In fairness, there’s more than plenty of blame to go around, starting with China for mucking around with coronaviruses and letting one go, on purpose or by accident. And Anthony Fauci and the NIH for funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology. All those governors, counties, and cities who shut things down in a biased manner, as well as other countries who shut it down
For the first time ever, the median rent in the U.S. topped $2,000 a month in June — and the increases show no sign of stopping.
Those rising rents mean that households representing a total of 8.5 million people were behind on their rent at the end of August, according to Census Bureau figures. And 3.8 million of those renters say they’re somewhat or very likely to be evicted in the next two months.
The combination of soaring inflation, the end of most eviction moratoriums and rental assistance payments and an extremely low vacancy rate has pushed rents up — and many renters out.
The average rent was $1,474 in 2019. It was $1,019 in 2009, so, 10 years to rise almost $500, vs 2 years for another $500. In fairness, this depends quite a bit on which source you look it. Most of these pieces on hitting $2K seem to be relying on a piece by Redfin, which had the median at $1,600 in 2019, a little spike then dip in 2020, then a 15% spike since Joe Biden took office.
And the homes that are available are often still out of reach. Rent rates are up nearly 25% since before the pandemic, with an increase of 15% in just the past 12 months, according to the real estate tracking service Zillow.
Same data as Redfin.
Evictions are up, too, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. In August, evictions were 52% above average in Tampa, 90% above average in Houston and 94% above average in Minneapolis-St. Paul. (big snip)
To meet higher rents, 57% of renters said they relied on credit cards, loans, savings or selling off some assets, including raiding their retirement accounts.
Despite that, 14% of renters told the survey that they weren’t completely caught up on back rent.
No worries, Joe’s focused on everything but the economy.
