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Comment by _fat_santa | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand the anti-landlord sentiment. Folks seem to get this idea that your average landlord has no costs, takes on no risk, and just sails away with the rent they collect every month and spend it on a lavish vacation.

Newsflash but buying property introduces significant costs, complexity and risk. By renting you simply choose to pay a monthly fee to a business that will provide you that same property but will take on all that risk instead of you.

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The idea is that the person pockets a portion of the money that you make, where if you had the capital you’d be able to pocket the money. As rent increases, a mortgage doesn’t, and rent hasn’t decreased anywhere in a while, so the gap keeps getting larger. There are advantages to renting, but the “choice” of renting vs buying is a privilege afforded to fewer and fewer. There used to be starter homes, but there is a massive difference nowadays between those who own property and those who don’t, and it’s gotten increasingly more difficult over the last 30 years to buy into property on most peoples incomes. This functionally means that property ownership is often the line between economic classes.

Not to mention the corporate landlords who algorithmically raise rents as much as possible while providing as little maintenance as possible.

As a reluctant one unit landlord (was underwater when we had to buy a bigger place for growing family) I’ve seen my insurance costs triple, property taxes double, and association fees go up 50%.

Then there’s the repairs… And the property management company fees.

It’s not like the mortgage is the only expense a landlord has.

Absolutely true, especially for small landlords. It can be a legitimate job, and as a renter it’s very easy to get caught up in the idea that everyone is just coasting and taking money once you have 2-3 very bad landlords. My current landlord is a kind person, even if my rent has been raised every year.

But also, sorry, if you’re paying for a property management company, you’re not a landlord you’re a landowner, and people pay you a tithe to use it.

All of those problems go away if you have sufficient supply of new housing.

Probably nobody wants to be the first to do this. Any region that tries to build supply, and bring about lower housing cost, will soon be overrun with migrants I will gobble up to supply.

Housing people is not just putting walls and windows around them. They need transportation. They need water. They generate garbage and sewage.

These are problems that don't go away when you build more housing, but are rather exacerbated.

At least in theory infrastructure should be covered by taxes so more people shouldn't be a problem in the long term. That assumes competent management and sensible voters though.

Primarily I think politicians fear the possibility of real estate prices falling too rapidly. I think residents also fear change since if they don't like the result the cost to move is fairly high.

Taxes don't solve the problem that water has to come from somewhere and garbage has to go somewhere and so on. The very increases themselves are undesirable; who pays for that is not the problem.

Isn't garbage output the same, just in different locations? If anything further centralization of collection should be expected to reduce costs.

Water is similar. I'll acknowledge that in a few specific geographic locations there are genuine concerns about the total available supply but that is not the norm. It also isn't some insurmountable problem unless you're in the middle of a vast inland desert (which departs even farther from the norm).

If the local government is failing to oversee the necessary improvements to infrastructure then from my perspective that's a failure of the political process.

Also water use is lower in dense urban areas so you have to consider that there's a net gain from the move even if there's additional strain locally

All we have to do is convince a large group of very active voters to vote for uncertainty and change in their neighborhood, it'll be easy!

There are places not experiencing a housing shortage that are still seeing rents go up. When a sizable portion of the landed gentry decide to band together to do price fixing, supply doesn’t matter.

Supply and demand don’t follow closely in the American market. There is a lot of collusion happening.

Yes even if they keep some places empty, which is a cost, they can more than make up for it.

Say you have an apartment with 50 units. If you can keep 25 empty but charge double for the rest, it's all good. Plus the empty ones are not undergoing any wear and tear. It would be more profitable if the place had just 25 units that were all occupied, but what the hell.

Now suppose you can charge triple.

And all my problems would go away if I found a pot of gold. Sadly, neither of these things will happen.

Not with that attitude. Lack of housing isn't a law of physics, It is a policy and social choice.

There are many places with abundant housing, including places with high demand and good jobs. There are cities all over the world that grow, build affordable urban apartments, and build starter homes. You don't even have to look that hard for examples.

I ask sincerely, have you ever had a bad landlord? Because if you had, you would understand why some people would hate them. Many people do not have the choice to buy a home and so must rent, and often they have to deal with terrible people.

So they would rather be homeless? In a market without landlords, everyone who couldn’t afford to buy a home would have to live in their car or camp on the street.

In a market without landlords, especially corporate landlords, more people would be able to afford to buy a home.

I think that what most people want isn't a market without landlords, but a market without abusive landlords.

> By renting you simply choose to pay a monthly fee to a business that will provide you that same property but will take on all that risk instead of you.

I think the issue is that for many people it's not much of a choice since they can't afford to buy housing. It's pay a landlord or be homeless, and some form of shelter is necessary for humans.

Things like this juice the anti-landlord sentiment: https://www.propublica.org/article/justice-department-sues-l...

Landlords are easy to hate in the way that people complain about Microsoft or their power utility or whatever, but the specific meme you're talking about (that they take no risk and live extravagantly without contributing anything) seems to have gotten very prominent relatively recently.

Some of the specific complaints are wrong (landlords do take risk and some of them don't make much money) but the general sentiment is fair, in the sense that they get more return for less risk than they used to historically. It seems like an unavoidable response to rising inequality caused by capital getting most of the productivity gains over the last 40-odd years.

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