a friend showed me their budget recently, and about 45 hours of their wages go to rent each month (for a single room in a house with roommates). That seems very high to me, and their rent is considered "low" in their area (a small suburb)
Assuming they work full time, that is pretty average. The old "30%" rule is that you should spend no more than 30% of your pre-tax wages on rent. Your friend is spending just over a quarter post-taxes.
Something about this still seems to be imbalanced.. and 45/160 is 28%, just below this threshold you've referenced. My intuition says something is wrong here.
Either I missed or was added in an edit the bit about having roommates. That's definitely absurd. I was paying that amount for an entire house in a nice suburb maybe 8 or 9 years ago. Even with only one roommate paying the same amount, they are together paying way more than my mortgage for a house in the country with 5 acres of land and waterfront along one entire side.
I imagine they're in a high cost of living area, where tons of other people want to live. If that's the case, it probably shouldn't be any surprise that in a supply restricted market, the prices are also very high.
That seems high. 14 hours of my salary (pretax) goes to my rent.