Awful sly of you to indirectly make the claim that I was calling you a hypocrite. I'm not. I'm declaring that everyone who lives in a governed district is a beneficiary of the state's ability to restrict supply of one thing or another. This includes landlords who might have the "value" of their "investment" inflated due to restricted supply.
> They made an investment in buying [the land]...
Yes. Agreed.
> ...and improving the land.
No. No, they did not.
They paid someone else to get access to the revenue stream that comes from the people living in the building that was constructed roughly one hundred years before they made the purchase. Additionally, the building was constructed more than fifty years before $CURRENT_LANDLORD-2 made his purchase. Neither of them fronted the money and took on the risk to build the only improvement on the land.
What's more, $CURRENT_LANDLORD's negligence is lowering the value of the property they purchased. Vermin infestation throughout the building and trash accumulation in public areas [0] are now not-uncommon sights. Essential building services are unreliable and not-infrequently unavailable due to failure to perform regular preventative maintenance.
Are you using some definition of "$CURRENT_LANDLORD is improving the land." that remains true when the actions that the landowner takes both damage the pre-existing building on the property and lower its value, actual or otherwise?
> Not necessary for my point.
It really seems like your point is not valid, for the situation that a renter not-infrequently finds himself in in San Francisco. [1] Because the demand for rental housing is so high, landlords can often get away with failing to perform even the legally required maintenance and upkeep and still have people breaking down their doors to rent their vacant apartments.
I don't see how one can -with a straight face- make the claim that a property owner is adding value to a property when they aren't even performing the maintenance required to adequately counteract the natural forces of entropy.
Do you now understand what I mean when I say "$CURRENT_LANDLORD has done nothing to improve the value of their property."?
[0] Due to not-infrequent failure of building management to swap out the full garbage, recycling, and composting bins with empty ones.
[1] Your argument may be (and probably is) totally valid in other situations. San Francisco's housing market (rental or otherwise) is a special bucket of suck.