No. of Recommendations: 3
Often you see home prices and rents conflated when someone is talking about affordability. They can be, but there are elements to both that can be viewed separately.
After years of near-zero Fed fund rates, housing prices kept going up and up:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/fedfundsFrom ~March of 2008 until ~September of 2022 the Fed rate was ~2.5% or less with a lot of that time being essentially zero. That led to cheap mortgages and coupled with other effects saw home prices rise. Recent increases in the rate have made mortgages more expensive and we're finally starting to see housing prices fall, especially in condos.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/condo-prices-are-f...Rental markets are also affected by population...and since we've started actually enforcing border laws, illegals are packing up and leaving. And that's leading to more supply of housing...and rents are now dropping:
https://mxmnews.com/article/5bff36a1-7cb8-4481-9af...Speaking on Fox Business Channel, Bessent pointed to fresh rent data showing apartment prices fell 1.1 percent compared to a year ago and are now down 5.2 percent from their 2022 peak, when housing costs were surging nationwide. Bessent argued the decline isn’t accidental, but the predictable result of reversing what he called years of “unfettered immigration” that flooded local housing markets and forced working Americans to compete for limited supply. Citing a recent Wharton School study, Bessent noted a near one-to-one relationship between population growth and rent increases, saying the research found that “every one percent increase in population” translated into roughly a one percent rise in rents.
No. of Recommendations: 2
I rent to illegals - mind you just 1 unit out of 2 in this complex and it's been that way for years. Then there's a single family home - I don't know the last time the tenants were legal residents.
Yes I'm scared of deportations and income loss but luckily, I feel these units are easy to rent because now, even white professionals - replete with their divorces and alternative non nuclear ways of living are seeking affordability and starting to move into said complex and learning to live with 'different' neighbors. The 2nd unit - (I struck gold) is a lady who is a high ranked official with the county public school system, a Fullbright Scholar, all that stuff. But, she needed a cheap rent place in this area. (I wrote in TMF in the mid 2000s.....I'm gonna embrace a certain immigrant populations, and profit from it.) And indeed - picking the lowest price stuff in a Blue Zip code - I am happy that for years, I've made sure that said school system has a few more "English as a 2nd language" expenses and I like to think that the progression of lower test scores over the years and cutting of some extra curricular, well, I contributed to it ---if only just a little.
The strategy I learned while marching with the illegals in those days - - and I wrote it on TMF - was in a single family home, converting the garage into a usable bedroom. And there's ALWAYS, ALWAYS. family who can use that room for another cousin, whatever who just newly 'arrived' and wants to save and pool money. And when I got these units - the HOA shit wasn't mature there - -so the White Liberals who frown upon multi-families living a dwelling can now blow me -- and they have for years :) Punishment is profitable - not home runs but steady eddie money which is my specialty it seems - sadly or happily I guess.
FlipSide: I guess it all depends on the locale. But I've always felt - high prices is the solution to high prices because eventually, idiot short term thinking Wall Street American business will overdo it. THey'll overcharge it, then - in this case they'll overbuild.
I like Millenial Mayberry areas. Where the Logans and Cassidy idiots are in "debt" from some greedy college. And their non-Beaver-Cleaver lifestyles means - they will be renting awhile. And man oh man - granite, backsplash, puppy trails, all that shit - they pay and insist they have that shit. So again - in Metro Atlanta in this case it's been a steady good ride.
BUT....last 2 years I'm lucky to keep rents the same. Lucky .
SO MANY UNITS have been built of the 3bed/2bath variety around my units. Newer, etc. Hence.... I'm just lucky to have good tenants now.
Honestly, I don't see how I'd even raise rents 1% this coming year.
And as the new generation comes into power, a generation who has felt unaffordability in homes - I think Right Left might combine forces and build the living shit out of land because the old generation had interest in keeping asset values high. Whereas the tattoo-Chipotle-BabyDaddy generation doesn't know what a god damn asset is if it bit them in the ass.
So they will figure out how to make prices a bit lower.
So, well, for the first time in my life - with exceptions - I'm questioning housing as an investment for a mom and pop guy like me.
To put it in Club 401K parlance - I now look at housing as the 'bond section' of my portfolio as an early retiree.
Things change in life. I never thought I'd say that.
No. of Recommendations: 3
I rent to illegals - mind you just 1 unit out of 2 in this complex and it's been that way for years.
Which persona is this one? You're in the rentier class and upset with anyone with a 401K? I knew a teacher who owned multiple properties, including apartment complexes. That garage makes two rooms, btw. You get multiple families, each with their own dish on the roof and multiple pickups parked on the property.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Which persona is this one? You're in the rentier class and upset with anyone with a 401K? I knew a teacher who owned multiple properties, including apartment complexes. That garage makes two rooms, btw. You get multiple families, each with their own dish on the roof and multiple pickups parked on the property.
***
How do you know what they drive?
What a racist.
I hope a black boy never walks by you wearing a hood.
LamboZimmerman
