The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.
“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.
The reason so many can’t afford to buy is because so many houses are bought purely to be rented back out again, if no landlords existed housing prices would drop and more people could afford to buy.
For those who still couldn’t, as others have said - public housing
It’s not that, it’s purely supply. Landlords are a proxy for tenants, whether willing or unwilling, in the housing market when it comes to demand. They are no more interested in driving up housing prices than owner occupants are (which is to say, the vast majority of both are interested in driving up housing prices). The catch is, you can’t drive up housing prices in a market where there isn’t a supply constriction. Build more housing where people want to live, and you won’t have to do anything else for the problem to fix itself.
Pretty sure this is the other way around.
People want to rent. The market responds with a supply of rentals.
I am not a “free market knows all” person but pretty clearly these sky high rents are a function of demand.
The inverse of your suggestion is that, if people bought houses instead of renting, there would be no demand for rental properties and prices would crash.
In fact, if it is true that there are excess properties being purchased to rent out, that should push prices down due to increased supply and competition for the finite number of people wanting to rent.
Demand isn’t high because so many more people prefer to rent - demand is high because it’s the only financially viable option. Why is it the only financially viable option? Because landlords (both corporate and personal) buy up all the property they can and rent it out. Because so many houses are getting bought as rentals, the supply of houses that can actually be bought is low.
Seriously, have you spoken to anyone who has tried to buy a house in the last few years? Every single one I know had a myriad of stories like “I put down an offer, but some investment company offered $20k over asking, cash in hand”
And because housing prices are so high because of the above behavior, more and more people are forced to rent, who would have 100% been able to buy a house not that long ago. And so rises demand.
If what you were saying was true (that rent prices are high purely because people love renting, and no one wants to be a homeowner), then why are we seeing sky high home prices at the same time? You’re quick to pull out a half baked supply and demand theory, but you’re very quick to ignore the other side of that equation.
Also, more fundamentally the whole “supply and demand explains all commerce” thing has been thoroughly untrue for ages. Maybe in a world without giant multinational conglomerates, political corruption, and price fixing. But in the real world, things are wildly more complicated
I mean this is patently false. Even when there were huge housing surpluses and rates were rock bottom people still rented. Sometimes even when they could afford to buy.
Sure now large corps have gobbled up the supply but even if they sold everything and tons of houses were on the market there would still be renters. And those renters need landlords.
Well yes, hence my last sentence - there will always be some people who have to rent (or just prefer it), and for those people, we could have public housing. Basically housing that’s treated as a public infrastructure - run not for profit, but for public good. It’s really not that hard to grasp - remove the landlords from the equation, and set the rent prices to exactly the cost of maintaining the properties.
If you remove the landlords leeching away extra value for investment profit, and instead just charged what it cost to make the housing available, it’d be cheaper by definition. Providing essential services at an affordable cost is literally the whole point of civil infrastructure
You don’t need landlords to give people a place to rent, in the same way I don’t need to pay someone to bring water to my house, or haul my sewage away, I use the public utilities in my area. And I’m not even talking about subsidizing the cost with tax dollars (though I think that’s a good idea), you could give renters significant savings simply by not trying to make money off them
No one wants to pay for any of that ever tho. You’re talking about massive infrastructure costs which sure on average is cheaper but good luck getting any gov to agree to the cost and maintenance. Idk about Canada but public housing in the US sucks.
Pay for what? Again, I’m not talking about subsidized housing here, just at-cost rentals. The only people paying are the renters, they’re just paying significantly less because they’re not funding some random person/corporation’s no-effort-required retirement plan.
I’m in the US, and idk where you live but public housing in my area is both high quality and super affordable (granted I live in a very liberal state, where such things are given priority). The only issue is that there isn’t enough of it, but that would be solved if we switched to public housing for rentals instead of landlords. If your area has “sucky” public housing, you should advocate for improvements in your community and vote for local policy makers who will prioritize it.
You seem to have this odd insistince that you can’t possibly have rental properties without someone leeching profits off the top of the whole deal
Do you not realize that buildings cost money? That has to come way way way before a single dime of rent is collected. You act like rents collected from tenants equal the cost of the building immediately.
So again, where is the money coming from in advance to build the housing??? You only have one option. You keep pretending otherwise by creating a crazy unrealistic situation.
Of course buildings cost money, no one is suggesting that the tenants of these public housing buildings don’t pay rent. Just that the rent is set at a rate that simply recoup costs instead of making the landlord (which in this case is the state) rich in the deal. And if states don’t have the funds to invest in the property, I’m pretty sure the state governments would qualify for some pretty solid mortgages. And the costs of those mortgages can be added onto the rent - same as a landlord would do, only in this case, that would be the end of the rent padding.
I can’t help but feel like you’re deliberately misinterpreting me at this point. That, or you’re just incapable of fathoming how human beings could possibly interact without one profiting off the other. The renters still pay rent, the mortgages on the property still get paid, the only difference is that the profit that would have gone to the landlord stays in the tenants pockets. That’s it - that’s literally the only difference. No free houses, no huge tax bills, just the removal of profit, and at-cost rents for folks who need them.
Then do it dude. No one is stopping you. I’m saying someone has to put up the cash.
You’re saying…I’m not sure what exactly cuz no one is jumping to build public housing anywhere.
But if you think you can provide public housing at cost go for it. Someone has to pay UP FRONT and I’m not sure who u think that actually Is.
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