[ToucanLoucan]

> You need to really distinguish between rent seeking landowners, and value add landowners.

No, I don't. Rent-seeking is derided behavior by basically everyone who isn't rent-seeking.

If you buy property, improve it, and sell it, there's your profit for providing that service. No ethical lapse whatsoever, unless you used that godawful gray laminate that every flipper uses. Then I'm mad at you still but that's a different reason.

If you own a thing that people need, and you gate access to it behind a paywall while maintaining ownership, and extract value from those people so they may use it but retain full ownership and control of it, that's rent-seeking and it sucks. You're the economic version of wind drag.

Yes, that includes the 98 year old lady who rents out a room to fill the gaps left by social security to the nice young man who's going to college in the area. Still value extraction. That young man is losing the value of his labor because he has to live somewhere and she has space he can live in. That's unethical.

[digital-cygnet]

Sorry, what's your position here - that any renting of a property is an "economic rent" and thus immoral? That makes little sense to me. I am a renter and glad to be so because I'm not confident I want to live in my current home for the 5-10 years it takes for purchasing it to be worthwhile. The landlord is providing me a service, turning a big, illiquid asset into something that can be accessed with only a 1-year time commitment. This is economically productive (allows me to live somewhere I otherwise wouldn't) and is hence not an "economic rent".

The classic example of an economic rent is a feudal lord putting a chain across a river and charging a toll. This is economically unproductive because it's just putting a price on something that was free (and, you have to assume for the example, non-rivalrous). This is why the sibling comment points out that the rent-seekers in the housing market are more like the people seeking to constrain supply via zoning and regulation.

[lacy_tinpot]

> Rent-seeking is derided behavior by basically everyone who isn't rent-seeking.

Rent-seeking is something specific. If we can't get that right we're not going to get far into the discussion. Not all rents are the same.

Hotels rent rooms. But they are not the same as rent seeking.

If you're not creating new wealth/value add, and instead exploit rents by mere virtue of owning, then it is rent-seeking. If you're adding value, like providing a service or other additions, then no it's not rent seeking. The 98 year old lady? Probably rent seeking. The couple doing AirBnB? Probably not.

Why?

AirBnBs, like hotels, tend to provide a genuine service that adds value. The listings are in a competitive market, where people need to improve the living spaces in order for them to get rented out. This doesn't take into account the various hospitality businesses that have emerged in various rural communities because of AirBnB. It's an entire industry.

That is Hotels/Hospitality businesses are NOT rent seeking just because they rent out rooms or provide services on land they own.

Who is Rent-Seeking?

The people preventing new housing/infrastructure from being built are the ones rent-seeking. They artificially manipulate market conditions by restricting supply, driving up land value, and thereby generate unearned income. Income that isn't from productive improvements on land but from mere ownership of land. That unearned income on land is rent-seeking behavior.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> godawful gray laminate

dude! godawful gray granite or go home :)