| I don't see how buying apartments and renting them out makes housing more expensive. I'm the exact opposite. All these emotional people don't make sense. From my perspective there is a whole bunch of emotional people that wants expensive housing and they complain when someone else i.e. landlords benefit from the thing they wanted. I can't stand the double standard. The problem has never been properties. Just think about how illogical it is for a house to go up in value even though it is a depreciating asset. It's the land that is going up in value. Expensive land needs expensive rents. Why is land expensive? Because of all land owners, not just the ones that are renting dozen apartments on land that could at most fit 2 single family homes. Yes, the average home owner is rent seeking just as much as that landlord with 12 apartments is doing. The worst part is those home owners don't actually want their windfall because they want to live in their home. They do not want the liability of increasing property taxes as their land goes up in value. They'll vote for tax freezes and lower taxes which obviously makes it easier for homeowners and landlords to earn money at the expense of other people. You know, if there were no owner occupiers and everyone was renting then people would just vote for increased property taxes on landowners to make land a liablity which lowers its value. |