You’re correct, but at the same time, buying a house was still a very expensive back then as well. It was major purchase for most people, just not to the same extant relative to today.
Okay, so we agree that there is a problem then. It was feasible in the past and basically impossible now. If housing prices were relatively the same as they were when I was a child I wouldn't be upset about landlords, but we are in a housing crises now and something has to change.
The majority of the houses that are vacant are either seasonal houses in states like Maine, Florida, or West Virginia
You mean vacation homes. People who own multiple properties so that can sit vacant the majority of the year. Boo-fucking-hoo if people have to sell their vacation home to someone who actually needs a place to live.
they’re undergoing renovations (source)
The only thing your source says is "Some are seasonal homes, some are undergoing renovations, and others are simply being held as investments." it does not provide a number or a link. 2 houses undergoing renovations counts as "some".
There is still a decent portion that are being held as investments
That's exactly the fucking problem. Yes.
it’s not your mom and pop landlords who are doing that, it’s massive corporations like Blackrock or JP Morgan Chase who actually have the means to sit on empty properties, pay the taxes, and play long manipulative game.
So we agree that the majority of rental properties are owned by a landlord that is making life objectively worse for people? Then we should do something about that instead of clutching pearls about the 1% of houses owned by "mom and pop landlord".
And speaking of, can we stop with the "mom and pop landlord" bullshit? I have family members who are exactly the type of people you are talking about. They own a rental property and take care of it and their renters. If suddenly they couldn't do that anymore they would be fine. The property is not their livelihood, it's an investment. They would just invest in something else. These are people that can afford multiple properties in the current market (which we already agreed is much too expensive).
Property can be affordable or be an investment, not both. I'm arguing that it should be affordable (being a basic requirement for survival and all). People using it as an investment can go invest somewhere else.
that is a different discussion than saying that rent is inherently bad.
What you're not getting is I don't think economic policy should be based around people with more money than sense.
We are in a housing crises right now, the vast majority of people want to own a home but could never reasonably afford to. I don't give a shit about the small fraction of a percent of people that find it more convenient for them.
"I absolutely know people who never set foot in a hospital" is not an argument against healthcare.
Building homes is expensive. It requires land, materials, skilled labor, permits, and time. Buying a home is a major investment
And yet it not very long ago it was feasible for a single income earner on minimum wage to not only be able to afford a home, but do so while supporting a family. So what has ballooned in price to make that out of reach for the vast majority of people? The land, materials, skilled labor, permits, or the house itself due to it being used as an investment?
Like any market, housing is shaped by supply and demand.
There are many viable houses sitting vacant because the landlords would rather wait for someone that can afford the absurdly high rent than risk lowering the market value of rent for their other properties.
If the first person in line to a concert purchases every ticket then resells them for 10x the cost the solution is not "make more tickets available". The scalper will just buy them as well.
In the house I own yet could not afford to rent I have no issue with those unexpected costs because I am able to save the money that is not going to a landlord in order to pay them.
The renter is paying for the cost of a new roofer or HVAC system anyway, whether the home ends up needing one or not, and they have zero say in how or when it happens.
Property is a limited resource. When people scalp concert tickets they get vilified. When they do the same thing for something necessary for survival people like you defend it with "well there are pros and cons..."
The maintenance and taxes on my home are far cheaper then rent in my area. I could not afford to rent the home I own.
People don't understand that a landlord is going to charge enough rent to cover all those costs and still make a profit. Otherwise they would just sell the home.
The guy who first wrote "eiland" spelled it as such. Then some idiot put an 's' on it as a stylistic choice to latinize a word that has no Latin root. Now if you spell it any way other than "island" you are wrong because that is the way to word is used and understood.
Or, to put it another way, if you want to insist language is set in stone let me translate for you:
Se mann þe ǣrest wrāt "eiland," swā hine stæfode. Þā sum dysig mann an 's' onlēde swā stīlcræft, tō Lǣden sprǣce þæt word þe næfþ nān Lǣden rōt. Nū gif þū hine stæfian on ǣnige wīsan būtan "island," þū bist wōh, forþām þæt is sēo wīs þe þæt word is gebrocen and understonden.
It's a sign of mental illness. If I had $500 million I wouldn't work another day in my life. You would never hear about me. I would go live somewhere quiet and have everything I could possibly want delivered to me.
To have more wealth than you could possibly spend in the rest of your miserable life, and yet so desperately desire more that you're willing to break any moral, ethical, or legal framework in your way and make political enemies in order to do so, is a sign of a deeply disturbed individual who not only should not be in charge of anything but should probably be kept away from the general public.
They're silent because they know all the protestors will go back to work tomorrow. If you want to force them to acknowledge it you need to show up the next day as well.
