• RehRomano@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I truly don’t understand the greedy landlords restrict supply thesis.

    Why isn’t this a phenomenon we see everywhere? Why is it only the last few years? Haven’t landlords always been greedy? Why is housing currently cheaper in Calgary or Edmonton than Vancouver?

    These are all very simply explained using principles of supply and demand. It’s now illegal to build apartments in 80% of the land in our largest cities, of course there’s a housing shortage.

    • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      We have just gone through a period of historically cheap debt. It became possible for landlords to leverage their existing properties to obtain new ones at a rate that was extremely uncommonly high. There has been a massive leap in wealth disparity.

    • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Why isn’t this a phenomenon we see everywhere?

      It is.

      Why is it only the last few years?

      It’s not.

      Haven’t landlords always been greedy?

      Yes that is why the literal textbook definition for a drain on the economy is a “rent-seeker” as in a rent seeking landlord. When you buy an assett and then just lease it back to people for profit, you are a leach that makes things more expensive while providing no value to anyone.

      Like I said, in the 70s the Ontario Liberals dropped the price of houses by 30% just by taxing landlords and getting some of them out of the market, and that’s before the ballooning of landlords and investment properties in the past 50 years.

      • Numpty@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        When you buy an assett and then just lease it back to people for profit, you are a leach that makes things more expensive while providing no value to anyone.

        I don’t understand this view. A person buys a house and wants to rent it out. Are they supposed to take a loss on the property just to make a cheap home for someone who is renting? Are you (collectively, not you specifically) expecting that rental properties must be some altruistic lower than buying cost thing for renters at the expense of owners?

        For context, I own a house. I rented it out for a while and am intimately aware of how much it costs to actually be a responsible landlord.

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I don’t understand this view. A person buys a house and wants to rent it out. Are they supposed to take a loss on the property just to make a cheap home for someone who is renting?

          Oh wow, a landlord who doesn’t understand the concept of breaking even, i.e. not profiting off those poorer than you. What a surprise!

          If you’re renting out your own personal home while you rent a different home there’s no real issue, but if you’re buying an investment property, renting it out at a profit, and not keeping it as nice as you keep your own home, then you’re just being a rent seeking leach that’s providing no value to society. You’re just enriching yourself on the backs of people poorer than you. It’s literally the same thing as Nestle buying up drinking water rights and then selling the people back their bottled water at a profit.