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"but see how you did 1% of the shit we did" is a common, cheap republican trick.
You can't both-sides this one.
Personally I have no problem with him being a landlord, but when he blames the housing crisis on “greed” instead of the very obvious housing shortage that enables the greed, it’s worth noting the hypocrisy.
Except that the housing shortages are vastly exacerbated by greedy landlords buying up the housing supply.
It's literally like we have a water shortage and instead of just taking what they need, landlords decided well fuck you guys I have more my money so I'll buy your water before you can and lease it back to you at a profit.
Imagine being able to buy all the water supply and then renting it daily to people. The price of water would skyrocket.
The "greed" goes all the way up to financial and monetary policies that influence the price of housing. It would not be that hard to tank the real estate market and make it essentially worthless to investors for anything other than being a fucking roof over your head. It is for the benefit of investors and property owners that prices are allowed to soar and it is a consequence of intentional decisions from the ruling class, who benefit from this situation.
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.
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.
To add to this "simple supply and demand" is not simple at all. The X curve model that everyone has seen is a purposefully oversimplified model made to get across an extreme oversimplification of the relationship.
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.
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.
Everyone who rants and raves about landlords seems to totally misunderstand just how goddamned expensive it is to be a landlord. As the property owner you are responsible for:
- The mortgage
- Property taxes
- Sewer, garbage, water
- Appliance maintenance (any breakdown will be expensive)
- Exterior maintenance (rain gutter cleaning, power washing driveways, etc.)
- Duct and dryer vent cleaning
- Fence and all exterior care, maintenance
- Optional property manager at about 8-10% of the monthly rent... valuable if you're not nearby
With all that you get nailed on your income taxes. You can claim only mortgage interest, property management fees, and maintenance expenses against the rental income. The balance of the rent collected is treated as income and you're taxed on that income... so you have to factor that in as well.
I bought my property at a decent (local) price before the prices skyrocketed during the pandemic. My mortgage is at a reasonable interest rate (I didn't mortgage when interest rates were super low). To rent out my property (2500 sq ft 3 bedroom with top of the line appliances and finish) and simply break even over all expenses and have a zero gain/loss at the end of the year I'd have to rent my property at about $3400/month.
When I did rent it out I made the conscious choice to rent it out much lower and eat the loss each month. It sucked... but I was able to keep my house while i was working elsewhere, and eventually move back in once I was back in BC (I rented a different property until my tenants gave notice they were leaving).
Your example of a landlord renting a property for profit while not taking care of the property... well yeah that happens everywhere in the world. Some people suck. Those landlords are not the majority in my experience. They stand out because they are shitty people and you and I notice them.
Does this math account for the equity gain from the value of the property?
Equity gain only really counts if you're flipping properties. If you're an owner and landlord you're typically not flipping said property... you're renting it and sitting on that property for as long as you can. Any equity gain is not a guarantee... the local prices go up... and down. You can't base your income and expenses on an imagined future value and eat the losses year-on-year and actually survive financially... unless maybe you're a corporation owning multiple properties and can absorb losses. Individual owner/landlords can't... just can't reasonably be expected to eat losses on their properties. They must at a minimum break even.... and saying that "oh you can sell your property and get equity gains" is myopic at best. If you insisted on that way of owning and renting, ALL property would be owned by the super rich or corporations... and people like myself who own one home that they rent out will never do so because they can't afford to do so while entertaining 10 or 20 years of eating losses on a rental.
I don't understand why the ability to sell is myopic. The way I see it, a rental property works the same way as any investment. It's a thing you own that has value and that can be sold for that value. Think stocks for example. When you buy stocks, the amount you spend in buying them isn't a loss. You're simply putting money into savings. You don't need to "flip stocks" (i.e. day trade) for it to make sense to account for the value of the stocks themselves. You hold it long term in the form of stocks until you need that money and you cash out.
If you can't afford that, then it just means you can't afford to save money. The solution is definitely not to only allow large corporations to own rentals, nor is it to allow you and I to exploit someone less well off in the name of equality. The solution we should be looking for is something that would allow anyone contributing to our society to have the choice to either own or rent their home.
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.