Explain to me who then takes responsibility to repair derelict properties into livable condition? The city? Local government? Would you take this on? What would you expect as compensation to take this on?
Well the landlords certainly don’t. I don’t give a shit about people taking advantage of others to generate a passive income for themselves without giving anything back in return while rents increase and just pocket in and continue screwing others over. Also companies buying up everything to artificially increase house costs can burn to the ground with the CEOs and executives inside.
Well, it sounds like you and I both agree that large companies like Black Rock, Zillow, and whoever else is involved in the alleged price fixing with that rent recommendation software thing are screwing society and yes, can burn to the ground.
I don’t know enough to comment on rents going up outside of them, but generally, things like this come down to both inflationary pressures and a consequence of free markets. Some states have enacted regulations capping the amount that rents can increase, others have not. I may be wrong, but it seems that your perspective on the situation is simplifying the issue to mean that landlords are squandering resources (homes/units) and extorting people without providing anything. There is still a positive result to society in providing places for people to live. A profit is needed in these cases, though, as it maintains incentive for maintaining homes and investing in the creation and rehabilitation of additional living spaces.
The primary issue right now from my best knowledge is that there simply isn’t enough supply of homes and living spaces available, leading to increased demand, and willingness to pay a higher price. If you ever take an economics class, you will learn the simple truth that the value of something is only up to what people are willing to pay. If demand is lowered, people, as a whole are less likely to pay for the price being asked, and the seller will need to continue lowering, and lowering their price to find what the buyer will willingly pay. This is part of the reason that we have the consequence of high interest rates at the moment as well.
So if the A/C dies in the summer making the home unlivable, you say you would be on the hook to repair it? It’s on the landlord or property owner.
If you go back to my comment I am bringing in the idea of a derelict property. There is no tenant in a derelict property, aside from possibly a squatter.
And how about if nobody can even live there in the first place because it’s so bad? Then who pays?
Where does the landlord get the money? Do landlords often rent property at a loss? Is being a landlord a charity, where someone takes their own money and uses it to subsidize a stranger’s housing costs?
Of course not. Landlords set the rent such that rent - costs > 0. The money to repair a rental home ultimately comes from the renter. The landlord may pay up-front, as in your example with a derelict property, but that’s with the intention of making back what they pay and more in the form of rent. Like all businesses, the cost of doing business plus all the profit the market will bear gets passed on to the consumer.
The people who own them? What do landlords have to do with derelict properties anyway? Once repaired they could be sold or rented, but landlords are not the ones fixing up old houses…
So then who coordinates the work to get old houses fixed up? Who organizes and provides the funding, sources contractors, makes design decisions about how to best rehabilitate a home for modern use, and holds the whole project accountable for its completion?
Across the nation and most of the rest of the world both resident owners and landlord owners will fix up properties. Unlivable properties however are primarily taken on by investors and rehab-to-rent landlords. Yes, they are making a profit out of it (most of the time), but society then receives an additional livable unit in good condition, or possibly more if it is a multifamily complex.
