Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

The fact that there are a not insignificant number of people comparing this game to the real world suggests that basic economic education is severely lacking.

There's actually this great book called Basic Economics, for those interested.

Russia does not have landlords (as a medium business). Virtually all apartments available for rent belong to moms and pops who happen to have a surplus so they're renting out. They usually have just one property which they rent out.

Add to that retirees who lend out their 2nd apartment to live off it.

The prices aren't exactly low but the market is pretty durable as the result. Lots of offerings at any moment at competing prices. The regulation is also almost inexistent.

What definition of landlord excludes people renting out surplus apartments?

> Now, Colossal Order says, it will be based on a household’s income: “Even if they currently don’t have enough money in their balance to pay rent, they won’t complain and will instead spend less money on resource consumption.”

Good idea, negative reward for increased income. Sounds like a socialist utopia.

I believe a better option would be to remove mortgages. I have a few reasons for this:

1. Houses are priced based on what people are able to pay for them, they cannot hold more value than people can afford. Additionally, there is little incentive to purchase a home when you are old. A mortgage essentially allows a person to borrow significant amounts of money from their uncertain future.

2. Mortgages are becoming unreasonably long. There is nobody that can reasonably suggest that they can afford to repay a mortgage over a period of 50 years. You cannot predict that far into the future regarding your health or employability. We have people now getting mortgages that will last well into their retirement, there is no real hope of these being paid back.

3. In almost all economic turmoil, mortgage issues exasperate the problem. It very quickly becomes a negative feedback cycle. People fail to make payments, banks see increased mortgage risk exposure, mortgage rates are increased, people are less willing to get mortgages & more people fail to make payments, house prices drop significantly - suddenly multiple industries collapse.

Of course in practice this will not be achievable. Foreign investors would still have access to borrowed money that is difficult to track. People would still be able to borrow money through non-official routes (family and friends).

Annec data: We built several houses in the UK ourselves (paying contractors where required). Including the cost of land, our time and all other expenses, the houses were instantly worth 2x once built. In the 10 years or so they have existed, they are now worth 3-4x the original investment. It doesn't add up.

I always heard that Saint Petersburg is one of the most expensives cities in Europe compared to income. Is that not the case? (anymore)