this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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If you need a place to live there is no thing as "what people will pay for" because people will pay whatever as long as they can afford it. And they pay because what's the alternative? Live on the street?
The only "fair" rent price is the one where the landlord doesn't make money from it and no, taking enough to pay for the mortgage is still making money.
Taking enough to pay the mortgage would be a fair rent price, so long as it is a rent to own situation.
Fair enough, I personally don't consider that as renting and instead view it as form of buying the house.
You can do that without a landlord. Just get a mortgage and buy a house. Why should a landlord get involved and put their deposit and take on risk for you?
Landlords, like all other rich people, do not take on any risk ever. Only the poor take on risk.
That's simply not true. Landlords try to militate the risk as they're not idiots. But they can certainly lose off a rental unit. If tenants don't pay rent the landlord gets no income, but they still have to pay their mortgage. A landlord can sue a non paying renter and go after guarantors, but that's costs a lot in legal costs and doesnt help if there's no money to collect. And housing prices can stagnate or even drop, so there is plenty of risk. In general any investment comes with risk, the bigger the potential return, the bigger the risk or more loss.
The landlord isn't risking their house and livelyhood. They risk not leeching your paycheck. That's not a real risk. Poor people risk both when they start a business, or do anything. That is risk.
Most landlords are leveraged. The house they rent out is collateral against the loan they used to buy the building, which they also had to put up cash deposit, If there's suddenly a big expense ( new roof needs, etc), or a tenant just doesn't pay rent, they still have to make payments on their load. If they can't afford to, the bank can foreclose on the house and take ownership of the house - the landlord loses everything including their initial cash deposit. If they also live in the property, they literally are risking their home too. Being a landlord is a business and like any there are risks. A super rich landlord, or mega corporation that buys properties and rents out has less risk as they can handle short term losses for potential longer term gain.
Exactly, why should a landlord get involved? Who fucking needs them?
That's my point. Go ahead and get a mortgage from the bank. You'll need a deposit of course and a decent credit rating and income or they reasonably won't trust you with their money. If you don't have those things, well, that's why we need landlords - someone to put money up and take the risk on your behalf.
Lnadlords increase competition for the property making it more expensive.
Someone putting an offer on a property might be just fine getting a mortgage for that amount, but not for the amount needed if 5 different landlords are trying to outbid them so they can rent the property to them.
That's a very marginal effect - and really only in a sellers market. Right now in most places, there are many properties sitting on the market that anyone could put in a reasonable offer and get.
The fewer people making those offers the more those prices will come down.
Increase taxes on secondary properties and people will be more motivated to lower the price in order to sell.
Yes, people need a place to live. Just like they need food. But if one landlord is greedy and asking too much, then there should be others that you can turn to.
If being a landlord was so profitable and had no risk, then more people would build houses and rent them out. There would be a buyers market and the price would drop due to competition.
How much should a landlord get back from their investment? It's hard to define exactly because of risks of extra expenses, value drop, damages, changing legislation, etc. So how else should we determine it fairly other than a free market?
If the likely profits are not worth the risk to invest in housing to rent out, then there there will not be any more rental units made.
Food is not the same as housing. You consume food, you don't consume a house. If caviar in one store costs too much you might be able to buy it for cheaper in a different store and if you can't afford caviar you can buy something cheaper to eat. But if one house rent is too high you can't find the same house in the same place for cheaper. And even if you do find a similar house in the relative vicinity there's still the cost of moving from one house to another. And finally, if that "good" landlord rents out their house that house is no longer an option which means not everyone will get that "good" landlord.
That sounds great in theory but in practice it's much harder. First issue is the cost of building new houses. The high cost of building housing may do very little to reduce the cost rent because new houses will cost more than existing houses. Second is the issue that location matters. You can build more houses at the edge of the metropolitan area but it's not going to impact the cost of rent at the center. People want a home where their life is, they don't want to move their life to where the home is affordable. And last point follows the previous point. New houses built in the middle of nowhere are useless because you need Infrastructure to make it into a place people want to live in and that takes time. You can't just build new houses and watch how rent prices drop. New housing takes years to impact rent, if it's even going to have an impact (which it might not do due to location).
People who view housing as a basic human necessity have a very simple answer to that question. Nothing. Landlord should get nothing because a house is not a commodity, it's a utility.
So you don't just want free housing, but you want it in the downtown core? But you don't want the people that make the housing to make any money? What about the labourers who build the house - should thay be forced to do it for free so you can have your free house? And what about everyone else who wants to live in that area, but there's not enough room for everyone - why should you get it over them even if you don't contribute anything to society?
Are we in the making shit up step? I never said anything about free housing or not paying people for their labor.
The problem is, that we live in the real world. Someone has to build and maintain the housing. Some people don't have any money for rent. If we are providing affordable housing as a human right, then that means free housing.
There are places in the world where healthcare is a human right. The people providing healthcare get paid. This is a solved problem.
That is a good argument. And overall it's been shown that having free healthcare saves money in the long run and leads to better quality of life. As would free basic housing probably. And free food. And free phones/internet. I am personally quite in favour of UBI which covers this. But at some point people are disincentivized to work / be productive. And that's a problem because humans are rather lazy when they can be. And we need people to be productive so that we can produce housing, food, healthcare, phones, internet, etc. Clearly things are out of whack now with housing costs too high compared to salaries. But I just don't think going full communist would work.
Who said anything about full communist? This is about landlords.
Pick a fucking lane.
'Full communist' as in everyone gets everything for free from the government. Like free healthcare, housing etc. if you don't want landlords but people can't afford to buy, the only other option is free stuff from the government.
I like the idea of UBI at a fairly low rate - ie just enough to survive ok - and with no clawbacks (for a certain level) - that way people have a safety net and aren't beholden 100% to employers, but are incentivized to find a job however small to improve their lot. It would be good for people's mental health. It encourages an upward spiral, and employers can't be completely shitty.
However you still need landlords - they offer rental arrangements for people who can't buy.
Pick a fucking lane.
You're steering the discussion elsewhere but to answer your question, affordable housing can be achieved through government subsidies and yes, that would includes free housing. If you're worried about freeloaders the subsidies can be contribution based. A part of your income goes the universal housing fund and with that fund housing projects can be either partially or fully subsidized.
Well the discussion moved yes - did I steer it? not intentionally. I would agree government housing is needed or UBI. But back to the original issue: that still doesn't mean landlords are necessarily evil. It's an important role and regulated and with proper controls a very valuable one.
You've yet to explain how that's an important role.
Many people cants get a mortgage as they cannot afford a down payment and/or they are too much of a credit risk for the bank. So they cannot buy a house. A landlord buys the house using their own down payment and assumes the risk and then provides an arrangement where people who otherwise could not get somewhere to live, now can rent on a monthly basis. Without the landlord, people who could not buy a place to live in would have to live on the streets. So the landlord plays an important roll unless you're ok with poorer people having to live on the streets.
You just pretty much described them as a necessary evil and hardly a benefit to the people who can't afford a house. They will have a roof over their head but that comes at the cost of accumulating wealth as a noticeable part goes to paying for the rent, wealth that could go towards buying a home. I'm not going to pat landlords on the back for essentially exploiting people who are already having it rough.
↑ More of you projecting your own laziness on others.
I'm certainly lazy yes. Laziness is the mother of invention. I work hard to build stuff that then allows me to be lazy. But then I'm on to the next project!
And I'm not a landlord nor a tenant so it's immaterial.