> the rich will pay more in new taxes than they'll get back from UBI.

Except the fortunate rich who own the housing that the UBI beneficiaries will pay for.

I can see UBI making a few people very, very, wealthy.

So what? If those few people provide services to a great number of people who freely choose to spend their (now increased) income on housing, those people have improved the lot of a large number of people and have earned that wealth (upon which they'll be taxed).

Indeed, if UBI becomes a significant possibility (but before it's a certainty), I think that buying low-end rental properties would be a good idea as I'd expect UBI to result in a net increase in household formation. This is literally giving people freedom and agency with which to live their lives in the way they choose.

So what?

My guess is the now-incredibly-rich rentiers (with guaranteed income) will start lobbying the government for concessions (e.g. restriction on new housing, tax-breaks) that further distort the very inequality UBI is trying to solve.

No one loves UBI and its noble objectives more than I: but I'm worried about this inherent failure mode.

What's the failure mode? That broad swaths of society get provided a fundamental service (shelter) in a way that is profitable to the people most efficiently and effectively providing that service?

I think when people approach this problem as "how do we best punish the rich?" rather than "how do we best help the poor?", it's very easy to get stuck spinning in circles.

(IMO) No one should care that there are very rich people. We should instead care that there are not very poor people.

The failure mode is that rentiers and middlemen will eat up all of the UBI income, leaving most people’s material standard unchanged. Given the state of healthcare and housing in the US, this doesn’t seem an improbable outcome.

I’m sure, by contrast, you could do UBI in a country with robust state housing and healthcare programs, like for example Austria, and avoid these concerns.

Landlords need to compete for tenants. High rents are only tenable in hot employment markets with bad policies imposing shortages. Everywhere else, high rents lead to more construction which leads to lower rents, and the landlord who refuses the going rate sees his units go empty.

Ok, show me the real world place in the US where this actually holds true. This hypothetical gets touted around, but I’ve never seen it play out this way anywhere I’ve lived.

For example, I currently live in a second-tier Midwestern city in the midst of a housing crisis. Wages aren’t great relative to their respective industries, but rents and home prices are still skyrocketing. There’s no influx of new construction outside of the luxury sector in a few neighborhoods, a lot of which sits empty. Meanwhile, existing landlords just collect ever larger checks from their properties without meaningful continued investment.

Are developers complaining about not getting permits to build more? That's the usual failure mode in cities.

Median rent in Toledo, OH is $550/mo. With a median household income of $33,687, renters clearly could pay more, but there's no shortage letting landlords demand more.

> in a way that is profitable to the people most efficiently and effectively providing that service?

There is one of your assumptions.

It is more likey be captured by connected rentiers who exclude the more efficient.

IMO