Comment by nerdponx
2 days ago
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.
Which is rarely longer than a year, and many people go month-to-month, if they even have a contract.