The Rent Is About To Be Too Damn High, Everywhere

You may want to scale back on your Christmas shopping, folks, because according to Bloomberg, rents are going up nationwide. This is not a drill, and this does not apply exclusively to gentrifying urban neighborhoods. There is apparently a housing shortage happening nationwide as the demand for rental home units exceeds supply. (This would probably be a good opportunity to bring up the world population clock and point out that we’re not exactly short on humans. Just sayin’.)

Here’s the unfortunate twist of the knife, however: Wall Street is once again benefitting from your misfortune. Bloomberg reports that “Wall Street-backed” investors and “corporate landlords” who’ve been buying up units since 2012 are now “benefiting from the worst U.S. rental-housing shortage in more than a decade as construction trails demand and more Americans opt to lease rather than buy.” So basically, we’re incapable of building entry-level housing fast enough to accommodate the number of people opting to rent, and investors are now capitalizing on the shortage. You can’t meet the rent? Too damn bad, pal. Someone else can, and more importantly, will.

So how much of an increase are we looking at? “Rents on all single-family homes and multifamily units are expected to climb 3.5 percent next year, compared with a 2.5 percent increase for home purchase prices,” reports Bloomberg. The silver lining is that you have a few grand (give or take $100,000) lying around, you can always buy.

Ugh The Man, amirite?