>>4829You assumed I was socialist or communist. You're also ignored my argument about the assumption of risk, I think you're missing the point and fighting the boogeyman you know you can beat.
I understand that houses need to be built in order to be lived in. Further, they need to be maintained. In order for a rental system to work, it must be worthwhile for the person renting to not have a risk obligation and for the land lord to be willing to take on the risk obligation. Usually this risk comes in the form of debt for the initial price of construction and the maintenance of the home. so, therefore, it must be either an impossibility or an inconvenience for the renter to provide the initial investment. The inconvenience could stem from a semi-nomadic or unstable lifestyle in which being tied to the property would be an inconvenience in the long term. The impossibility would be a lack of financial capitol or 'credit', making it impossible to provide the initial investment. The latter is far more likely, from what I've seen (anecdotal I know but I'm too lazy to look up any real figures right now.)
For the land lord, the risk must have an adequate reward for the investment to make sense. Therefore, the renter will pay more than the value of the investment and the maintenance unless subsidized by an external entity, or the landlord must value ownership of the property above monetary recompense and be willing to take a loss.
This means that in the case of long-term renters, they will pay more money to live in the property than they would if they could have taken the initial risk on a long enough time frame. The argument could be made that they also assume less risk in the case of disaster, such as dry rot or the house exploding. They can simply move out and pay rent on a similar property elsewhere. However, with home insurance being practically universal this isn't as much of a risk to the property owner as it once was. Another compelling reason for a person to rent is the risk of a market crash. The value of their property suddenly dropping. For the average person actually living in a home with no intention of selling or borrowing against the property this shouldn't matter. If it does, it's because of the unfortunate structure of the current system.
In this system, for a long term renter (greater than 10 years) living in the same area for all that time would it not make more sense to simply invest in a property? This has become a practical impossibility for most. The value of property is simply beyond their reach without falling into a predatory loan, and will be for the foreseeable future. As long as these people are not paid a living wage and cannot save, they will be stuck on mr. landlord's wild ride forever.
Eventually the land lord buys more property and better property. They start hiring people to manage it. They start buying out other land lords and property owners. They develop more land. More and more value comes to be in the hands of fewer and fewer property owners. In order to protect their position it makes sense to keep others out of the market. Since it's so hard to enter the market in the first place no or little new talent does, and cannot compete effectively if they do. The old owners start to select for the most powerful. The pool of owners continues to decrease.
I'm not saying everyone should be a land owner, or that everyone should be given property, or that we should redistribute wealth using regulatory forces. I'm simply stating that the market as it currently stands naturally tends to centralize the ownership of property. In my opinion that is a bad thing. I'm not providing a solution because I don't have one. Claiming that there is not a problem doesn't fix it. Pointing out that it used to be worse doesn't fix it.
I should point out that I'm not the person you were originally having the argument with. the post you were replying to was mine, but no other before it was mine.