If the landlord thinks it is too difficult to collect my rent, he can simply move to another apartment and collect rent from someone else instead.
…And that why every city town and village in the western world now has its own little Hootervilles/tent cities
Hootervilles
This may not be a popular opinion, but this one regrettably validates libertarian logic. If we had a free market for housing, it’d bring rents down exactly this way. But we don’t, and it’s not even the fault of landlords or private equity, it’s due to government regulation. Housing in the U.S. is one of the most restrictively-regulated markets in existence. We can’t build more housing in most places because it’s illegal to do so under the zoning code, or it can’t be financed under HUD requirements for backing mortgages.
And this government came about because of the usual reason we do anything in the U.S.: Racism.
If we had a free market for housing, it’d bring rents down exactly this way.
The value of housing is set by the availability of the land and the proximity to useful natural resources and infrastructure.
We do have a free market for housing. What we don’t have is an infinite supply of vacant habitable land. Nor an infinite supply of freely accessible building materials.
This is a consequence of Enclosure policies, beginning in the 12th century and accelerating into the 17th and 18th centuries with the closing of European frontiers and a boom in the human population.
Housing in the U.S. is one of the most restrictively-regulated markets in existence.
That doesn’t mean much, given how laissez-faire the US has operated for the bulk of its existence.
What’s regulated is the legal transfer of property, largely as a response to the (often violent) historical disputes over land ownership.
But monopolization of real estate, in part thanks to loose monetary policy and in part thanks to the radically higher yield of lands following industrialization, is what limits individual access to housing.
With all due respect, this sounds like sophistry. The U.S. is generally very laissez faire in many things, but very much not so in the realm of land use. We have plenty of habitable land yet, but Euclidean zoning restricts what we’re allowed to do with it. In my city, which is typical in this regard, most of the land area is locked-in by law to single-family dwellings. We had a pretty contentious fight at the city council about easing the restrictions on the number of unrelated people who could live together in a house. (Typically, only family members are allowed.) It passed, which increased our available housing supply by a marginal amount.
Changes like this one, the Transit Overlay District zoning, and an apartment construction boom have not solved our housing woes, but we have had among the lowest growth in rental rates in the nation. And, not conincidentally, private equity has very little presence in our real estate market. Other cities that have allowed construction of new housing have similarly kept rental rates lower. Hence the states passing laws to eliminate single-family-only zones, and allowing the next increment of density by-right. Compare to California, the epicenter of the housing crisis, and the effect of very restrictive zoning, and Proposition 13.
The U.S. is generally very laissez faire in many things, but very much not so in the realm of land use.
That’s flatly false.
In my city, which is typical in this regard, most of the land area is locked-in by law to single-family dwellings
Laws written by developers which would change overnight if the largest firms told the city council to change them.
You have this backwards. These are not restrictions on big business. They’re rules written by landlords as part of a cartelization of real estate.
Houston is a great instance of this. We officially have “no zoning”, but so many HOAs and other contractual limits during deed transfer (the “single family” rule being a good example) that you’d never notice the difference.
In areas without extensive deed restrictions, AirBnB style investors have gobbled up available real estate for short term rentals. Efforts at the municipal level to curb this practice die in the same city council and courts that militantly defend the HOA in disputes.
This must be an old ass post, $1200 for a 1-bedroom is cheap in most US cities now.
Right? Almost all the places I’m finding that are $1200 or lower are for people aged 55+. There’s another senior community being built on the edge of my neighborhood. It’s frustrating, especially considering that so many of the 55+ people I know own their own properties and have no plans to give them up. Except my parents, who sold the home I grew up in, and are moving to another normal house in a lower CoL area. They’re pocketing $45,000 from the deal and bragging about it.
Meanwhile, my best chance to not be homeless by December is to win a housing lottery for one of 3 available low-income rental units. Mom tells me to move to a more southern state, but as a pansexual woman of reproductive age, I refuse to move to any state where I couldn’t be treated for an ectopic pregnancy.
Welp, I may not be sure I’ll have a physical building to stay in, but at least I’ve got a car with back seats that fold down…
In a 50 mile radius of my job the cheapest rent you can find is around 1800-2000 no pets allowed. 800 or less sq ft.
It’s awful
Homelessness and van life is illegal now. Also, working from home is becoming less acceptable….it’s almost like a monthly stipend to the billionaire class is a requirement to live.
“Almost”??
Sarcasm
1200 a month for a one bedroom? Where lol You wouldnt get a studio for that near me
You don’t know how old that post is. In a couple of years, the small fortune you pay today as rent will seem like pocket change.
The middle of nowhere where nobody really wants to live has some really affordable places to live.
Indiana, for example, has whole houses under 100,000. Like to own them. And they aren’t even condemned!
Around me a 2br apartment is around 900 at the moment. You can still find one bedrooms for around 550-650. Not very good ones but housing is housing.
Problem is there’s nothing to do, very little good employment, and you’ll never make good money, ever. So if you move to a depressed area, or are unlucky enough to have been raised in one, you’ll probably be there forever, because everywhere else costs a lot more than whatever your nest egg amounts to.
If everyone has the mindset there would be no cities with anything to do. Real estate thrre is cheap you could buy a house and open a bar or board game cafe pretty easily.
The problem is a board game cafe might not make money outside a city.
Rents probably cheap enough to work your 9-5 and open it in the nights. Theres plenty of small towns with fun things to do. If they can find that niche it proves its possible and you need to find out what would work for you and your town.
Market keeps going this way it’s gonna regulate a bunch of landlords into mulch
See I dont get this if every appartment is 1200 and up in your area and if I owned an apartment complex I’d start at 900 and up. You’d never hurt for renters. I know its greed, but, still.
But nobody is hurting for renters at the bottom of the price bracket. Those units go fast unless there’s something horrible about the unit.
There’s a whole class of landlords who refuse to rent to low income renters, so they wouldn’t do what you’re describing.
Landlords use a service that tells them what to charge.
That way they can illegally collude to fix prices, without actually talking to each other.
So instead of landlords gathering in smoke filled halls, planning how they will simultaneously raise rents together (which is illegal), a third-party company can be contracted by all of them to do the same thing but call it “data-driven decision making” and end up with the same result.
Collusion-as-a-service.
Nailed it, 100% A+ gold star. The worlds stupid, everyone’s out here trying to take anything they can from everyone else.
Straight up price fixing.
Hell, nowadays it’s all owned by one big “land developer” so they don’t even need the app. That’s the case where I used to live, the whole neighborhood was bought out to milk renters.
Allowing companies to own housing has to be the stupidest shit ever.
This sounds batshit insane, and it is, but it is also true. In the USA, anyway. What is even the job of the government under capitalism if not to fix this kind of shit.
What is even the job of the government under capitalism if not to fix this kind of shit.
Lol, the job of the government under capitalism is to facilitate this kind of shit.
$1200 for a studio maybe
