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Comment by tumetab1 | Hacker News Reader

> I hope Portugal won't tackle it like my country, with a cap on rent and other market distortions. I think that only makes it worse.

That's one of the reasons why portuguese renting market is so bad. There were rent control policies for like 40 years. It has been phased out but the market still has the signs of its damages.

There also other contributing policies and the policies change almost every two years.

I'm one that could invest in the market, to bring more houses to be rent, but I can not risk 150 000 euros buying a house to rent (middle income market) and then having problems evicting with a non-paying renter, being forbidden to increase the rent due a new law or god help me if I need to use the court system to ask for renter damages.

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So either we preference your 150000 euros (and of course interest and margin on top) or someone having a roof over their head, running water, and even the ability to stay in the same are and building community instead of moving each year due to capital seeking max gains.

But he said he want to do it to help a family, not his pockets. /s

I read she wants security for her investment property.

This is an egregious misreading of the parent comment.

Someone in a position of economic vulnerability isn't going to invest in housing to rent out if there is a non-insignificant chance of damage to the property.

Moreover, this uncertainty has the perverse outcome of pushing the potential small landlord to use his funds to invest in something like a real estate investment fund - which will result in less local control over housing.

Are these 150K being used to build a new house or to buy an existing house?

I think it’s time the English speaking world realised that landlords are not providing a service, they are extracting a tax on people that don’t have 150K to pay a deposit.

Portugal is not part of the "English speaking world".

The down payment would only be 10% of that. Existing or new house would be same, houses that are bought for rent are only available through mortgages which are a pain.

When I was younger I would really like to have more houses to rent... I don't really care if they provide a service or not, it's the cheapest and more liberating option available.

If the neighbors are a hell... I could just move out. Or if the house was not close to a gym I liked... move out.

That's not how that works.

I can have 150000 euros which I can use in an emergency, like being unemployed, long sick leave, needing move out of country due to family reasons OR I can risk not having it available when I needed and earn some money. Without the profit I have no reason for the risk.

Furthermore, me not investing removes a house from the renting market which makes it harder for people with less income, specially young people. To have a place to live because the same house will be available for purchase through a mortgage... and mortgages are not good.

You have to make a 10% down payment and you're almost always tied to a flexible interest rate... so people with less economic freedom are the ones to suffer the most.

You might disagree that things should not be like this which is fine, I'm only arguing over what happens now.

> So either we preference your 150000 euros (and of course interest and margin on top) or someone having a roof over their head, running water, and even the ability to stay in the same are and building community instead of moving each year due to capital seeking max gains.

Unless you are proposing to take his extra 10k euros by force, or let him invest it elsewhere?

If you want him to invest his 150k euros in housing you need to (according to him) lower his risk.

The fact that you can’t evict people at will and that you have to go through courts to seek damages (rather than robbing your tenant’s bank account), is a feature not a bug.

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