[throwway120385]

No, it's rentiers. The government takes about a quarter but the rentiers easily take 2 times as much in interest, monthly fees, and other costs that I have to pay in perpetuity. You just don't consider that because you think those people are necessary for living a good life. In reality their purpose is to extract as much money from you for as little work as possible.

[zozbot234]

Yes, the rent is too damn high. The way to address that is BUILDING MORE! Which is what YIMBY is all about.

[bradlys]

As long as collusion exists, I don't see this changing. Manhattan is more expensive than it was a 100 years ago but less people actually live there now. Not a little less either - 700,000 people less. We've built way more housing at the same time. And yes, people have more square footage per person now but the housing doubled and the population went down dramatically.

Rent is always going to go up there even if they build more. Same in other places. As long as rent setting tools exist to collude - we will see the rent not go down. You're not gonna dump $100m in new buildings and not maximize your return.

[labcomputer]

Rent isn't high because of collusion. It's simple supply and demand.

There may be fewer people in manhattan, but that's mostly because fewer people live in each living unit. The same number of living units is being demanded by the market because of evolving living preferences.

If you allow sufficient living units to be built, it doesn't matter how much landlord try to collude, they won't be able to keep rent high. Someone will break when the vacancy rate reaches 15%.

[zozbot234]

Rent is high due to supply and demand, but collusion lowers supply. Ironically enough, "affordable housing" arrangements and rent-control, which is common in NYC, are examples of such collusion and end up raising rents over time compared to the alternative where the collusion isn't there.

[daedrdev]

vacancy rates are extremely low in most cities. That clearly implies supply and demand and not collusion. In new york units are often empty because they are illegal to rent unless massively expensive repairs are made while under rent control. That's not collusion, that is regulatory failure