[tonypags]

Really? The reasons you gave are perpetual. Don't you think that the real reason, in this moment in history, is that landlords are colluding on rents? If we enforced anti-competitive laws, and raised property taxes in the suburbs to a level commensurate with the maintenance costs of those areas' infrastructure, it would solve a lot of these problems.

[xtiansimon]

> “Don't you think that the real reason, in this moment in history, is that landlords are colluding on rents?”

The lawsuit that could shake up the rental market [1]

AirBandB

Hedge fund investing in real estate

To name a few

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/11/1197961038/the-indicator-from...

[HDThoreaun]

Not generally, no. Certainly some areas are experiencing landlord collusion, but in general colluding is extremely difficult as a landlord because rental properties are so decentralized. Nowhere in the US do we have anything like berlin where 3 companies own the majority of units. The sheer amount of collaboration required to collude when there are thousands of suppliers makes it very unlikely in most cases.

[Nifty3929]

I agree with you - though one mechanism for implied and unintended collusion would be rental pricing services that are widely used by landlords and might cause prices to converge or be self-reinforcing. I don't believe this argument, but I do think it merits consideration and counterargument.

That is, it needn't be explicit collusion where thousands of landlords get together - it might just be because they're all using the same price forecasting service.