Remove the restrictions that prevent rooming and boarding.

There are any number of 3 bedroom homes that have a single person living in it, but they can't rent them out without government restrictions.

Ironically tenant protection laws may contribute to the problem. People may have spare apartments in their homes or as investments but dont rent them out because eviction is too difficult, so if you have a problem tenant...

Also whatJim said... Inlaws are illegal lots of places

End the Fed.

Loose money pushes the prices of assets up (such as real estate and the rent on real estate), but normally doesn't necessarily push people's wages up.

Doing some quick research, I'm not sure that there's a lack of rental units available. Here's an article I found rather quickly - in August the second largest landlord in the country let many people go because **44%** of their units are not rented out:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-23/american-homes-4-rent-said-to-fire-employees-after-loss.html

There's a vicious circle thing for large landholders... if they lower rents for their vacant places, their current tenants might move into them, paying less rent, and they won't necessarily be replaced. It can end up in a loss for the landlords.

There's probably no easy solution to the rental problem, but I have more faith in the free market than in the government. Government regulation, especially in many large cities, generally makes people reluctant to rent out their properties, because they essentially lose all control over their own property.

For those who didn't follow the link, the "redistribution" bit is the old proposal to pay everyone a basic income. If you are happy with your basic income, no need to work. If you want more, work.

As with so many wonderful, idealistic ideas, reality would intervene. This fits in perfectly with Winston Churchill's saying: “Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.” This proposal is full of heart, but absolutely stupid.

@NicoleK: The problem is a bit different, I think. Lots of US cities impose rent controls. Cities tell landlords that they cannot increase rental charges for existing tenants, and they cannot terminate rental contracts. This has three effects:

- Artificially low rents for a lucky few.

- No incentive for builders or investors to create new rental properties.

- Existing property owners who would rather let their building stand empty than rent them.

The result is a lack of nice rental properties. The only ones on the market are either so run down that the landlords don't care, or else ridiculously expensive.

Obviously, it depends on where you are in the country. But this was certainly what I saw when I used to live up in Yankee-land. Here in Texas I don't really see a huge problem.

I think part of the income decline is due to audience selection. In the '70s and '80s, when interest rates were high, a lot of middle-income people rented. However, when interest rates declined in the early '90s, they became homeowners, leaving behind the welfare receipients and financial basket cases who couldn't qualify for a mortgage. Through a lot of the Southeast U.S., if you have almost any kind of full-time job, there is a mortgage company that will lend you money. And if you're making just a little bit more than minimum wage, they will be competing for your business. The trend has slowed some because real estate prices and the costs of home ownersip have gone up, but I still don't see a big move back to renting.

(Regarding the financial basket cases: A few years ago we lived in an apartment for about a year while we were building a house. I had not lived in an apartment since about 1990 and I was amazed at the changes in apartment life. The biggest thing that struck me was what they discarded when they moved out: brand-new furniture, appliances, clothing, you name it. Apparently anything that doesn't fit in the car gets tossed. My brother-in-law came up one day and fetched a washer and dryer that someone had put out by the dumpster that looked to be only a few months old. When he got them home, they worked perfectly. I have a nice two-drawer lateral file cabinet that someone there discarded.)

As has been pointed out elsewhere, people are weird about "poverty". By any standard, being poor in the USA is a pretty good life. You will have enough to eat, a roof over your head, and some luxuries as well. However, people get all upset about the difference between rich and poor, which is larger in the US than elsewhere.

There was a study, which I'm too lazy to hunt down, where people were given a choice between (a) earning 50,000 when all their friends earned $30,000, or (b) earning $75,000 when all their friends earned $100,000. Those weren't the numbers, but you get the idea. Almost everyone preferred earning less, but being better off than their friends.

It may be human psychology, but it still doesn't make any sense.

Apparently there is an infinite pool of money available for every pet project out there, if only we'd raise taxes on corporations (we already have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world) and rich people. WHY oh why haven't we ever thought of that before?

