets, but I really do think it is the housing crunch combined with underregulated AirBnB crapola and the downward pressure on wages that's been going around for decades.
It really is just shocking.
He also told me his sister living in a satellite town to a major city in the same state had her rent DOUBLE over a single year.
Just unbelievable.
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