If capital returns 5% and the economy grows at 1%, where does the extra wealth come from? Spoiler: it's a transfer from the poorest to the wealthiest. Asset classes include stocks, bonds, real-estate, art, and metals. So if artists make more art, will this make art ownership more accessible to the average person? Or will it be a small transient soon erased by the monumental financial forces pulling all assets into the ownership and control of a tiny few? That art that your grandparents bought for $500 is now work $100k; you have student debt and high rent, so of course you sell it. The house your parents bought for $18k is worth $1M and they need end-of-life care, and you're own kids are expensive, so of course you sell it. The movement is irrestable.

tptacek is asking how investors buying properties to rent them out, which clearly leads to increased rental supply, then somehow supposedly leads to higher, not lower, rents.

Recognizing your frustration with reality's failure to adhere to the academic: the fact is that rent rates for corporate-owned units generally don't go down. At least, not in recent history. In the rare cases where cartel behavior doesn't work to cement rates, and owners have to respond somehow to market conditions in order to avoid cash-flow disruption, they will offer "specials" that lower the out-of-pocket cost, but not the on-paper rental rate, for a unit. Your oft-found "1 month free"-type deals (that are actually a monthly bill credit for the initial lease term). Upon renewal, your increase is based on that paper rate, not what you were actually paying.

Recent history has been corporate rents not decreasing amid tight supply, the question being asked repeatedly (and repeatedly not answered) in this thread is “how exactly would landlords continue seeking high rents if housing were no longer scarce?” The only answer so far has been “by buying up the supply and renting it out” which completely ignores the obvious fact that renting out housing may reduce the supply of purchasable properties, but increases the supply of rental properties. There is no reason to assume collusion among a set of landlords would be enough to keep rental prices high if supply is no longer tight. So how exactly would landlords continue seeking be able to keep prices high if supply continues to increase?

Not a direct response but just a follow up question. I'm curious how much surplus supply folks think there needs to be in such a scenario. We've seen that landlords are willing to hold units vacant in order to keep their property values up and avoid renting out at a lower price. At what point does thw math say that should collapse? 10% vacancy? 15%? 30%?

> “how exactly would landlords continue seeking high rents if housing were no longer scarce?”

I think land lords wont lease out at marker rate due to that would lower the book value of the house which would make the banks call in loans.

Like, bank and land lords have some sort of understanding which in practice is some sort of price fixing and market collusion via proxy.

Increased rental supply at the cost of decreased home ownership.

There is already price manipulation with rental properties. If a cartel is in control of enough of the supply they can set their prices as high as the market can afford. There is already a nationwide shortage of affordable housing in desirable places with jobs and the idea ITT is that it will only get worse as the investment class are the only people that can afford desirable property.

> they can set their prices as high as the market can afford.

which is the correct price - because you dont need a cartel to set the price at as high as the market can afford; each individual landlord chooses to price their rental at the highest profit they can, with the lowest chance of a vacancy.

A cartel makes it possible to set the price _higher_ than the market can afford. Which is why a cartel is illegal.

Can you at very least try to answer the comment you're replying to?

Nice points. And of course your first reply in this thread is anlredy light grayed. Classic Hacker News