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Rent is Too Dang High in Cities: Skylines 2, So the Devs Nuked the Landlords 293

Posted by msmash from the too-damn-high dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: City building simulations are not real life. They can be helpful teaching tools, but they abstract away many of the real issues in changing communities. And yet, sometimes a game like Cities: Skylines 2 (C:S2) will present an issue that's just too timely and relevant to ignore. Such is the case with "Economy 2.0," a big update to the beleaguered yet continually in-development game, due to arrive within the next week or so. The first and most important thing it tackles is the persistent issue of "High Rent," something that's bothering the in-game citizens ("cims" among fans), C:S2 players, and nearly every human living in the United States and many other places.

C:S2 has solutions to high rent, at least for their virtual citizens. They removed the "virtual landlord" that takes in rent, so now a building's upkeep is evenly split among renters. There's a new formula for calculating rent, one that evokes a kind of elegant mathematical certainty none of us will ever see: "Rent = (LandValue + (ZoneType * Building Level)) * LotSize * SpaceMultiplier"
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Rent is Too Dang High in Cities: Skylines 2, So the Devs Nuked the Landlords More

Rent is Too Dang High in Cities: Skylines 2, So the Devs Nuked the Landlords

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  • Rent-seeking is a universally-recognized failure. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @11:08AM (#64549131)
    And yet, due to politics, it's a universally-tolerated (if not encouraged) predatory behavior. Publics around the world must come to terms with the fact that policy has badly lagged economic knowledge. They must develop strategies to mitigate it.

    • It is a failure in one context (overall efficiency of the economy), but in terms of return on investment it is the best strategy one can be involved in.

      • Exactly. Tragedy of the commons and such. Ecological collapse.

        • Re:Rent-seeking is a universally-recognized failur (Score:5, Interesting)

          by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @12:48PM (#64549447)
          Sounds about right. Rent seeking and all. Yet, and I know I will get modded down for this, but oh well: without a profit incentive, why build buildings that you want to rent? Greed is good it turns out, which is why capitalism vanquished communism. Productivity it turns out needs to be incentivized. Sorry if economic realities ruin your world view. (note: I come off as a landlord, but I am not one). Landlords used their capital to create rentable real estate, and do so at volume to receive their profit incentive.

          If you want to know why rent is high, look no where else than barriers to entry. As a renter, you should have the option to rent from anyone who wants to rent property to you, and has property (or the means to develop it) to rent to you. Unfortunately, government steps in, appeases the NIMBY, restricts zoning, and limits the supply of real-estate. Now, rent is significantly higher than it would otherwise be. You can profit a lot as a landlord, and the government is your best friend. They create artificial scarcity by limiting development in various schemes, and building is arduous, IF AND WHEN the zoning ever gets approved. I know a small time homebuilder in California that I do work for on occasion, and his stories are absolutely shocking. Bribes to building inspectors, not for approvals, just for getting appointments. City councils putting projects that are already started on hold because of some anonymous complaint, etc..

          Put every other notion out of your head. This is why rent is expensive. Want prices to come down? Reduce demand, or increase supply. So, unless you want mass deportations (short term demand reduction), or limits on children per couple (long term demand reduction), your only viable option to decrease rent without causing further shortages, is to remove the restriction on supply expansion.

          Why you know this works, is that it IS so profitable. Every developer wants to enter the market or lean into it, but can not.

          I'll take my mod downs now.

          • How about *dont* build buildings you intend to rent. How about everyone deserves to have a roof over their head and not perpetually be in bondage to someone else to have it.

            • Really? Here in California you cannot afford to build anything but large scale apartment buildings or McMansions. The government here makes it nearly impossible because the fees and regulations are onerous. My city recently reduced the fees for a single unit by $50,000 for low income housing. That's just the city's fees. Don't forget the county and state. So you think you can afford to build your own house here? Good luck with that! In order to deal with the socialist government of California, you have to h

            • They've tried constructing low income housing.

              https://ternercenter.berkeley.... [berkeley.edu]

              TL;DR:

              "Affordable Housing Costs: The cost of building a 100-unit affordable project in California increased from $265,000 per unit in 2000 to almost $425,000 in 2016."

              That's back in 2016. Before inflation went crazy.

