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Millennials in Sacramento and the Minimum Wage
Mininum wage is not enough for a millennial to pay rent much less buy a home
For a state whose motto is Eureka, we Californians surely are dragging our feet to raise the minimum wage, which presently is $9.00 per hour. Eureka! those in the 18-to-34 age group known as millennials proclaim, I have a job; followed by: Uh, oh, too bad I don’t earn enough money to support myself. Businesses don’t want to pay them more because it cuts into profits, yet as businesses grow, typically sharing profits with employees is not part of that plan. And, if you suggest they could pay more to employees, corporations will accuse you of Socialism.
There is a lot of talk about how millennials can’t afford to pay back student loans, and how that huge mountain of debt is holding them back from buying a home. A more basic problem is most of them still live at home because they can’t afford to move out. C.A.R. reports the Pew Research Center says millennials are less likely to be living independently in 2015 than they were during the Great Depression.
U. S. Census Bureau data shows the millennial population has grown by 3 million since 2007 but the number of young adults living at home has increased. The national unemployment rate for this age group has dropped from 12.4 in 2010 to 7.7, which is a significant recovery, yet millennials still live at home.
Bottom line: Millennials can’t afford to pay rent and they certain can’t afford to buy a home. Which is particularly disturbing because in some parts of Sacramento today it cheaper to buy a starter home than it is to rent. We need buyers for the starter homes so move-up buyers can buy a bigger home. We can’t sell all of our starter homes to investors because that will dramatically affect the quality of our neighborhoods . . . oh, wait, we already did that with Blackstone.
I don’t need to tell you that times have changed. I left home when I was 15. Sure, somehow I managed to make it through high school, and I lived independently of my family my senior year, but that was 45 years ago. I could not wait to turn 18 and be completely independent. But I could also live on minimum wage, and I managed to buy my first home in my 20s. In retrospect, I was incredibly fortunate. It’s gone downhill today for millennials.
I met with tenants last week who presently attend Sac State and live in the Med Center. They can’t afford to rent a home through a property management company because they would have to show they earn 3 times the rental amount. Zillow says the average rent in Sacramento is $1,200. That would mean a tenant would have to earn $43,200 a year. Who makes that kind of money?
Most of the rentals in Sacramento are handled by property management companies because the rental laws are so incredibly complex that mom-and-pop operations fear they can’t properly handle rentals, and they would probably be right.
I bet you’re asking questions. I know many of us are, and you don’t have to be a Sacramento Realtor to ask these questions. Why can’t we raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour? If won’t fix everything but it’s a start. Moreover, why do we have to wait for state government to tell us to do the right thing?
Depending on Your Sacramento Realtor to Perform Can Be a Good Thing
I realize there are a lot of people who prefer to feel in control of their lives and often spot this control issue manifested in the people who engage in buying or selling a home in Sacramento. That’s because the real estate business is becoming more complicated with each passing day, and even though you might realize deep down in your soul that you’re better off depending on a professional, a Sacramento Realtor, to handle the situation for you, you might resent it a little bit if it’s an area in which you possess little knowledge.
Just because you bought a home once or sold a few homes doesn’t mean you know jack squat, to put it bluntly, about the real estate market today. It evolves and grows and the temperature of the market can change course as fast as a Kardashian can bleach her hair. The one thing that tends to remain constant is the people involved in it.
I’ve been thinking about this phenomena, and wondering how the children of the millennials will survive in the world to come. They will lead completely dependent lives, very different than mine, dependent on technology to always work with no idea whatsoever of how to create or manage it. They might not even drive their own cars. They will be totally lost if an asteroid hits the earth and wipes out half of the planet or the super volcano in Yellowstone explodes, stuff you don’t believe will ever happen but very well could, or any of the other climate change atrocities that await. Millennials are no Tank Girl.
Knowing how stuff works or at least having an inkling about it is very helpful and reassuring. I’m proud of the fact that I can operate my big screen TV today, which is more than some old goats can do. This Sacramento Realtor is a pro at Internet marketing as well. I’m interested in how things work and quickly adapt to new technology. But I wasn’t always this way. Why, I recall how helpless I felt sitting on a mattress on the floor in my very first house and wondering what would happen if I turned on the light switch and the overhead light didn’t go on. What would I do? I could not at that point afford to hire an electrician, who could take half of my meager weekly take-home pay just for a service call. Electricity was like magic to me. Sitting in the dark was not an option.
Imagine my joy to discover I could turn off the main breaker switch, remove the switch plate cover to change out a $2.00 piece of metal and plastic by attaching the neutral wire to the neutral, the hot wire to the hot and the grounding to the ground. I began a long journey into home improvement projects which, to this day, have been inspirational, informative, lucrative and extremely helpful, even when I’m not doing the work myself.
But when you need a Sacramento Realtor to solve a real estate-related problem, buy a home, or sell your home fast and efficiently, then it helps to know which real estate agents are doing the bulk of the business in Sacramento and to hire one of those. You can certainly share your own thoughts about the process, but a busy agent is a productive agent and an agent who has acquired knowledge that will benefit you. You can rely on a professional and worry later about the future for your grandkids. You should call Elizabeth Weintraub. As busy as I am, I do answer my cell: 916.233.6759.
