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okcknight t1_itsb590 wrote

From who’s perspective is the rent high? I’ve always thought Richmond was Virginia’s best kept secret, with a laughably low rent for a capitol city — it used to be you could rent an apartment for $800 easy here. But the cats out of the bag, and wealthy people have been moving here in droves, even before covid. Now you have remote work which compounds the problem. I don’t know what the solution is, but even if you got rid of any corruption, I doubt we’d see rents go anywhere near what they used to be.

ITT: children

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fuqqboi_throwaway t1_itseqfk wrote

The issue is when Landlords keep increasing rent every year, slowly pushing tenants out and then skyrocketing the price once they’re gone. At a certain point it feels like greed is coming too far into play when these rent spikes aren’t being matched with any wage increases or even improvements to Richmond’s schools, infrastructure, etc.

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Detlionsfan1188 t1_itsjqds wrote

You will be waiting a lifetime for Richmond city schools to get better. Hell will freeze before that ever happens.

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sirensinger17 t1_itslcws wrote

Can confirm. I bought a house last month cause my landlord raised my rent by 30% and would have probably done it again next year. I'm well aware of how lucky I am

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plummbob t1_ityxxyl wrote

That's because rental prices are based on people's willingness to pay, not specifically tied to any given wage. Hell, if anything real income would fall hard if rva actually had really good sxhools, roads, etc.

Bad schools and shit infrastructure put downward pressure on rents. Good schools and public amenities raise rental prices.

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fuqqboi_throwaway t1_itzb27f wrote

But those “people” who are willing to pay arent people actually from Richmond or even living in it, it now consist of opportunistic slum lords and the parents of VCU and UofR kids Chadley and Olivia in NoVA who make 300k+ a year and will pay whatever they need for off-campus housing at universities that “can’t keep up” with on-campus student demand. $1800 rent seems perfectly reasonable when they’re paying triple that in Nova, even when the same RVA property was half that price 2 years before.

There’s clearly been a huge onset of gentrification fueled by greed and opportunity in the last few years...and when that isn’t matched with meaningful improvements to the life of the people that actually live in the area it’s affecting, it should be noted as an issue. Anyone that’s lived in Richmond a meaningful amount of time i.e 4+ years can see what’s happening to the city

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plummbob t1_itzeiq3 wrote

>But those “people” who are willing to pay arent people actually from Richmond

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nativism is gross.

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>There’s clearly been a huge onset of gentrification fueled by greed and opportunity in the last few years

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people want to live near urban amenities. the city makes it hard to build housing. so the price goes up. moralizing about greed is stupid because even if people were super altruistic, the price would still go up by the same amount because people would still be bidding the rents.

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>and when that isn’t matched with meaningful improvements to the life of the people that actually live in the area it’s affecting, it should be noted as an issue.

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of course its an issue. we have this huge influx in investment, but without a corresponding output in housing. and its not because we lack a supply of wood, copper, drywall and concrete.

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>Anyone that’s lived in Richmond a meaningful amount of time i.e 4+ years can see what’s happening to the city

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been here about a decade. houses in my neighborhood have nearly doubled in price, but the city has kept the supply of homes capped at the same amount since its inception even though everybody has enough space to build 3 houses per lot, or a 4plex in every backyard, or each lot is big enough for townhome/shotgun style, or literally anything in the spectrum of the missing middle.

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the problem is zoning. there is no reason why my neighborhood should have supply of housing fixed by policy when the prices are telling people to build.

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RVAMS t1_itu49nc wrote

It’s nationwide. Compare rent costs to wages and it’s at a more imbalanced level than ever. It was 800 bucks which was pretty much normal for a lot of places that aren’t New York, LA, or San Francisco. You could get an apartment for 800 in Nashville, or Denver, or other similar, mid sized city. Now you can’t get one in any metro in the county. Rent is too high or wages are too low across the board. From an objective perspective.

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