              These aren't even houses - they're just individual units in a housing complex. And these things are being built by people who put together these projects for a living.

              Yes, you can build somewhere cheaper, without al

          • First you have to address the extreme, completely profit-driven consolidation of ownership before claiming that "government interference" is somehow driving the problem. There are severe anti-trust issues in real estate today, and as far as I've seen, governments don't dare address them. Developers are incredibly powerful.

    • Re:Rent-seeking is a universally-recognized failur (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @11:49AM (#64549257)
      You fundamentally misunderstand that there are multiple concepts of "rent"

      In real estate, when a market is working efficiently, a landlord incurs REAL expenses to upkeep a property, and they need to spend time administering it as well. The roof doesn't just replace itself, you know. Add in some reasonable level of profit, and that should determine the rent. If the market is working well, any landlord who tries to soak their tenants for extra money will lose said tenants, who leave for better digs. In other words, when things work properly, a landlord charging rent is nothing more than a legit fee-for-service.

      "Rent-seeking behavior" is totally different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Generally speaking, the landlords that I know are NOT rolling in cash, taking european vacations and lighting up their cuban cigars with flaming $100 bills. For every 100 bucks they charge for rent, they're generally spending about 90-95 of it on the property itself and paying themselves a reasonable wage. Sure, the remaining 5-10 bucks is profit, but that's their reward for taking a business risk. Most landlords I've known got out of the game after 5-10 years because it's such a bruising experience.

      I can't speak for other parts of the world, but in the US, the hard truth is that rents are high because we, as a civilization, decided to abandon the construction of low-cost and starter housing. It's not a one-sided thing. The libs hate the idea of destroying anything "nature" especially if it inconveniently happens to bring down their own property values. The conservatives haven't given a single damn about the poors for over 50 years but wow they talk a good game. The idea that Trump has managed to convince a bunch of blue collar white guys that he represents their interests - you almost have to admire it.

      Don't like it? Vote in leaders who are pro-growth and pro-housing, but that doesn't get clicks on NBC or FOX. Much easier to just blame the mustache-twirling landlords.
      • I only mean rent-seeking in the economic sense of the term. But unfortunately, a large and growing proportion of living situations in America are dominated by it because real estate and development monopolism.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Smidge204 ( 605297 )

        > decided to abandon the construction of low-cost and starter housing.

        We could have affordable housing, except those houses are sold to speculators who rent it instead of living in it. You have corporations owning thousands of homes and renting them instead of letting individuals own them. This raises the cost of housing because now there's a middleman group of investors demanding their returns between the wannabe occupants and the housing market. This is rent-seeking per your preferred definition; Putti

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The problem is that the market never does work well. The idea that it even can is a fantasy, because in the real world people don't have a free choice of where to live and are not able to move as soon as more favourable conditions exist somewhere else. Their choices depend on a complex combination of factors, such as where they work and what type of job it is, how good the commute into work is, where their family and friends are, and how much pain they are willing to tolerate to avoid the expense and hassle

        • I suspect there’s more competition than you think. I can almost always move a few miles away to another apartment complex, operated by a different company. Even in big cities.

          Landlords face real costs, and they’re rising. Have you tried to hire someone to redo your bathroom recently? I don’t mean some fancy gold-plated Trump bathroom. I mean a standard “update my small 40-year old bathroom” type of job. The cost will amaze you. Landlords don’t get much of a better dea

    • Re:Rent-seeking is a universally-recognized failur (Score:5, Informative)

      by TaliesinWI ( 454205 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @12:13PM (#64549337) Journal

      "Rent seeking" isn't just "someone charging rent". It's technically not even the same meaning of the word "rent". In the term "rent seeking", the "rent" is when an entity seeks to gain wealth without providing a reciprocal benefit.

      If a landlord is renting me an apartment, but is responsible for the upkeep of the structure, the taxes, etc., that's providing value. I pay him something, I get something in return. Not rent seeking.

      If there's a river in someone's back yard and one day they decide to put down chains blocking the boats from going by, charging a tool for passage, but _doing nothing else_, THAT is rent-seeking. The chain didn't need to be there, the use of the river is less efficient, the only one gaining is the person charging the toll.

