BTW, I'd love to recommend a book that explains all this much better than I would do. Unfortunately, I think it's only in Spanish: "La España de las piscinas" (The Spain of Swimming Pools).

Thanks for the recommendation!

I think these are understandable and well intended questions! But they also makes it seem like you're not very familiar with standard economic analysis. I would encourage you to read The Rent is Too Damn High by Yglesias which is by an american (leftist) who I think has a much better set of ideas for improving the lives of renters than "occupation friendly" housing regulations and other "zero sum" ideas. And yes, buying and administering rental properties is societally valueable just like running a bakery, restaurant or software consultancy is.

https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B...

Can you give any information on what he advocates?

I wonder if the difference could be that the policies that he advocate would require bought and paid for politicians to act while squatting is something that an individual can do?

The one line explanation is that politicians should allow people to build more housing.

Its very simple. We need to build more housing. This can be done via zoning reform combined with land value tax to punish speculators.

The difference is that those occupation friendly laws work and force real estate owners to actually rent out their properties rather than let them sit empty to appreciate value. Whereas the ideas of a person that only exist in a book are just ideas that exist in a book.

Allowing occupation of vacant properties by squatters because there isn't enough housing supply is like allowing stealing food from farms because there isn’t enough food supply. It’s demoralizing to the producers and maintainers of the resource and does not encourage further investment in the activity.

> Allowing occupation of vacant properties by squatters because there isn't enough housing supply is like allowing stealing food from farms because there isn’t enough food supply

Love these religious-sounding sermons. Im telling what is happening here, a lot of 'free market' types are preaching to me that what is happening here is not happening and something else should be happening per the magic of 'free market' or capitalism or whatever. Hearing these, one understands who the US ended up with housing being unaffordable for 99% of Americans...

Certainly, owners sometimes leave properties vacant, and sometimes do so for long periods, for various reasons. The housing market, however, should be big enough and robust enough to allow for some of that occurring.

Personally, I'd like there to be so much more housing that landlords have to compete with each other for who can provide the best apartment for the lowest price rather than potential tenants competing with each other for who can pay the most for the only apartment that is available.

> The housing market, however, should be big enough and robust enough to allow for some of that occurring.

All of these are just wishful thinking based on non-scientific economic hullabaloo that was developed in the past 200 years. They never worked anywhere. They never will.

In the end, it comes down to the concept "Housing should be for living in, not for profit". Its a fundamental necessity/infrastructure. And privatizing it makes as much sense as privatizing the military or the police. The moment you allow it, those with bigger pockets will f*ck everything up.

> Are landlords the most vulnerable people right now?

Increasing risk will eliminate a lot of the "mom and pop" landlords (widows, former small-business owners, retirees, etc.). If it is too risky to own only a few extra condo units or a single small apartment building, then those properties will go to large corporate landlords.

> there are people whose sole contribution to society is "owning flats".

Landlords make sure the utilities (water, electricity, heat, etc.) work, that the roof doesn't leak, fix plumbing issues when they arise, take care of pest infestations, etc. Even landlords who don't personally fix things are employing managers and tradespeople. And with big corporate owners, the shareholders are usually pension funds which effectively are the retirement savings of people who have already "contributed to society".

Is it worth the major part of a full time worker's income to have somebody take care of those things in the rare occasion they happen? Most normal people can easily fix their plumbing issues, a leaky roof, termites and such in a couple of days with a few hundreds of dollars in budget.

Landlords generally spend much less than 5% of their yearly rent income on maintenance. If they actually do something to improve an apartment, that is just an investment in their own real estate, that they own 100% even after having other people pay for it several times over during decades.

Edit: Or look at it this way: Would you hire and pay somebody a good salary for working maybe 5 or 10 days per year for you?

> that they own 100%

You might be surprised to learn that many small rental properties are heavily mortgaged. Along with insurance and property taxes, the biggest cost is usually mortgage interest. Some owners even lose money for a few years until the rents rise to meet the costs so that they can break even. (These owners are playing the long game, believing that rent and property values will go up over time and eventually their investment will be a good one compared to their other investment options.)

I'm very aware of that, which just makes it worse. You now have multiple levels of strangers that are living on your back. Landlord, banker, insurance seller.

> the biggest cost is usually mortgage interest.

The tenant is paying for that.

The situation is absurd. The tenant is paying the entire mortgage and interest for the property and can be kicked out at any time, while the landlord does basically nothing, pays nothing, and the bank can not kick him out just because they please.