http://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/i_secretly_lived_in_my_office_for_500_days/
I secretly lived in my office for 500 days
TERRY K. THURSDAY, APR 30, 2015 04:00 PM PDT
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Living at the office remains a unique solution to overpriced housing woes. But there are alternatives. Many working folks, balancing skyrocketing cost-of-living with grounded wages, are employing their own varying degrees of minimalism. From starving artists living in their vehicles to the middle class moving into tiny homes, from dumpster-dwelling college professors to Volkswagen “vanimal” Major League Baseball players, how Americans are defining “home” is changing at all levels of the socioeconomic scale.
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Living at the office remains a unique solution to overpriced housing woes. But there are alternatives. Many working folks, balancing skyrocketing cost-of-living with grounded wages, are employing their own varying degrees of minimalism. From starving artists living in their vehicles to the middle class moving into tiny homes, from dumpster-dwelling college professors to Volkswagen “vanimal” Major League Baseball players, how Americans are defining “home” is changing at all levels of the socioeconomic scale.
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Decades ago the attitude expressed by the author of the article quoted above would have been considered laughably ridiculous. For example, here's an old Disney cartoon about a fable entitled 'The Grasshopper and the Ants', that provides a humorous warning against the kind of irresponsibility the author is advocating —
The moral of that fable is pretty obvious — except, perhaps, to those who desperately want to pretend that it is somehow moral for others to work to support them.
Someone must work to support you, and if you do not, you will either become another's dependent, or you will die.
But in certain circles today, such dishonesty and dependency is celebrated — as if the attitude that gives rise to it contains an important insight.
In that regard, consider this quote from the same article, where the author, who described living at the office as 'a solution to overpriced housing woes', ascribes an entitlement mentality to landowners —
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/i_secretly_lived_in_my_office_for_500_days/
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But something seemed off. Having spent over a year rent-free, I realized I valued how I spent my expenses differently. Dropping over a grand every month on a single budget item felt like it ought to result in overwhelming returns. Instead, the housing options were bland. Each had a laundry list of glaring flaws—aging units with no parking, thin walls with no outdoor space, poor walkability and a long commute. What’s more was the sense of entitlement on behalf of many landowners, like I was doing them a favor by handing over 40 percent of my income for a glorified doghouse. The transaction felt oddly imbalanced, a product of seriously misplaced supply and demand.
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But something seemed off. Having spent over a year rent-free, I realized I valued how I spent my expenses differently. Dropping over a grand every month on a single budget item felt like it ought to result in overwhelming returns. Instead, the housing options were bland. Each had a laundry list of glaring flaws—aging units with no parking, thin walls with no outdoor space, poor walkability and a long commute. What’s more was the sense of entitlement on behalf of many landowners, like I was doing them a favor by handing over 40 percent of my income for a glorified doghouse. The transaction felt oddly imbalanced, a product of seriously misplaced supply and demand.
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I have to assume the author's writing is bad here, and he intended to write: 'like they were doing me a favor when I handed over 40 percent of my income' — since that passage doesn't make sense otherwise, and certainly not in the context of an article that conveys the attitude that no one should have to pay rent.
This comment from the author: 'the sense of entitlement on behalf of many landowners', is especially revealing of his mentality, when you honestly consider what is at stake in a rental agreement. And that comment is beyond parody when you consider it was written by someone who thinks they should be able to live in Southern California near the ocean, for almost nothing — now that's an entitlement mentality.
In general, renters take almost no risk in entering into a rental agreement (or lease) — they can fully inspect a rental property before moving in, and they sign a document that fully specifies the conditions they must abide by to rent the property. If the property is in poor condition, or the terms of the rental agreement are undesirable, a prospective tenant can simply decline to rent a given property. Even if it turns out that the landlord is not responsive after a renter moves into a rental, the tenant can simply not pay the last month's rent in order to spend a portion (if not all) of their deposit, before moving (by not having to pay for those days in a new rental). The tenant does risk having an eviction on their credit report, as well as the loss of part of their deposit, if they end up in a dispute with a landlord — but that risk is trivial in comparison to what the landowner faces. Bad tenants often don't pay the last month's rent as a matter of course — they simply secure a new rental before the current landlord can put an eviction on their record, so their ability to move isn't affected.
The landowner, on the other hand, is risking an asset that is potentially worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars by allowing a tenant to live in it. It doesn't take much damage to generate multiple months of repair costs in most rentals — so even if a tenant who causes such repair expenses gives a normal notice, and the landlord keeps their deposit, the landlord won't be able to collect any additional amounts owed without the expense and trouble of taking the tenant to court (assuming the tenant doesn't pay those costs voluntarily). In any case, it's the landowner who is taking a risk in renting to a particular tenant, so, yes, the landowner is doing the tenant a favor in renting to them. If a tenant considers a potential rental property to be a 'glorified doghouse', as the author quoted above put it, then they need to consider taking on additional roommates to make the rental cost of a nicer property more affordable. Short of that, their only other choice is to move to a more affordable location, where the rents are lower (of course, that will bring other offsetting disadvantages — which is why the rents will be lower).
In Southern California most real estate is expensive, and even more so for properties within a few miles of the ocean (where the author of the article quoted above was living) — this is generally one of the most desirable areas in the world. To quote the author again: '... a product of seriously misplaced supply and demand'? Is he kidding? What should one expect in a densely populated, fully developed area (both economically and structurally), with strict zoning laws, and with an average daily high temperature that is rarely more than 5° from 68°?
That's what happens when large numbers of people compete for a scarce, highly desirable resource — the price goes up.
That is exactly what everyone should want to happen. Why? Because fluctuating prices are the reason free markets are so effective at allocating scarce resources — as prices rise for a given resource, it forces people to conserve that resource (like people taking roommates in the case of rental properties), because they can't afford to consume what they would have at a lower price, as well as the rising price encouraging people to produce more of that resource, in order to profit from the price increase.
It's a pity that the author quoted above won't write an article on the zoning and rent control laws that limit the supply of housing in Southern California, and by necessity drive up rents — but of course, it's more politically correct to pretend that someone who worked for years to acquire an expensive asset has an entitlement mentality because they won't act as if they are grateful to take a risk on a prospective tenant.
And it's a pity that today a silly old Disney cartoon contains much more wisdom than the typical article on a prominent media web site.
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