As a landlord and someone who loves shenanigans, it’s been great. It’s never been easier to piss off dozens of people I don’t like at once.
Like, sure dude, my owning a few houses is totally the reason your city that I don’t live in won’t build new housing to meet demand, and I totally enjoy spending all of my weekends doing manual labor fixing shit for my tenants.
my owning a few houses is totally the reason your city that I don’t live in won’t build new housing to meet demand
You’re literally buying the supply and creating a demand by owning more than you can personally use.
If you want to have an actual debate about housing supply and demand, I’m always down for reasonable discussion.
Ultimately what matters is that enough supply is built to meet buyer demand, whether it be from owner occupants or landlords. Landlords can buy up or build as much housing as they want, but as long as there’s still more available, the prices will stay reasonable and owner occupants will have no issues getting affordable housing. And buying up too much will crater the rental rates if there are significantly fewer potential tenants than available units. There are plenty of markets where this is the case, the city I am in is one of them. Someone on a $50k salary here would have no issues finding a modestly sized SFH in a reasonably nice working class neighborhood. Cheaper if you’re willing to go for a condo or townhouse.