Law of supply and demand: I have a house. You want to live in my house. I ask what I want for my house, and you pay it or go elsewhere. Don't like it? Buy. I really don't see other people's housing issues as society's problem to solve.

Here in Austin you can get a 1 bedroom anywhere from $375 a month up to $1500 or more. Depends where you want to live and how nice you want your surroundings to be.

And I LOVE scavenging by the dumpsters at apartment complexes. They are often honeyholes.

I'm sure NYC is a bit of a different story because everything is ridiculously expensive, but at least in our case a big part of the problem the fact that the rich use zoning laws as a weapon.

Even though Bloomberg did a decent job of getting more apartments (mainly for the wealthy) into the city, it's still very difficult to build very tall buildings in NYC due to government regulation and interference from neighborhood associations.

Great article here on the idea of building more tall skyscrapers:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/how-skyscrapers-can-save-the-city/308387/

Oh, hey, let's raise taxes on people creating jobs! that will encourage them to create even more jobs!

What do you mean they'll cut back to find an affordable spot on the tax curve?

sheesh, in my city builders have been putting up new apartments, subsidized and market rate both, practically 7x24. Thousands of new units. There are sooo many more apts now, you'd think rents would go down. Instead, social services around the state send their clients here with housing vouchers...and we keep hearing how there's not enough affordable housing!1!

And the low income workers I know who are self supporting gravitate toward mobile homes, where they can find them. When they come into some money, they even buy one and find a lot somewhere. But that is the last thing our leaders to allow in the city limits.

A bit off topic. But a pet peeve of mine: "The strong economic growth and low unemployment of the 1950s and 1960s was accompanied by much higher taxes on the wealthy, "

People who ignore the why. Why was there low unemployment right after WW2. Because of the war. Killing off millions of workers, helped unemployment. Competitors (Europe) factories were destroyed and took years to build. Demand was huge, both domestic (finally off of rationing) and abroad, ( have to rebuild everything)

Um. So how is this a problem again? Could it be that people have a higher percent of their income that they're willing to allocate towards rent? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but people get to choose how much house/apartment they're willing to pay for, right? So anybody who wants a lower rent can get one, right? All they have to do is settle for a less desirable place. The fact that a higher percentage of income is going towards rent is not proscriptive. It is purely descriptive: people want and are willing to pay for more desirable (and hence more expensive) housing. Or, in other words, desirable housing is a higher priority for people today than it was in the past. How is that a problem we need to solve?

My daughter was just shopping for an apartment... There was NO shortage of apartments to rent - what she found were landlords being picky about their tenants. She is a student and has no rental history to speak of, they weren't going to rent to her, they wouldn't take a co-signor and by inference, they chose continued unsold inventory. To me - supply and demand is NOT working in this "free market economy." If it was, they would be less picky about their clientele, rents would be falling, leases would then renew at the lower rents because of competition which is the nature of a free market economy, and landlords would be forced to provide more incentives to remain - better upkeep, more luxuries, etc. This is NOT happening for some reason. My daughter was forced into a lower quality building, not the best neighborhood, poor landlord quality and not that great a discount on rent relative to what she could have otherwise received. I do NOT understand the dynamic of this market - it defies economic "logic," if there is such a thing. When inventory is high - prices should fall, incentives should rise and it should be easier to buy...

Sure, rent is cheap on the moon, but the commute is dreadful.

There was a study, which I'm too lazy to hunt down, where people were given a choice between (a) earning 50,000 when all their friends earned $30,000, or (b) earning $75,000 when all their friends earned $100,000. Those weren't the numbers, but you get the idea. Almost everyone preferred earning less, but being better off than their friends.

The thing I never like about that study is they never tell you whether the economy in this proposed wage adjusted universe is the same as we have now, or altered to fit the average ajusted wages.

