Dr. Housing Bubble — Building for a future of American renting serfs

There was much celebration regarding the jump in private housing starts. However, once you begin to look beyond the headlines you realize that the big jump came largely because of multi-family starts. In other words, building more rentals in the form of apartments for a growing population that rents. Private starts for places with 5 units or more has now hit a post recession high. This makes sense given the fall in rental vacancy rates and the rise in rental prices. Yet what we find is that more income is being siphoned off into a less productive sector of our economy. Real estate tends to be a big plus for an economy when it happens organically with rising incomes, good overall employment prospects, and first time buyers leading the charge. Today it is more of a shifting of assets into fewer hands while extracting more income from the productive sectors of the economy. Not everyone can have their flipping show on cable television. For example, over 11 million Americans now pay 50 percent or more of their income to rent. Many of those people are here in California. The trend to building rentals aligns with the underlying reality that many future Americans will be less affluent compared to their parents. 

Dr. Housing Bubble
Building for a future of American renting serfs: Private housing starts for structures with at least 5 units hits a post recession high. More than 11 million Americans spend more than 50 percent of income on rent