> More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are
Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a spot on a map has never been a possibility.
It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going homeless.
> i dont think finding a place in city like SF should be considered long odds lol
To rent or to buy? Because those are vastly different things in today’s economy. Rent, sure - you can find one. Buying? You need 250K+ saved and jobs that lets you pay 8K/mo for at least 10 years.
But I do agree that people in areas with high RE who own a home and two cars shouldn’t be included in the poor category. That’s easily 1M in assets.
These were the calculable factors for this area, in mid 2021.
Each rental listing had ~400 unique applicants per day. For total number of rentals, a generous est is ~100 new listings per month in the 3 counties we searched. In our 4 mo of searching (of a 6mo window) I found 2 good fits but 1 was at the extreme end of affordability.
For a decade of complex reasons (inc. extreme poverty, responsible spending and unforeseen changes in the rental market) I had a ~0 credit rating. That rules out most/all software managed rentals - over 95% from what I can glean.
The ad for the rental we scored inc a crayon layout on lined paper. It was posted for 2 hrs and received >50 applicants. We scored it by offering 6mos up front plus a 2x sec dep. Having that much money on hand followed another set of timely and unlikely circumstances.
The long odds, they are whatever all the above maths out to.
Needing to live where existing jobs/clients were, for our multi-income household. Moving anywhere else at all would have stranded us without reasonable prospects.
Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a spot on a map has never been a possibility.
It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going homeless.