    • We should follow Cities Skylines 2 lead in real life.
    • It breaks our frameworks for thinking about economics. Landlords put nothing into the equation - maintaining the property isnt work, it's necessary to maintain the investment and creates nothing of value itself. The labor involved doesn't add value.

      It's not a coincidence that the labor theories of value espoused by folks like Hume and Hayek came about as aristocracy was being phased out. The notion that your labor isn't worth the surplus value extracted but whatever the market will pay is an awfully conv

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by suutar ( 1860506 )

        So a well maintained house/car/whatever has no value over a badly maintained one? Because that's the only way I can interpret "maintenance does not create value"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Rent-seeking in economics is NOT the same as leasing and charging rent for the use of an actual asset.

  • Most voters own a home. Anything that reduces the price of rent [is peceived to, and might actually in the short term] reduce the value of home ownership. How do you solve that? I own, but support any policy that reduces the price of rent. But most people who own a home 1. don't want the value of their house to reduce, and 2. don't want "poor" people living around them because they think (rightfully?) that attracts crime and reduces the value of their house.

    Politicians seem to think inflation is the solutio

    • Anything that reduces the price of rent [is peceived to, and might actually in the short term] reduce the value of home ownership.

      As you imply, it's the perception that really matters. However, I'd assert that most freedom-minded changes that allow owners to do what they wish with their property (such as build an additional unit in the backyard) will actually allow the owner to increase the value of their property in ways that the rights grabbers (neighbors, HOAs, the city & county government) would try to prevent.

    • Yeah there is a conflict happening where the prevailing thought is that your home should be a store of value and/or investment when that creates other problems as you exactly describe. It's a tricky problem to solve but ultimately we are all going to have to come to grips with the fact that homes should not in fact be stores of value if we also want home prices and rent to be affordable, I suppose if that is the outcome you want, that's the big question, what do we want from the rental and housing market?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        homes should not in fact be stores of value if we also want home prices and rent to be affordable

        I think you mean "good investments" [archive.org] instead of "stores of value." There's an important difference between the two.

    • Re:Renters vs. Owners (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @11:35AM (#64549201) Journal
      As a landlord I support policies that reduce the price of rent. Like rent control. But up to a point only; if you push it too far, landlords will simply sell off their properties and invest elsewhere. Which is what I did, along with a vast number of other landlords, and (far worse) many investors who were set to build new rental properties or convert office buildings into apartments. They all ran, leaving the tenants in the street, because rent control was tightened and additional taxes imposed. Newly minted landlords ended up with negative cash flow, while old timers like myself sold up because the ROI dropped to less than I got in interest on my savings account.

      If there is a housing shortage driving up rents, you can't just legislate affordable housing out of thin air. The only lasting fix is to build more. Rent controls can provide some temporary relief, but if house prices keep going up, rental properties will be converted and sold off.

      • That's all true. Though there are also problems like cartels [denverpost.com] driving up the price of rent. It's a separate problem of course, but simply building more houses doesn't necessarily solve it. At least, not until the raw number of houses is so high that a very large population of would-be renters can easily become home owners instead.

        In the recent past I read about some new housing construction efforts in a few states, I think Texas was one. The problem was that the builders only wanted to build high-end lux

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        As a landlord I support policies that reduce the price of rent. Like rent control. But up to a point only; if you push it too far, landlords will simply sell off their properties and invest elsewhere. Which is what I did, along with a vast number of other landlords, and (far worse) many investors who were set to build new rental properties or convert office buildings into apartments. They all ran, leaving the tenants in the street, because rent control was tightened and additional taxes imposed. Newly minted landlords ended up with negative cash flow, while old timers like myself sold up because the ROI dropped to less than I got in interest on my savings account.

        I would argue that we've gotten into a situation in major cities where far too many properties are being held en masse by speculators and rented out, and far too few properties are actually owned by the residents, and that this situation is kind of unhealthy. Rent control going too far and making the rental market not worth the effort can help reverse that by encouraging the owners to sell those rental properties to people who will actually live there, thus driving the percentage of renters down to a healt

        • But converted to what? I suspect the most likely answer is more housing with higher density, typically, barring a rezoning. So that conversion likely results in exactly what you're asking for — building more housing.

