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From BusinessWeek:
Top 10 metro areas with low rents
#2 Columbus, OhioRents remain cheap in the state capital. Apartment landlords are increasingly competing with home sellers who are struggling to find buyers and are instead looking for tenants. Asking rents in Columbus — home of Ohio State University, the nation’s largest college campus — jumped 2% in the fourth quarter, compared with a year earlier.
Am I the only one that reads this as a bad thing? I would also like to see some salary comparisons if they are just basing this on percentage of salary. I am guessing I would rather have 43% of most of those guys renting in Manhattan’s salaries than 88% of what I make.
I think you could find +’s and -’s to this. On the good side, if you were a college grad looking for a good place to start out, and keep cost-of-living down, I would find this report helpful.
Columbus has always been affordable (as long as I’ve been here). I think it’s one of the reasons it’s able to grow so well and retain so many. it’s really changed a lot since I moved here 17 years ago.
Ultimately I agree with both of you. It’s why we started our business here, and put down further roots by buying a house. Just playing devils advocate and calling bs on that statistic.
I agree with surber, there are up and downs to this. And ultimately, any of these surveys should be taken with a grain of salt because the results largely depend on the criteria selected before doing this type of non-scientific research.
That being said, I mostly think that national press about Columbus being an affordable place to rent is a positive thing for our city.
i would like to hear what some of the negatives to affordable living are.
Josh, I think it’s a problem. It’s one of the few things that Rebecca Ryan said that I actually agreed with. That said, the rental stock in this town is awful. The few higher priced rentals we have like Kramer Place ($1,500/ month, 1 bedroom) are a joke.
why is it a problem?
There are lots of nice rentals that are very affordable. German Village, Victorian Village, you can get a nice house or part of a house for $800-$1000. I think it’s a bonus that rentals are so cheap – that frees up a lot of money to spend in the local economy.
I’d ultimately agree that lowe rental prices are a positive–it was one of the reasons my wife and I could consider a move to Columbus. I’d have to agree with Jon about the rental stock, though.
“I am guessing I would rather have 43% of most of those guys renting in Manhattan’s salaries than 88% of what I make. ”
There are definitely big salary people in Manhattan, but not that many. Most of the time I found that the adage “yeah rents are higher here but people make more” is true but not by much.
I’ve seen jobs here that pay $10/hr that *might* pay $14/hr in New York.
A friend of mine went from making $75k in Dayton to $130k in Manhattan. He loves New York, but admits that in comparitive terms it’s a pay decrease. $75k in Dayton is a lot of money, $130k in Manhattan is just ok.
lifeliberty Says: i would like to hear what some of the negatives to affordable living are.
While I think the positive things outweigh the negatives.. the one thing off the top of my head is that it could discourage some people from buying a home if renting is a better deal. And having a higher percentage of homeowners in any neighborhood has a wealth of positives attached to it.
Also, some might say that having an “affordable” national image can have negative connotations for anyone looking for big city glamor, but I think that it’s a fairly small portion of the population who both rationalize things that way as well as get hung up on things like that.
I guess I read the article a little wrong. In my mind I was equating rents with mortgages.
I totally agree that owner occupied is best.
I don’t equate affordable housing with affordable living. Affordable housing does have that low-income stigma to it that has been attached by way of naming low income housing programs that way. yeah, some people see affordable housing and think projects, but it is really in the context in which it is said. I live in housing that is affordable to me.
some people see the words affordable/bargain as a bad thing, i just see it as getting the same thing but paying less for it. the quality is still there. Many folk went out for restaurant week. it was affordable and a bargain; was it any less quality? No, you just paid less and had more money left over to tip more or to go to another place afterwards.
I think it’s more than just a rationalization that people get hung up on. There are reasons those more glamorous us cities cost more to live in. I am not bashing Columbus by any means, I honestly went from thinking this was a year at the most stop over to starting a business and starting to put down some serious roots, I just think it’s a little short sighted to say “what a bargain we are!” without looking into why.
I can see some of the argument regarding negative connotations, but feel that mostly this is a plus. My organization has used the cost of living factor to lure new hires from the coast and I have passed on opportunities in NYC because of the cost difference. It was, at best, 50% more salary and 400 or 500% more in housing cost, that’s hard math to justify.
But, these figures are based on regional rents, which paint a very generalized picture (missing all the subregional and neighborhood variation in rents). Affordable regional rents, doesn’t necessarily equate to affordable rents in the short north and other areas of redevelopment.
Say you’re starting with a 100,000 salary, which becomes a 150,000 in New York. Your 1,000 a month apartment becomes 4,000 which is 12,000 a year in Columbus Vs. 48,000 a year in New York. Columbus worker has 88,000 left, New York worker has 102,000.
Justified.
But food, entertainment, transportation (if you have a car) and utilities all cost more in NYC too.
Yes, I am well aware of that but we’re talking about rent.
So new york costs more, but you make more, and you save more, so it’s more affordable? I didn’t see it on the list.
the article basically tell you how much as a % of your income it costs to live places.
what’s the use of having more money if you live in a place that eats it all up? I think it’s all relative. you have a standard of living where in one city you have to make X to maintain and in another city you have to make Y to maintain the same standard.
let’s just say I make 40K in columbus, so by your accounts that is 60K in NYC.
I just don’t see how I’d make it on 60K in NYC and have the same standard I would in Columbus with 40K.
It all depends on how you define your standard of living.
I was just making a point with the figures thepiece provided.