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The UK has completely abolished fees (I think) for tenants - I am a reluctant landlord - and I completely agree with that, the power asymmetry in finding housing is already bad enough without allowing blank-cheque negotiations. In my section of Germany, housing is even worse with rent caps and tenant rights, plus a lack of housing. Tenants are hard to move on, so landlords are painfully cautious about getting the rig…
If rent keeps going up, why don't people just buy to let?
As to if they can actually ever make money on this? Good question. If it was clearly penciling out in a spreadsheet though, competition would ensure it wouldn’t for long in the most in demand markets.
Other markets are saner because there is less competition, usually. This started changing nationwide about 10 years ago, as competition nationwide got out of hand due to easy money.
2) renters do all sorts of crazy bullshit sometimes, and unless you’re really good at managing it as a landlord you’re screwed. Sometimes even then you’re still screwed. Markets like Manhattan especially so.
Landlords which know how to manage these kinds of tenants often turn these kinds of tricks against all tenants to increase returns, and the courts adapt to be even more tenant friendly in many areas or political pressure makes things like rent control inevitable. Which amps up the game.
Eventually market conditions shift (either due to changes in money supply, or because the well is ‘poisoned’ on the landlord or tenant side), and we see things like 70’s era NYC or SF which nukes most of the property values for so long, the speculative players are forced to give up - either because they are broke, or because they have ‘greener pastures’ they are pursing. In RE, usually the former due to market liquidity issues.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can and does work in many places. Whole cities like Stockholm mostly consist of rent-controlled apartments which have same rents paid since WWII era, which now amount to almost nothing. It creates awful social distortions and indirect costs, but it certainly does work.
> It creates awful social distortions and indirect costs, but it certainly does work. I don't think this meets the criteria most would consider “working”.
Rent control tries to make housing more affordable by reducing the cost, which immediately reduces the supply. At that point, rent control ends up increasing housing costs.
Theory and real-world case studies mean that this is so obvious, that I just assume anyone that's passed economics 101 and is advocating for rent control is either grossly incompetent, currently very drunk, or is disingenuous and actually wants to use the power of the government to make sure other people cannot obtain secure and stable housing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can and does work in many places. Whole cities like Stockholm mostly consist of rent-controlled apartments which have same rents paid since WWII era, which now amount to almost nothing. It creates awful social distortions and indirect costs, but it certainly does work.
Supply and demand determines rent; if you have enough supply and also rent control, then you'll have have rent control that magically "works". But it's always supply and demand that gets the upper hand in the end. If there's a shortage of supply, and you put in more market rules & regulations, costs will shift elsewhere (like the broker in the article) or the black market will simply grow to clear the market.
If rent keeps going up, why don't people just buy to let?
I thought this seemed fair till i read it was in flushing. Nyc is the worst, but, if you’re American where else can you get a city that international and walkable
I thought this seemed fair till i read it was in flushing. Nyc is the worst, but, if you’re American where else can you get a city that international and walkable
The homeless are a problem, but New York has them too.
I thought this seemed fair till i read it was in flushing. Nyc is the worst, but, if you’re American where else can you get a city that international and walkable
Though if you want affordability, that leaves Chicago and Philly.
NYC sucks in that sense though, as a lot of industries that are conglomerated in NYC haven't ensured salaries keep up with those in High Finance and Tech
At least Boston has relatively affordable suburbs and Bay Area level wages, DC has plenty of federal jobs that pay competitively, and SF has the larger tech industry (which is still going great despite a couple high profile layoffs)
The reason I live in a large managed building in NYC is that while such corporate housing may be bad, the broker cartel is infinitely worse. Every independent unit wanted at minimum $7-10K in broker fees, despite the fact that in most cases I didn’t even interact with the broker in any way. So what value are they adding to the system exactly?