whither residence, or: can i still afford to live here?
tim permalink | categories: Florida, business, city, economy, government, moving, paying rent, pinellas, quality of life, tampa, tax waste, taxesby tim @ 9:20 am
Danger! Danger!
Florida’s economy is on the brink of recession:
“Florida is the epicenter for all the problems that exist in the housing industry,” said Lewis Goodkin, president of Goodkin Consulting Corp. and a property adviser in
Miami for the past 30 years, who also foresees a recession. “”The problems we have now are unprecedented and a lot of people will get burnt.”
If the housing glut isn’t going to kill us, the new municipal taxes will:
The fee increases threaten to erase some or all of the initial savings in property taxes, which lawmakers put at $174 for the average homeowner this year.
I tend to worry — a lot — but I wasn’t thinking about any of these things as I slept at noon on Saturday, dreaming of waking up to see a foot of fluffy white snow outside my window. Instead, I woke to the sound of a fist on my door, a fist connected to the body connected to the scowling face of my landlord. Actually, he wasn’t scowling, but I sleep with my contacts in and things tend to look upside down in the moments after I awake.
My landlord, who also goes by the name of “my roommate’s dad,” invited me to renew my lease in the house where I live in Countryside. There were, of course, some consequences:
1. My rent is going up $100 a month.
2. My roommate’s boyfriend is also living with us now.
Only in Florida does adding a roommate increase your rent. To his credit, I understand why my rent has to increase. He was taking a huge loss on the mortgage with my only paying $500 a month on this very nice three-bedroom house in north Clearwater. Yet in the volatile housing market, there’s a big difference between $500 and $600 a month, especially when your annual income is only $10,000 before taxes (as mine is). Throw in the long commute I’m currently suffering and I have to seriously consider moving to Tampa. Can I find housing equal to where I’m living now for less than $600 a month in Hillsborough? Here in Countryside I have a garage, a nice kitchen with new appliances, a backyard, a giant palm tree, a quiet neighborhood, and a roommate whom I’m sure will never return my affections, especially considering that her boyfriend lives with us now.
This isn’t a “find Tim a new place to live” post, because I’m pretty sure I’m just going to absorb the rent increase by switching from Boddington’s to Michelob Light at my new favorite bar, Mike & Lisa’s Cricketers. It’s more intended to get a reaction from you about what real-world impacts property tax (etc) increases have on people. If we’re headed toward recession, and it’s getting obscenely expensive to live here, who’s going to move here but wealthy retirees? How will USF survive without graduate assistants (all of whom chose other universities where it was cheaper to live) to teach 60% of classes? How will Tampa survive when its artists and actors and musicians and comics leave town because the income isn’t meeting the expenses?
Danger. Danger.
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July 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 am
Even those wealthy retirees are going to want services, so, while the market may lag, eventually wages will have to increase or cost of living will have to come down. Otherwise the “haves” will be mowing their own lawns, fixing their own clogged toilets and serving themselves at restaurants and bars. Let’s face it the rich still need us poor folks whether they like it or not.
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
You should have some leverage if the landlord believes you might move out and he might be stuck with collecting ZERO rent after you’re gone. Or, you could do what an ex-neighbor did and just stop paying rent. She got by an entire 4 months before getting evicted. Hell’s bells, if I’d known it was that easy I’d never have bought a house!