          Depends. Looking at typical rental properties in the city where I had mine, almost all properties were sold off to people who wanted to live in them. Smaller homes and apartments were sold as is (or tarted up a bit), so 1 less rental home and 1 new homeowner, no net gain or loss. But in a lot of cases, the rental properties were split into smaller studios, a bit too small for starter homes. Or it was straight up room rental with shared facilities. Those units were merged, so instead of 4 studios for 4

        • If there is a housing shortage driving up rents, you can't just legislate affordable housing out of thin air. The only lasting fix is to build more. Rent controls can provide some temporary relief, but if house prices keep going up, rental properties will be converted and sold off.

          This is very true. But converted to what? I suspect the most likely answer is more housing with higher density, typically, barring a rezoning. So that conversion likely results in exactly what you're asking for — building more housing.

          It doesn't work that way. There's always a separate process for luxury housing because rent controls don't make sense for luxury housing. But that means that the best thing to do with unprofitable rental property is to convert it into lower density luxury housing, or else into commercial real estate, reducing housing stock and further increasing upward pressure on rents.

          The real answer is to abolish rent controls -- they always make things worse -- and increase construction permitting including rezoning a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      Really? Citation, please.

    • "Most voters own a home" citation please.

  • The problem is people (Score:3)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @11:27AM (#64549187) Journal

    Specifically, too many people. Reduce the population and both rent and home prices will decrease.

    We know this is the answer because this is exactly what happened when the Plague went through Europe and took out 1/3 to 1/2 the population. Another effect is wages rose as employers sought out people to work.

    Reducing the population would also increase the quality of life. Instead of being jammed like rats in a cage with all the consequent noise and pollution, people would be able to spread out and breathe more easily (literally and figuratively). More open land and/or forested land would help keep temperatures cooler and reduce water runoff so flooding would be mitigated.

    And for those who will inevitably say, wHy DoN't YoU gO fIrSt, we'll just follow what businesses do. When a person leaves a position, the position doesn't get filled. Over time headcount is reduced through attrition.

    • You seem like someone who may have read or heard about this website at some point?

      https://www.vhemt.org/ [vhemt.org]

    • You sound like a member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement [vhemt.org].

      Incidentally, that's the way things are going. Even though the human population is still currently rising [worldometers.info], the rate of growth has fallen off a cliff and in developed countries the population is falling, with some policymakers being very alarmed and trying to encourage more population growth by outright paying people [thebump.com] to have kids.

      The strategies being used to encourage more breeding won't work of course, as they fail to address any of the roo

    • That's a stupid solution. The existence of homeless and poor is caused by a combination of 1. people being greedy and also 2. by some people being mentally ill (drug addiction or schizo). It's not an issue of lack of resources. About 1% of people in the USA are housing-insecure. The top 1% of the USA has a net worth of about $6 million. If the top 1% could have gathered themselves $6 million in resources, why couldn't the bottom 1% have secured housing? The issue is basically that some people are able to ge

    • Absolutely not the issue is simply not enough homes in the areas people want to live.

      I don't know if it's true but I read something that said if the Greater Los Angeles metro had the same density as the Greater Tokyo area it would have a population of 234 million. Considering the greater LA area is about 13 million I would say we are nowhere near running out of space for homes.

    • When a person leaves a position, the position doesn't get filled. Over time headcount is reduced through attrition

      Yeah. That's exactly what IS happening. [census.gov] And you're forgetting that many nations have set up their economies on infinite growth. Someone who built a building for 1000 people, only having 800 in it hurts that person's bottom line.

      people would be able to spread out and breathe more easily (literally and figuratively)

      Which makes it difficult to have specialty industries. There's a reason things like Oracle and three major healthcare providers all want to live in the same city. There's a reason why there are tech giants close by where silicon design is done. There's a reason why oil extracti

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      There is a problem with too many people, but that's not the cause of the problems with cities. Cities are a LOT denser than the average density of people/acre.

      Cities have lots of benefits, as well as costs. The benefits are such that even in the stone age lots of people wanted to live in cities. (Actually, good transportation decreased the desire to live in cities.) But the costs are definitely real. (E.g., there's lots of cheap housing in extremely rural Nevada, but nobody lives there. [Admittedly, i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Sure, the Thanos solution would instantly solve the high rent problem. But population is just one parameter in the problem. So is ownership model. There's also regional development patterns, zoning restrictions, and transportation options, whcih determine the size of the market and the shape of the demand and supply curves. Because there are many factors contributing to the rent problem, there are many possible approaches to solving it.

