
Why Don’t People Who Can’t Afford Housing Just Move Where It’s Cheaper? - jpm_sd
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/upshot/why-dont-people-who-cant-afford-housing-just-move-where-its-cheaper.html
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thecosas
Family/friends. Real-life social network/support often outweighs the gains of
moving somewhere cheaper.

~~~
mjevans
Having a support network of any kind is something very difficult to weigh
economically; but it is invaluable at the same time.

~~~
antisthenes
If you've ever helped your friends move or have had them help you, you can
weigh the economic benefit very easily.

Not only does it strengthen your friendship, but it takes the profit margin of
a moving company out of the equation - that's the economic gain your group
gains (even after you buy your friends beer and lunches - you should still be
in the plus)

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smileysteve
I wonder about this often, but not about in California

Based off this article about hookworm being alive and well in Southern
Alabama. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-
low...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-
county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty)

In the article, there is a woman without a sewage hookup paying $611 for her
mortgage, and $300 for electricity.

In the city of Atlanta, and much less, some of the suburbs, paying $900 for a
single wide's square footage for a house or apartment is entirely possible.
This woman doesn't have much family that's not staying with her, etc.

The other logical frustration from this is that density solves a lot of
problems. From cheaper insurance, heating/cooling up to 5 fewer walls, to
shared sewer connections - an apartment solves a lot of problems compared to a
trailer home.

~~~
jiveturkey
Not sure what 'My friends front following' means, but

> Maybe people want to live in their own place, not an apartment.

isn't that the point of the article? people living in high cost cities cannot
afford their own place?

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dsnuh
As a divorced parent, moving to another city would mean losing access to my
kids. That definitely weighs into my consideration. With the number of
marriages ending in divorce, I wonder how common this situation is and if it
also plays into the equation for them.

~~~
notadoc
This definitely comes into play, I know several people who want to move or
relocate but their ex can't/won't and therefore they're stuck in place.

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dchuk
I live near the beach in San Diego, where house prices are pretty damn high,
so my wife and I still rent. On the weekends, we ride bikes or walk to the
beach and hang out. It's how we like to live our lives.

I've been to a lot of areas in the country, and I simply don't want to live in
them, regardless of price. I can walk outside in a t-shirt 365 days a year
where I live and not die from exposure in a few minutes. I have no need to
shovel snow. I am surrounded by mountains, the ocean, forests and desert are a
few minute drives away.

Plus friends. And family. It's also nice living in a place that people want to
visit, old friends pop in all the time simply because we live where people
want to vacation.

~~~
paulddraper
Living in a large house with land next to farms and skiing mountains in an
interior rural state, I have different priorities then you.

But you hit the nail on the head: most people like to live in a place with
temparate weather, scenery, and things that only come with population density.
So most people want to live in the same place, despite (or even indirectly
because of) other people wanting to live in the same place too.

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taborj
Cheaper does not always mean a desirable place to live. This question somewhat
assumes that all places to live are created equal.

~~~
asdfman123
As someone who lives in an uncool but vibrant metropolis, I think people from
more well known coastal cities vastly underestimate how much... world there is
out there.

I know many Californians would shudder at the prospect of moving to Houston,
but it's actually a progressive, vibrant place with lots of cool stuff to do.
Don't like Houston? That's fine. There's a hundred other cities to choose
from.

What's that fallacy where you overestimate something's value because you paid
a lot for it?

~~~
taborj
To be clear, I think anyone living in the Bay Area must be nuts. But, then
again, I think anyone living in big cities is nuts. Give me fresh air and
neighbors you can't see any day.

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hguhghuff
Strange how it’s _only_ people who already own a house who suggest this.

~~~
Clubber
It's a lot harder to pick up and move if you have a mortgage vs. renting some
place.

~~~
pascalxus
Yes, but if you have a mortgage and have been there for a long time, you're
probably sitting on a gold-mine. i wonder if bay area residents ever consider
how much money they could make if they just picked up and moved some where
else. I bet many of their houses (or the equivalent amount of equity invested
in rent ROI optimized houses) could out-earn the people living in them, if
they bought more than 20 years ago.

~~~
Clubber
It's not like that in most places. I bought my house at the right time and
it's only increased in value maybe 50% in nearly 20 years. I mean it ain't
nothing; it beat inflation, but tack on the interest and I'm probably
negative. At least I have equity built into it, which I wouldn't if I had
opted for an apartment for 20 years. Most houses only make you rich in the
fact that you own something after all the years of paying for shelter.

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danmg
Being able to remote 100% of the time is not as common as people want to think
here.

A lot of managers aren't comfortable with that notion, and basically ignore
you when you make the case that a position is essentially impossible to fill
when just letting it up to local market for labor.

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closeparen
Why would you want them to? A city consisting only of people who can afford
$1.5m mortgages is missing most of the amenties and services you rely on and
value. They only function in San Francisco today out of inertia; their ability
to hire and retain staff is plummeting.

