[doombolt]

After the USSR fell apart, in Russia you could turn state-owned apartment that you occupied into your own ownership. Once per person, but basically for free. This means people who "rented" apartments will now own them.

Fast forward 25 years, and that gave enormous amount of apartment ownership. Yes, rent market is chaotic since you almost always rent from a private person. And yes, there's enormous divide between people who inherited an apartment in a large city and people who for some reason do not have an apartment of their own and have to rent.

[doombolt]

Bad parts: Yes, there is disrepair since the owners do not care about any common property. Everything outside their doorstep is not their concern. They expect "city" or "state" to take care of it. They care even less about the area surrounding their compound.

Good parts: People do not mind gentrification. All those people who would be pushed out of their rented homes instead happy and gay that their property rise in price and worth more if they decide to rent it out. Note: avoid telling those people that they are gay

Weird parts: In Moscow, renting an one bedroom is ~$400/mo. There are a lot of jobs in public sector or small business which pay around $400/mo. How do people manage on that kind of salary? You guessed it right, they're homeowners, so they pay $50 in utilities and they're all set. So you can say that a lot of jobs are still subsidized by late USSR's construction boom.

[zhte415]

Renting a somewhat modern one bedroom apartment in Moscow for $400/month seems pretty cheap.

[sys_64738]

Thatcher did something similar in the 1980s when she allowed people to buy public housing at rock bottom rates. Those houses returned to the public stock before then when the occupants moved or passed. Now they were gone permanently causing the housing crisis which means lack of rentable properties push those available skyward to no longer be affordable by 95% of the population.

Thatcher and the tories are the worst things to have been inflicted on the English people for the last 40 years.

[saaaaaam]

British people. It was even worse in Scotland and Wales.

[saaaaaam]

British people.