Is it greedy landlords? Or is there a bigger issue at play, and landlords are the scapegoat? I imagine not all landlords are greedy, but if market price is $1,600, why wouldn’t the landlord charge $1,600?
No, not all landlords are greedy but the ones who’s decisions have a large impact on the housing market are. The elderly widow who is renting out her basement to a young professional isn’t being greedy. The CEO who said this quarter he’ll return 25 million in stock buy backs instead of the regular 15 million are the greedy motherfuckers
You got 2 downvotes for saying it’s not all landlords. I think that was what I was getting at.
It’s easy to point your finger and blame an imaginary person for your problems. But it’s often much more complicated than that.
There’s an infrastructure built around benefiting people with wealth that, in turn, harms people without wealth.
but if market price is $1,600, why wouldn’t the landlord charge $1,600?
Because they’re not greedy. Since they all do, they’re all greedy. No exceptions.
Because after construction costs have already been paid off everything that exceeds maintenance costs is pure profit for landlords.
Wanting to increase profis beyond the inflation rate to cover their own costs of living is greed.
You’re just saying “capitalism is greed”. Which is fine, and not wrong, but it Isn’t all that insightful and does nothing to solve any actual problems.
Fact is, supply and demand is driving these costs, not greedy landlords. If somebody wasn’t paying that rent, they wouldn’t be charging that much.
We need to prioritize building low income/affordable homes. Flood the market with supply and the price will go down.
supply and demand is driving these costs
In an abstract economy 101 sense that is true.
In a more concrete real world sense, the price is set by the landlord. Neither the supply nor the demand curve force the landlord to increase rent.
We need to prioritize building low income/affordable homes. Flood the market with supply and the price will go down.
That too is somewhat true. In a profit oriented market however the lower bound of the price of rent is dictated by the building costs, the time it takes to recuperate these costs and the expected profit margin.
Assuming building costs are more or less fixed in the short term, flooding the market and reducing the price you can charge will reduce potential profits. Thus private investors are incentivized to build only so much that it does not significantly lower prices.
So, the “we” that could lower prices by building more would have to be the state or some public entity that is less profit focused, not private landlords.
Why should we have a market for housing at all? Not everything needs to be a market
Are you not in America? We have whole software systems illegally manipulating the rental market prices.
This is a great example of one of those “bigger issues” I was talking about.
Even if it is a bigger issue, the landlords still hold blame for the situation. Can’t escape that
If I’m not mistaken Liz Ryan is a former fortune 500, has been a consultant to several multibillion dollar companies like IBM, and at one point might have been appointed by the Biden Admin to run Youth Counseling services?
IDK, but I’m not convinced she’s struggling with rent or groceries and she doesn’t seem to pick the correct side in US Politics.
She doesn’t have to be struggling herself to see other people’s struggles and try to amplify their voice.
Even when people are millionaires, it’s a reality that they likely can’t just turn over their whole fortune at once to fix things. I’d generally guess people like this donate a lot to programs trying to fix these issues.
So because she’s not personally struggling, she can’t analyze the situation?
Whenever you see a message promoted and shared at large scale you have to try to analyze what it is they have to gain and what steps they’ve taken to achieve it.
They’re not promoting the obvious solution. They make massive amounts of money just by maintaining this image as a megacorp consultant and an author. Smells like grift, that’s all I’m saying.
Except she is identifying the problem and kinda the solution. You are just complaining because… you don’t like her. Her analysis was fine, your “analysis” was “idk” and ‘but but but she must be bad’. It’s kinda weird. Something tells me I just should peace out of this conversation.
My mortgage is close to 1600 a month. Plus HOA fees on top of that.
I dont think rent being at that price range is always greedy landlords.
What’s your interest rate? That plays a huge factor in what your monthly payments are.
Look at what it would cost to rent a similar house in your area in terms of sq footage and location. Note a house not an apartment I shouldn’t be surprised if its closer to $3500
I have the same mortgage and a property manager I talked to said my house would rent for $2300. Major American city.
Actually there’s an influx of similar properties around here that are just asking for 1600ish per month.
Having taken the point of this post as it was intended, we can also recognize that learning how to manage your money is in fact always a good thing. Will basic hygiene undo generations of economics? No, but we certainly shouldn’t NOT teach young people to manage their money.
Nobody on earth has suggested we stop teaching economic literacy. We should however stop pretending it is sufficient. We require systemic change.
I wish I felt confident in that. But you can almost hear it right in this tweet. The mere suggestion of financial literacy is borderline offensive.
It’s similar to how the notion of reducing your personal environmental impact is actively shit upon these days. Say anything about it and someone will shout you down about how corporations pollute more.
It’s very similar: there are larger forces polluting the environment that make your personal behaviors insufficient to solve the problem.
All true.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do what you can personally.
I think there’s a suggestion we start teaching it. I’m 37, but there were idiots who didn’t understand credit cards when I was 18, and there’s just as many now, and there were just as many in 1995. I think this response thread here was meant to say yes, understanding the system is fucked, even if we come out on the other side with a functional economy, people still need to learn some personal responsibility when it comes to spending.
So someone is renting it out. It’s all supply and demand?? I don’t think landlord just leave their apartment empty unless someone comes with 1600 bucks rents.
In Denver here, it’s hard to find apartment and 2 bed 2 bath close to boulder is 2500 bucks minimum. But people still want to stay close to boulder rather than living on cheaper town.
