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wise_garden_hermit t1_jcy98z0 wrote

Reply to comment by TzarKazm in Report: Affordable housing shortage has worsened in RI for renters with extremely low incomes by GhostOpera406

Changing household sizes are a big one. Somerville, for example, used to one of the most densely populated places in the country, because you had like 7 people living in a 2-bed. Expectations for space & privacy have increased, so now you have couples with no kids in that same 2-bed that used to hold seven. After the pandemic there was also ton of sudden household formation as people left their parents that brought a spike in rents. Basically, even while there are fewer people competing over houses, there are more households than available homes.

Also, I don't think rental prices grow linearly with pop growth—if the state's population grows by 4% but only enough housing is built to accommodate 3.9% growth, then renter competition is still present, which will increase rents every year until there are fewer households willing to pay the price then there are houses.

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TzarKazm t1_jcych6y wrote

Leading me down the rabbit hole, thanks!

I found that the number of households has gone from 408,424 in 2020 to 414,730 now. So an increase of less than 1%. Since population has increased 4% there is actually a smaller percentage of households to population now.

What I did find that was interesting in census data is that apparently in 2000 there were 447,810 housing units in Rhode Island. As of January there are 426,769.

So I think I have some of my answer. There is actually less housing now by over 20k units. I guess the following question is why or how did that happen?

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wise_garden_hermit t1_jcyfdym wrote

Where are these numbers coming from? I think your 408,424 numberis from here and for 2000. U.S. census numbers for 2017-2020 show total households as 426,769, which would suggest a ~4.5% household growth outpacing pop growth.

> There is actually less housing now by over 20k units. I guess the following question is why or how did that happen?

This is actually surprising to me and I wouldn't have guessed total units actually going down. I guess houses have a natural attrition rate from fires, neglect, plain old neglect, and things like that. If nothing new is built, then supply will naturally decrease.

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TzarKazm t1_jcyid0w wrote

Yea, I have been googling on the phone and switching between screens got me, I shouldn't try and look at numbers until I have a dedicated screen. Sorry for making things more confusing.

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SeanRobertsFerngully t1_jd0e5xs wrote

Do we have a demographic shift? Like regardless of population number change, more households now?

Most of my street is empty nesters so like 40 ish houses of just 2 people in 1500±500 ft houses. The neighbor across the street had 3 kids when I first moved here but they all moved out of state so it's just the husband and wife now.

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wise_garden_hermit t1_jd2wg0n wrote

There are more households now, there are some stats in this thread. There are also fewer houses, apparently.

But yeah, there is a general trend whereby neighborhoods that lots of people moved in 30-40 years ago are largely inhabited by older folks. Usually these places were in locations close to cities that became more desirable in the last 20 years, increasing their housing values. The kids of these home owners can't afford a house in the same area, so they move away.

It's a sad cycle that leads to both the parents and the kids more isolated because no one can afford to live near each other.

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