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newnewpdro
Everyone I know hase gone through a "power-saving" phase at least once in
their life, typically on the path towards buying a home. This is inherently a
period of austerity for the individual, or, as the article describes, "great
discomfort".

If you're going to be depriving yourself, you may as well do it where people
are getting paid the most, and just live like an itinerant/vagabond while
there. It's the high salaries and abundant opportunity that attracts all the
well-paid housing seekers. Join them, just don't bother with the housing, and
watch your savings blow up.

You'll probably learn a bunch about yourself and how to live simply in the
process as well.

~~~
asdfman123
I'm actually someone who's very much a fan of power saving then retiring
early.

Indeed, if I were to make a good salary in Silicon Valley and move to another
metropolis, the math would work in my favor. But what if I found a partner?
What about my friends and networks over there?

Retiring to a city where I didn't know anyone would suck.

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spyckie2
Affordable housing is a symptom, not an issue. The basic issue is that living
in a nice city falls prey to basic supply and demand curves.

The unit of supply is not the house itself, but everything that's included
within a city - opportunity, lifestyle, family, friends, food, etc. These
things are subjective to each individual, but have some universal similarities
(ie: people generally prefer more opportunity to less).

The population of demand is theoretically the entire world, and more
practically, the body of people that wants to live in that city due to
opportunities and lifestyle. Just speculating, I'd estimate demand to live in
a nice city is much greater than the population by 10 or 100x.

When supply is short and demand is not, you reach equilibrium at the point
where only the people who can afford to live there do. "Afford" is subjective
too, as some people are willing to pay much more in terms of rent and
lifestyle sacrifices. In the case of SV, since wages are still extremely high,
I think the cost of housing will still increase. It will squeeze the middle
class lifestyle heavily (if its not doing so already).

If you want to look at a mature housing market in the dystopian sense of the
word, visit Hong Kong. An abundance of high paying finance jobs, low income
taxes, and a crazy amount of powerful real estate investors made HK some of
the most expensive housing in the world. But finance is no longer growing,
real estate is squeezed of its profits, and the affordability of housing in HK
is in serious crisis. Haven't lived here for too long, but it seems that
lifestyle has been constantly compromised (small houses, live with your
parents forever) by the expensiveness of housing. Or that affording your own
house is actually a luxury, not a basic human right (depends on your
perspective).

Is there a long term solution? Quite simply, not unless we dramatically think
of cities differently than we do currently. Fixed housing costs doesn't solve
the basic situation that a city is a very attractive place to live, and that
many people would like to move there if they could.

Housing cost is currently the way of deciding who gets to live there, and what
they're willing to give up for it.

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falcolas
Cost of moving: Lost income while looking for a new job at the new location,
security deposit, first and last month's rent up front, moving truck, loss of
income while moving, lack of security at new job, emotional toll if also
moving children, loss of pay due to a different cost of living...

Sure, why not move all the time?

The cost of moving is never trivial, and it requires you to be prepared with
sufficient money in your savings account. If you don't have that savings and
you don't have a support net to catch you, you're not going to be able to move
and remain off the street.

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andy_adams
Family ties are indeed extremely strong. However, here in Idaho we have lots
of former Californians and it seems that it only takes one family member to
make the "leap" to move up here, and before long (usually within 5 years) the
other members start to see the benefit and move themselves.

My grandmother just moved here after living 80 years in CA. The family next
door is 4 generations, each gradually moving up from CA.

The reason is the same: Family. But once someone made the leap, the others
followed.

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thirduncle
That was easy: "The same reason they can't just go to an ATM and pull out more
money. Don't well-off folks ask the darnedest questions?"

------
chiefalchemist
As a side note, over the weekend I a report that said housing sales have gone
soft on the coasts. The reason given was the recent changes in the tax laws.
Perhaps, if prices drop so might the cost of rentals?

It continues to amaze me how the (policy) talk is pro-affordable housing, but
the walk is more wealth - of which property ownership is a great conduit - in
few hands.

~~~
Clubber
I think the government is going to stop subsidizing ocean and waterfront
properties. Not sure if this is a cause or the cause.

------
wahern
One of the most striking things I learned about the Rwandan genocide[1] was
how many Tutsi simply refused to flee, even temporarily, even in the depths of
the slaughter. Not because they wanted to make a stand or affirmatively
resist, but seemingly out of some ineffable resistance to change. AFAICT, the
same phenomenon has happened in every other genocide, not to mention other
large scale disasters.

Economists can and should debate and quantitatively measure varying aspects of
and reasons for the phenomenon. But from a high-level public policy
perspective the reasons are largely irrelevant; there's simply no denying that
on the whole most people by their nature are extremely averse to moving, even
in the face of impending death. Any public policy predicated on
intragenerational migration in response to run-of-the-mill structural economic
dislocation is doomed to fail. Many people will follow straight-forward
economic incentives. But a very large number won't, even to their extreme and
readily foreseeable detriment. That makes failure inevitable.

