But this is even more different because they don't even sell the housing to you, they rent it to you. The service they offer is that you don't have to have capital to buy a house and you don't have to maintain it and if you move, you don't have to sell it and pay sales taxes.
Those who benefit are those who own housing at the time of market rate increases. That's just regular investment return and the risk/reward can be directly compared to any other form of investment. Current owner occupiers and current landlords benefit at the time of every increase (even if their capital gains are not immediately realised). And then every household, whether they are owner occupiers or tenants, have to pay in the form of higher capital expense. Landlords simply pass the higher rent through to pay for their higher capital expenses.
I like this thinking. If you buy a house on the cheap and rent spikes and your profit increases dramatically, you’re not benefiting because somebody will kick in your front door and force you to buy a crazy expensive house.
You’re forgetting the large contingent of “landlords” sitting on and renting out 1-5 residential properties,
but doing absolutely nothing to them, and buying no new properties, for the remainder of their lifetime,
besides emergency repairs that the tenant demands.