Comment by estearum
3 days ago
No, the real problem is that the vast majority of their income does not come from their role in creating supply or maintaining housing.
Proof: Propose a 100% land value tax, which definitionally only removes that part of income that is generated by the community around their property, and see if they go for it.
The actual value of a landlord is insulating the tenant from financial risk, charging a predictable rent and absorbing the costs of repairs and maintenance. That's a lot of value for some people, but it also comes with problematic incentives and obvious bad outcomes when combined with other aspects of housing markets.
In a perfect world, but rent is often less significantly predictable than mortgage payments. Of course the cost of repairs and maintenance isn’t absorbed, it is paid in full by the renter in the cost of rent.
Over the term of the lease agreement, rent is contractually predictable.
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