[1] See "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our
Families"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Wish_to_Inform_You_That_Tom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Wish_to_Inform_You_That_Tomorrow_We_Will_Be_Killed_with_Our_Families))

~~~
asdfman123
I guess "people will move and the economy will readjust" is the new "let them
eat cake," then, isn't it?

~~~
ytNumbers
As Sam Kinison used to say: "Move to the food!!!".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKNoJ2BzSRU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKNoJ2BzSRU)

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dragonwriter
Ironically, the source they cite on California domestic migration indicates
that, in lots of cases, they do, and that's pretty much exactly what is
driving migration out of CA (and, conversely, that people who _can_ afford it
are moving in, but there are fewer of those.)

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kevintb
Not much to add, except that this article makes me sad. My family struggled
with housing costs when I was a child, but as a newly arrived immigrant family
to a city with a tiny minority population, the lack of social support was felt
more keenly than the cost of rent.

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xupybd
I don't think they've address some other factors. It's really scary to move
especially when you are struggling. Taking a risk like that when you're only
just making ends meet isn't the kind of things we humans do well.

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JulianMorrison
Moving itself is a cost, reduced but not eliminated if you are willing and
able to abandon literally all your possessions and then live precariously at
your destination while the move is sorted out.

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s73v3r_
Because those places that are cheaper are usually cheaper for a reason. And
generally they don't have the same job opportunities that the more expensive
places do.

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sjg007
No jobs.

~~~
twodave
I disagree. I live and work in the Jacksonville, FL area and it’s both
extremely affordable and abundant in jobs, both tech and otherwise. They can’t
get enough qualified candidates to move here.

~~~
pishpash
Do those plenty of jobs pay as well, adjusted for cost of living?

~~~
twodave
That wasn’t the question posed by the article, but let’s just say I’m able to
easily support a family of 6 and live in a 3400sqft colonial brick house on a
half acre, and I’m under 35 yrs old.

So while I might make a little more than half what typical FAANG engineers do,
I get to work on IMO more exciting greenfield projects and live within minutes
of the beach and 2 blocks from a river.

~~~
ojbyrne
The article does mention that actually, though its not the primary theme.

"And low-skilled jobs in a city like San Francisco pay some of the highest
wages in the country; the minimum wage here is twice what it is in much of
America, a real benefit that weighs against the high housing costs."

~~~
AstralStorm
It is only relevant if you want to work such a job. Most people I know prefer
something less back breaking and soul crushing.

There is one other thing these communities lack - educational opportunities.
Especially universities...

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post_break
I could buy a ton of homes in Flint michigan. I wouldn't have a job though.

~~~
RandomInteger4
If you could afford to buy a ton of homes in Flint, Michigan then you could
likely also afford to have the job of helping to fix Flint, Michigan, which I
imagine while less lucrative, would still provide subsistence.

Sometimes we have to recognize the power we wield and use it to perform
selfless acts.

Not saying you should move there and do that, but just that you're wrong in
saying that you'd have no job.

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wfwefwef32
for me,

no job, no connection

~~~
twodave
I can relate to the connection part. We rely on family a lot, and that is
something we couldn’t replace if we relocated.

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olfactory
It's frankly pretty silly when people complain about prices (housing prices,
prescription drug prices, gas prices, etc.)

The issue with housing prices is that there are a lot of government policies
that have the (intentional or unintentional) effect of increasing housing
prices. Some of them are as follows:

\- Making mortgage interest tax deductible

\- Special tax treatment for the sale of a primary residence

\- Laws limiting how many people can cohabitate in one building, or similar
laws that enforce this more softly through limits on street parking.

\- Rent control laws which suppress the price of rental units, limiting the
incentive for landlords to build new units.

\- Laws that limit the construction (or add extra costs/requirements) to
projects that would add more residential units.

\- The utter failure of highway infrastructure during rush hour, which adds
hours of commute time for short distance travel, drastically increasing the
price of residences that do not require a highway commute.

\- The failure of municipalities to provide adequate and affordable parking
and public transit, adding inconvenience to many neighborhoods which drives up
prices in others.

\- The failure of law enforcement to create a safe environment in many
neighborhoods that offer more affordable housing, leading to increased crime
and under-investment in improving and expanding areas that would otherwise be
highly desirable for residences.

\- Laws that create building code requirements that are not based on sound
engineering or safety principles but which create lucrative contracts for
certain professions in the building trade... These increase the cost of new
construction and make many retrofitting/repurposing projects impossible.

There are many, many more.

~~~
imjustsaying
All you have to do is look at the final effect, Z. The stated purpose X may or
may not be the intended purpose Y. Even if stated purpose X genuinely =
intended purpose Y, the actual effect Z matters the most. You're spot on.

~~~
throwawaysea
I'm not sure what you mean by 'actual effect Z', but citizens and their local
governments had many valid reasons as to why they enacted each of those
policies and constraints. For many people, the value of those policies will be
more important than having more-affordable housing.

