Who are these people who can afford $6k/month for a rental? It has to be a very small percentage of the population, yet I see these kind of numbers thrown around a lot.

Statistically, I’m in the top ~5% of income earners (from the data I can find), with no debt, and I couldn’t afford $6k/month.

I bought a house because I don't understand the rental market anymore. I don’t really like being a home owner, but the rent prices these days are so out of hand. I think the most I ever paid for rent was $1,680 and I felt irresponsible doing that. I don’t know how all these rentals are full with the prices they’re charging. Does everyone have roommates?

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antonymoose a day ago | parent | next [-]

The $6k number is a touch high, but the answer is realistically 30-something DINKs and up. I make $150k a year, let’s say, and if I have a spouse with a corporate career let’s say it’s similar so maybe $250k-300k per year in income? Well that’s about $12,000 in income after taxes, medical, and a 10% retirement contribution.

So, yes, $6k per month is house-poor numbers, but it’s workable for sure. If you’re even better off, good for you, it may fall into affordable range.

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eweise 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

House in the north bay. https://tinyurl.com/bdhzx9xd

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al_borland a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Making that much, I wouldn’t want to put anymore than 25% of my take-home toward rent. That would mean making $312k take-home… after taxes, retirement, etc.

Maybe I’m conservative, but being house poor while making $300k is insane.

I’m thinking someone would need to be pushing $400-500k for household income. That would put them in the top 3%. I don’t get the supply and demand curve on it. Making that much, and renting. It’s an even smaller market than the full 3%.

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Marsymars a day ago | parent | next [-]

> I’m thinking someone would need to be pushing $400-500k for household income. That would put them in the top 3%. I don’t get the supply and demand curve on it. Making that much, and renting. It’s an even smaller market than the full 3%.

I know a couple in that range of HHI (doctor/lawyer) who sold their house and moved to a rental in that range.

Their take is that their time is very valuable to them, and dealing with their house involved a bunch of time spent on management and administration that can’t be made to adequately go away without effectively hiring a house manager.

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ndriscoll a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I wouldn't want to purely out of the waste, but from a risk perspective, why not? Your other costs don't scale with housing or income, so if you're spending $70k on housing, you might be at $100k overall expenses. Add another $50k for income taxes and $50k for retirement savings and you're still at 50-100k left over for whatever you like (using 250-300 household income).

6k for a mortgage would be scary in case of job loss, but for rent, whatever, just move.

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al_borland a day ago | parent [-]

The lease terms would be important. Not all leases let you out whenever you want.

Plus, if a sizable portion of that household income is in the form of stock or a bonus, that isn’t showing up each month in the paycheck, lowering the monthly cash flow. If there is a layoff early in the year before the bonus pays out, and you can’t exit the lease, that would be a bad spot to be in.

There is still risk on the table, depending on how some of this is structured.

	▲	ndriscoll a day ago \| parent [-]
		With the numbers I had it only takes 1-2 years to save 1 year of runway, so just do that first (presumably you've had a chance to save before getting your 250-300k income anyway). I suppose that the type of people to spend 6k on rent probably aren't saving much, but they could if that were their goal for some reason.

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pandaman a day ago | parent | prev [-]

People who live with roommates.