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Blog Post#7 (Class 13) – Cheng Dong
March 12, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Class 13: Rising Rent – More to Pay to Live Where You Are
While the rising rent is putting more stress on the the economic situations of the renters, there are far more outreaching consequences in this issue than the extra money coming out of people’s pocket every month. There is no doubt that the rent is on the rise, even without looking at the statistics, my personal experience is enough to tell me that there is a rising incentive for the landlord to raise rents. On the other hand, the reading does not adequately describe the effects of rising rent on people, such as the less availability of residence in communities of better opportunities. Also, there should be more descriptions on the rising rent on the non-residence buildings, such as a storefront, and the effects on business owners.
In our society today, the incentives for landlords to raise rents on their tenants are very real things. As inflation grows, what used to be a fair amount of rent is no longer providing the same purchase power it once held. Naturally, that would lead to the landlords attempting to compensate such loss with increasing rent. Like the reading suggests, the real problem is not the raising rent, but that renters’ household incomes are not increasing in pace with the rent, thus causing more strains on the household economic situations. I could feel this issue first hand as my family owns a two family house and rents out part of the house to another family. As the general rents grow, we can feel that the agreed amount of rent is beginning to hold less importance than it once did. Knowing the renter family well, we are reluctant to raise the rent on them, but I know for a fact that if the family decides to move out, the next family moving in won’t be enjoying the same rate on rent. Thus I have found my personal experience supporting two facts that the reading presented: that rents are rising in general, and that landlords are very likely to charge new tenants a higher rent than the current renters.
The reading acknowledge that raised rents are causing a significant increase in pressure on the economic situations of renter households, but fails to dig deeper into the effects on the lives of renter families. A very significant issue that we have talked about in the class is about zoning, how it is keeping the poor from communities of greater opportunities and their abilities to ascend the social ladder at bay. The current issue of raised rents and stagnated income causes a very similar effect. With the rent increasing, I am quite certain that there would be a great number of families forced to move to residences of cheaper rent. This leads to similar effects of zoning, which segregates the rich and the poor and the resources enjoyed by each of the respective groups. Aside from the possibility of being forced out of their places of residence, the renter families also face the problem of diverting resources for other purposes to satisfy the rent demand. This is likely to lower their standard of life, and possibly affect their spending on issues such as education, again lowering their ability to rise from their current life predicaments. If the removal of zoning policies is going to have a good effect on integrating people of different income levels, the issue of raising rents must also be addressed.
The readings have extensive descriptions on the issue of raising rents, but it only covers the rise of rents in residential buildings and ignored that of commercial buildings. My parents run a small business in Manhattan, renting a storefront from their landlord. According to them, there has been a significant rise in their rent over the past years. Such trend has made it harder for them to operate their business in their current location. For that, I would like the authors of the readings to recognize that rising rent isn’t only an issue for residential purpose renters but also for those who rent spaces for commercial purposes, and I would like the authors to do research into that issue as well. Is there also a common trend of raising rents for commercial purpose spaces? How severe are these increases compared to the rent increase in residential spaces? To what extent are the business owners, both small and large, affected by these rises in rent? I believe these are all great questions that the authors can research into, and provide us with a more comprehensive report on the issue of the rise in rents in the recent years.
While the increase in rent is nothing more than a natural action by the landlords to combat inflation, it could result in great distress for the renters whose rise in income fail to keep up. Much like zoning policies, the increase in rent renders certain wealthy communities unavailable to low income families, denying them opportunities such as a good education that will give them a better chance to advance up the social ladder. Rent subsidies, such as those in place now in the form of tax reduction, to keep the rent low for low income families could be an very effective method of providing opportunities to low income families by allowing them to reside in locations where better opportunities are available. As a result we can expect the low income families to grasp such opportunities and improve their livelihood, thus closing the gap in income between them and the wealthy elites. Such trend will improve the wellness of the society as a whole.