      For example, back in the 50s and 60s there was a lot of "slum cleara

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Instead of being jammed like rats in a cage

      Anyone who opposes overcrowding should support density. The difference. [twimg.com]

      More open land and/or forested land would help keep temperatures cooler and reduce water runoff so flooding would be mitigated.

      Yes, that's another reason to support higher density [njfuture.org]. From that article:

      "Using the average impervious surface coverage rates of the different residential development types, we can see that when measured on a per-capita or per-household basis, rural single-family devel

    • You know what else happens when your reduce population? You reduce production, which means you reduce economic output.Things that worked properly when there were 10 people to run them start to fall apart when you only have five people to do the work.

  • > so now a building's upkeep is evenly split among renters.
    Haha, good luck. Back during great social experiment called Socialism, in the soviet block. It did not work so great. It's everybody's problem and nobody feels like owning it and doint anything about it so things fall apart. Shared ownership is the core idea of socialism, btw.

    This approaches it as the lenders were, for most part, the abuser. But when shit breaks do you fix it yourself? No you go and complain to lender which then hires somebody t

    • No, you charge a maintenance fee like today, and the condo board delegates contractors for upkeep. The problem is in the construction. Construction is not cheap, so you need a lender for the financing.

      But that is not the issue anyway. The problem is that property is now an investment opportunity. Which encourages predatory practices and pushes the rent upwards, as they seek to profit off their investment.

      • The problem is in the construction. Construction is not cheap, so you need a lender for the financing.

        Bingo, it's a similar situation for folks who want to start worker-cooperative businesses, a lot of banks have a preference for traditional business setups and to be fair it's a lot more predictable risk with a standrd landlord/business owner arrangement.

        I think some legislative efforts could help grease the wheels for more of that style of development to take place.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hazem ( 472289 )

      Shared ownership is the core idea of socialism, btw.

      Shared ownership (via stocks) is the core idea of capitalism, btw.

  • This seems pretty similar to the concept of a rental cooperative - a group of people form a non-profit or other org structure that basically just splits upkeep costs evenly between all the residents. It's a really sensible way to do things, offers a lot of the same benefits of things like cooperative credit unions instead of banks. The problem is just that it requires paperwork, organization, and there's not huge money in it for anybody in particular. On the other hand, it's immensely profitable (and gives

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Terwin ( 412356 )

      This seems pretty similar to the concept of a rental cooperative - a group of people form a non-profit or other org structure that basically just splits upkeep costs evenly between all the residents. It's a really sensible way to do things, offers a lot of the same benefits of things like cooperative credit unions instead of banks. The problem is just that it requires paperwork, organization, and there's not huge money in it for anybody in particular. On the other hand, it's immensely profitable (and gives huge tax benefits) to acquire property as a landlord.

      It would be really interesting if someone put out some policies that streamlined and incentivized rental co-operatives, or if someone found a business model to allow the concept to become much more widespread.

      You can either rely on the selfless hard work of competent people who believe in this system and do the required work without pay(the current model, making it rare), or you can create laws that require specific people to do the work without pay so that it can be more common, but we fought a war to stop that sort of thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Cooperatives of any sort are fragile, though I'm not sure they're more fragile that companies. I've known a couple that had kept going since the late 1940's, but I'm not sure they're still going. And definitely there was another one that died when a new board decided to "be more business-like and expand the business". It had been going since the same time period.

      I think cooperatives *should* be encouraged. But they'll never have the spare capital for lobbying that commercial companies do, because they r

  • over collusion. Meanwhile for the 1st time in 15 years my rent didn't go up. Somehow I don't think those two are unrelated.

  • That has been tried in the USSR. There was no rent, only "payment for services".

    It sounds great. The only snag is - if there is no profit motive, then no one is interested in creating any new housing units.
    So, a shortage of housing ensues promptly. Generations of families living in the same tiny room, waiting 20+ years for a building somewhere to be complete (because the only reason for a building to be complete, if there is no profit to be made, is "because the government told you so"). And I assure you th

    • That's only a problem if people aren't allowed to build their own homes. Remember, "having a place to live" is itself a form of "profit" - so there will always be a demand for housing.

