Comment by lbarrow
2 days ago
Why would this help affordability? If you restrict who can operate rentals, that will inevitably shrink the supply of rentals, which will raise rents.
2 days ago
Why would this help affordability? If you restrict who can operate rentals, that will inevitably shrink the supply of rentals, which will raise rents.
Would it not also lower house prices, causing would-be renters to buy instead, reducing demand for rentals?
Renting and purchasing are not perfect substitutes. There are many situations where a rental is a far better solution.
This kinda reminds me of student loans, why not get as many people as possible into 6 figure debt?
Yes mortgage is often cheaper than rental, but the whole tradeoff is the commitment, just like all kinds of services, if you pay 40 years up front you can get a good deal, but do you really want to take out a loan to do that?
Limiting landlords ability to buy property is reducing demand for construction, you want to increase demand for housing, not decrease it.
As I said in a sibling thread, it does suck that property owners are incentivized to raise their property values, preventing supply from reacting to demand.
That "less commitment" argument assumes that renters are content to be paying higher-than-mortgage costs for a property they'll never own. If they are, then it's true that the rental system is benefiting them. If they'd rather own their homes and be paying a mortgage, then the rental system is a hindrance.
My intuition is that the majority of renters would rather be owners paying mortgages. This is less true of certain demographics (young people, students) and more true of others (older people, families).
I also wouldn't characterize being a renter as low-commitment. Say you're renting a place for 1.2k a month. When you sign a year lease, you're committing to pay 1.2k x 12 in rent, plus (at least) a month of security deposit, for a total of 15.6k. That may not be a down payment, but it's still a huge commitment, especially given how hard it is to assess potential problems with a living space before you've actually lived there.
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> This kinda reminds me of student loans, why not get as many people as possible into 6 figure debt?
Didn't we already try that with housing?
I don't think this is a purely financial decision - my position on that is it's not a good investment if you're buying a single home. Taking on 5x leverage on a hugely concentrated asset is insane to me if it's a large % of your net worth
The bigger thing, though, is so many people are currently priced out from owning something for themselves. Your home is such a fundamental part of your life and for a lot of people renting fucking sucks. They can't live their lives the way they want to. To have that be the case because others are buying it up to profit? Ehh..
Lowering prices would also disincentivize anyone to sell their house, sort of like the recent, relatively high interest rates. Those undesirable rates have not applied significant downward pressure on prices because they’re simultaneously exerting downward pressure on the volume of houses available for sale. No one wants to sell their low rate house for a higher one.
This will release homes on the market, which will lower the prices, causing the rents to drop.
but it'll lower mortgages, which will lower rents.
>that will inevitably shrink the supply of rentals
As someone that's renting because buying is impossible i think this would be fantastic. They should do it with Airbnb too.
Not American or in the US, this is problem everywhere now. People thinking they're entrepreneurs for gouging.
People will come up with all kinds of reasoning, its the property tax, it's migrants, its minimum wage, it's millennials, it's inflation ,when ultimately it's just that landlords will charge whatever they think they can get away.
and sometimes they'll try to charge in other ways...
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/02/...