I will never understand this kind of thinking. A rental agreement is beneficial to both parties - otherwise it would never have existed. You're no more "capture[ing] all their labour" than they are "squatting on your property".
It's still 'beneficial' to both parties, because if you don't pay you will get legally killed for trespassing by police robots.
That's the situation on Earth, except 'the guy' is 'older generations' and the homeless are generally allowed to sleep rough on public land in most countries. Also no intergalactic internet.
If someone is renting too high of a price, then you go somewhere else.
And this is because banks have financialised housing. Prices are set by available credit.
We all have no choice in a world where land is financialised. You can't float in the air. You either live miles away from the source of most jobs (cities) and pay in commute time or you live nearer in and give someone a huge slice of your wages whilst they cream it in.
And in our current system it will always be like this. Productivity up? More wages to spend on rent!
But unless you're an absolute dictator you have to live in the environment in which you find yourself. People who buy real assets risk the possibility they'll go down in value, too - a lot of people where I live got wiped out in 2008.
Some did get wiped out in 2008 - those who got in late. Not MMM blog man who has "retired" but still takes rental income based on the differential between buying back before 2000 or so before housing was financialised and the cost of renting now. This doesn't take finance knowledge you just have to be born at the right time.
So many blogs have "yeah I saved a bit and my 3 houses quintupled in value and I wasn't handing over half my pay to a landlord like kids now...so let me give you some advice!"
For too many for too long housing has been a one way bet. And because they are creating nothing that money comes from the labour of others.
The more productive we become the greater the economic advantage of the land and therefore the greater the rent. If we all work harder and/or smarter the landlord gets it. And if we all try to get our slice of the pie we go to hell in a handcart. Together.
Due to the financialisation of housing the yield has not been 4%. People have gotten massive appreciation on their land which has left them with a lot of equity if they bought before banking went insane (pre 1990-1997).
The primary cost of housing is the land, not the cost to build, not the upkeep. The land. And the land price is set by available credit. Banks can create credit at will. They only have to stop when the price of land reaches the maximum and individual can service monthly in interest on the debt. With ZIRP this has reached insane levels. All of it is utterly unrelated to either wages or the cost to build.
I'm not blaming "home owners". I'm blaming speculators who are buying more than one home. A place to live and a place to extract economic rent from others. These guys are the foot soldiers for the banks. An army of exploiters in a zero sum game devoid of wealth creation.
Financial speculation in an item pushes prices way beyond their reasonable utility. For example the tulip bubble - people didn't want to live in a tulip but up the price went as speculators piled in.
If you're cool with that then fine. I'm not.
Suddenly, the availability of short and mid-term rentals seems like an economic good compared to a world where there were none of those dastardly "foot soldiers for the banks".
We basically need land value tax to discourage land speculation and to inhibit the huge unearned income flowing to land owners. And once this tax is introduced get rid of labour tax.
Many of the lower income renters pay little net tax (often negative with EIC) today.
It's not like the person who owns the building does nothing to earn their rent. Building maintenance, loan servicing, taxes, insurance, vacancies, all of that and more has a cost (just ask a homeowner). From what I understand, 4% annually is a good return after expenses.
If you're arguing specifically about rents in the Bay Area, then sure that's a problem that needs to be fixed. But blaming the property owners for high rents is sort of blaming the messenger, no? No additional land and laws that prevent building upwards directly leads to higher rents because of increased competition, and high salaries at tech companies (combined with a bunch of other externalities like private buses) just makes it worse.
In the Bay Area, property owners directly influence the community rules and laws that restrict the construction of high density developments. This is the case in both SV and SF.
I don't blame the land owners -- they are acting in their self interest, as they have the right to be doing.
Historically, in the US at least, as a land owner your appreciation tracks the CPI pretty closely. It will go out of whack for a few years, but then there's a correction. I just can't buy into your exploiter-exploited mindset.