Reply to Why is there so much income inequality in moco

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]MoCo is a second-tier county. Its new residents are mostly people who buy single family houses because they can’t afford to buy in Northwest or Fairfax and people who rent because they can’t afford a rental in Northwest or Fairfax. There are some small enclaves of wealth that offer what NW and Fairfax don’t but other than that MoCo is a cheaper choice, so you end up with extreme wealth on one end and lower incomes on the other. [/quote]

The delusion runs deep. Sure, people are choosing the likes of Clifton, Centreville, Chantilly, Burke, and Lorton because they're cheaper than MoCo. Quite the sense of humor you have.[/quote]

Median house prices:
MoCo: $645k
Fairfax: $725k
Clifton: $556k
Centerville: $545k
Chantilly: $745k
Burke: $850k
Lorton: $727k

Fairfax beats MoCo by $80k. Three of the five places you named beat MoCo. Even Lorton beats MoCo. There are cheaper places in Fairfax, but there are cheaper places in MoCo too (like Damascus, $552k).

I wonder what Fairfax has that MoCo doesn’t.

[/quote]

An even more out-of-balance housing market, apparently.[/quote]

Fairfax has higher housing prices for comparable units even though it builds more units than Montgomery. [/quote]

In other words, Fairfax has an even more out-of-balance housing market.[/quote]

That’s ridiculous. If you build more housing, prices go down[/b]. Fairfax has built more housing than MoCo. Guess you’ve never heard of supply and demand or you’re just a NIMBY troll. [/quote]

If you build more housing, prices go down [i]relative to if you don't build more housing[/i]. However,  housing in Fairfax is apparently even more expensive than in Montgomery. Why? Because the housing market is even more out of balance with respect to supply and demand. [/quote]

That’s quite a word salad to say prices don’t actually go down. [/quote]

The equilibrium price is a function of both supply and demand. When supply goes up, but demand goes up more, the equilibrium price goes up. That's not word salad, it's Econ 101.
[/quote]

Doesn’t change the fact that prices don’t actually go down. Why is there so much more demand in Fairfax?[/quote]

We don't actually know that there is "so much more demand" in Fairfax, do we?

For example, in Fairfax, in 2021, there were 84,274 units in rental housing complexes, with a vacancy rate of 7.1%, and an average monthly rent of $1,913. The 2021 population was 1,139,720 (down 0.9% from 1,150,309 in 2020), the median household income was $134,115, and the median family income was $159,645. In Montgomery, in 2021, there were 85,410 units in rental housing complexes, with a vacancy rate of 6%, and an average monthly rent of $1,759. The 2021 population was 1,054,829 (down 0.7% from 1,062,061 in 2020), the median household income was $112,854, and the median family income was $139,174.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/sites/demographics/files/assets/demographicreports/fullrpt.pdf
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OLO/Resources/Files/2023_reports/OLOReport2023-5.pdf

[/quote]

You forgot about owner occupied. Fairfax has more units overall. The biggest difference between Montgomery and Fairfax is household income. Housing in Fairfax is more expensive because people can afford to pay more. [/quote]

And if there's one thing people love doing, it's paying more when they could pay less! The reality is that both Montgomery and Fairfax are not building enough housing to meet demand, and that's why housing in both Montgomery and Fairfax is so expensive.

Fairfax County, Virginia (US Census): 
Population, July 1, 2022: 1,138,331
Housing units, July 1, 2022: 429,828
Owner-occupied housing unit rate, 2017-2021: 68.5%
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2017-2021	$594,500
Median selected monthly owner costs -with a mortgage, 2017-2021	$2,866
Median selected monthly owner costs -without a mortgage, 2017-2021	$924
Median gross rent, 2017-2021	$1,977
Building permits, 2022: 1,987

Montgomery County, Maryland (US Census):
Population, July 1, 2022: 1,052,521
Housing units, July 1, 2022: 406,801
Owner-occupied housing unit rate, 2017-2021: 65.4%
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2017-2021: $508,600
Median selected monthly owner costs -with a mortgage, 2017-2021	$2,679
Median selected monthly owner costs -without a mortgage, 2017-2021	$860
Median gross rent, 2017-2021	$1,844
Building permits, 2022: 724[/quote]

And if there’s one thing landlords love doing, it’s charging less than when they could charge more! Your numbers show that Fairfax has higher housing costs despite having more units and more construction.

The reality is developers won’t charge less unless we make them build more or put in rent controls. [/quote]

You can’t force a developer to build more.

[/quote]

Sure you can. Vacancy taxes and land value taxes are two ways to force developers to put more units on the market. More aggressively, eminent domain so the county can seize land and build housing itself. [/quote]

Ahhhh, nothing better to beautify up a place than communist style bloc housing.[/quote]

Another approach is simply to cease supporting overly generous social services, which serve only to attract more needy individuals and families.[/quote]

Because members of our existing community need or will need help sometime in the future? Maybe even yourself?[/quote]

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