      Trouble manifests itself when people who don't need a home are the only ones who are given the resources or permits to build homes - regardless of being intentional or un-intentional effects of policy/regulation. That's when you get into the "there's no profit motive" spiral, because people that need houses can't build them,

      • Where does the land to build these homes come from?

        It's simple reality that not all land is equally desirable or suitable. So even if you're giving free land away, how do you parcel it out equitably, while also managing things like necessary infrastructure and services?

        • Sure - that's one of those aspects that either intentionally or unintentionally makes it difficult for people who need a house to get one.

          What could we as a society do to change or review policy to address the fundamental issue of space required for housing? The existing "highest bidder for the land" model often pushes out housing, because things that "have a higher ROI" can buy the land.

          So it will need to be something that starts assigning ROI not just in terms of money but also societal benefit.

          Perhaps we

  • building's upkeep is evenly split among renters (Score:3)

    by Osgeld ( 1900440 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @12:24PM (#64549383)

    yea we already have examples on how that works IRL

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      No need to ask if the simulation includes random building collapse due to neglect. The good news is that when collapses occur, they have only themselves and the contractors stupid enough to deal with them to sue.

  • Where is the cost for Damage Repair, Government Regulations, Property Taxes and Upkeep in the equation as landlord expenses? "Rent = (LandValue + (ZoneType * Building Level)) * LotSize * SpaceMultiplier"
  • Take your bloody commie ways! We don't want to communally pay for anything!
  • It feels weird to defend landlords, but a decent landlord does a lot more than just cash checks. While it may not seem like a full-time job, when an issue arises you usually need to take care of it immediately. A tenant was robbed and their door was kicked in? You'd better find someone who can replace that door, and possibly the frame, immediately or you could be liable for any additional incidents in that doorless property. A tenant reports a leaky roof, you'd better get that fixed ASAP and make sure t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      You know you can have a company who is responsible for all work while not owning the building. You pay them monthly plus all expanses and they do all the necessary work you describe.
  • I have a simple solution. No housing loans for investment reasons. Whether it be individuals or companies. The only ones who should qualify for a housing loan are people who want to buy a home to live in. And start cancelling the old loans to investment properties

  • Stupid marxists (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday June 14, 2024 @02:32PM (#64549717) Journal

    ""Rent = (LandValue + (ZoneType * Building Level)) * LotSize * SpaceMultiplier""

    Right, because it's crazy that someone that fronts the money to build a building should - heaven forfend! - make a profit off that risk and capital investment?

    No, no, let's just lean into the class-warfare thing and blame the childishly simple mental image of the Monopoly Tycoon running around with a Top Hat and bags full of money, because 'grr, they're taking all meh monies!' .

    First, one has to accept that buildings aren't just created from nothing. Someone has to pay for that.

    If you're angry about high rents, and who isn't?, maybe go beyond a kindergarten-level understanding of economics and blame the dumb motherfuckers in charge who feel planned economies and micromanaging city councils can do better than the open market. It's pretty simple: when interest rates are low, $ goes toward housing because it's a better return on the time/capital equation. When interest rates surge, investment falls as there are better places to invest ones' millions and get better, less risky ROI.

    Don't get me wrong, I know greed is part of the equation. But ask yourself what fundamentally changed in the 20teens? Are you seriously asserting landlords weren't greedy as fuck before that?
    (Hint; they have always charges as much as the market will bear. Key word there being MARKET.)

    Example? Mpls/St Paul impulsively implemented rent control and the result is - shock! - new housing unit applications dropped from nearly 7000 units in 2019 to less than 3000 in 2023. It's almost like nobody wants to invest their big money into properties where they're capped at 3% increase regardless of inflation. That might have seemed reasonable when the fake inflation reports were saying it was https://www.axios.com/local/tw...
    *https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/cpi-inflation/

    How affordable is new housing in the Twin Cities going to be long term if they're not adding more inventory, he wondered?
    Want to durably lower rents? Make it EASIER to build multiunit housing. And be patient for it to be built. Personally, I think high rents will fade in the next 2-3 years. There's only so long developers can sit on $multi-hundred-million downtown office properties that are 90% vacant until they beg cities to let them turn it into much-needed housing. But it's going to be painful as shit for renters until then.

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