Cuase I'd rather make 50g in a world where the average is 30g and prices are reflected to that wage than earn 75g in a world where prices relfect 100g as the average

Here in Austin you can get a 1 bedroom anywhere from $375 a month up to $1500 or more. Depends where you want to live and how nice you want your surroundings to be.

Yeah, it's crazy how big the rent distribution is here.

Plus, ever since Austin decided luxury apartments were the answer to everything, the rental market here has gotten really annoying. Either you live in a vermin-infested hell hole with a leaking ceiling (lived there!), or you pay $1,500 a month for a "luxury" apartment. The middle ground (decent building without an infinity pool and state-of-the-art fitness center, but also without vermin) is VERY rare (and usually at 100% occupancy).

The other "fun" part about Austin is that it's growing and changing so quickly, so you never know if your neighborhood will explode next. We were paying $750 for a 1 BR next to a Hobby Lobby and a used car lot. Next thing you know, we're the next "hip" neighborhood, we've got food trailers in our yard practically, and our rent goes up to $1,050 within a year.

I cannot WAIT until we're ready to get out of the renting rat race.

"But a pet peeve of mine: 'The strong economic growth and low unemployment of the 1950s and 1960s was accompanied by much higher taxes on the wealthy, '"

The other part is: Under the old tax codes, the top nominal rate might have been 75% or some such, but no one who had a halfway decent accountant paid anywhere near that much. There were gazillions of deductions, loopholes, and ways to shield income.

I want someone to make an apartment building with 2 room apartments, 1 living/kitchen and 1 bathroom. It could be cheap rent and utilities and still be in a decent area with low/no crime and easy to maintain. I could easily rent one of those since I don't care for nor want more shit to clean or fill up with crap I don't really need.

I would make one myself if I could afford it and tenant laws were friendly.

*double post due to brain lag...

@Lee Ladisky "When inventory is high - prices should fall, incentives should rise and it should be easier to buy"
True until the gov't steps in and mucks about. So what you have is tax breaks for unused apartments and instant information and easy lawsuits to all current tenants if someone is getting a lower rent.
So if I normally rent for 1000/month and have 10 units. 1 being empty means I make 9000 and have a 1000 write off.
Now you would think someone offering me 800 for that place would be a benefit, but I would lose the tax write off and in a week all other tenants would know someone was there for 200 lower and all would demand I take less, either now or at the lease renewal.
So I would soon have only have 8000 coming in, and half the tenants thinking I was racist or sexist or something.

"My daughter was just shopping for an apartment... There was NO shortage of apartments to rent - what she found were landlords being picky about their tenants. She is a student and has no rental history to speak of, they weren't going to rent to her, they wouldn't take a co-signor and by inference, they chose continued unsold inventory. "

I have a friend who owned quite a bit of rental property in a nearby college town. He stopped renting to young single women after a string of bad experiences.
He said he could not legally get enough of a deposit to cover the damage to the doors, and other parts of the apartment from irate drunken "boyfriends" who had moved in, and then got "locked out" when there was a fight, and there always was a fight. The boyfriends didnt have any skin in the game..(i.e. their names were not on the lease)

Also, what do you think is the second thing that happens, after a young woman living alone or with a female roommate in an apartment complex is raped, or assaulted?

The first thing is the police report which provides grounds for the second thing which is a civil lawsuit against the apartment complex for "inadequate security".

The strong economic growth and low unemployment of the 1950s and 1960s was accompanied by much higher taxes on the wealthy, and much more infrastructure building.

This is biggest lie of omission that lovers of high taxes tell.

The number of people paying the much higher taxes on the wealthy in the fifties and sixties could've fit into a telephone booth.

"The number of people paying the much higher taxes on the wealthy in the fifties and sixties could've fit into a telephone booth."

Yep, and as I wrote above, the top rates were a facade -- no one actually paid those rates, thanks to all the deduction and shelters available. The Reagan tax reform of 1986 lowered the rates a lot, but it also eliminated most of the deductions, which made the rates actually mean something.