> Have you considered that if people didn't pay rent or mortgages to the bank that it would be trivial for many people to self-finance repairs? I paid cash for

> Have you considered that if people didn't pay rent or mortgages to the bank that it would be trivial for many people to self-finance repairs? I paid cash for my house, and yes, that does mean that my present income is more fully available for repairs. Rent and mortgages don't go solely toward upkeep of the property. The property itself has a value. On the extreme short end of space ownership, you have hotel rooms that you rent day to day. Zooming out a bit more, you have apartments and rental houses that you can rent month to month or year to year from the land lord. Zooming out even more, you have mortgages, which are basically you in a rent-to-own agreement with a bank over the course of the mortgage. I don't think most people have issues paying night-to-night for hotels. If you don't mind paying for a night in a hotel, why would longer term space rentals be an issue? Further, mortgage rates are more or less at all time lows. So the bank isn't even taking that big of a cut of your money. Landlords don't make that great of a return on their money either. Housing prices effect them just as much as someone buying a primary residence. Often the rent is too damn high because the housing cost itself is too damn high. As to why housing markets in some major metros are so messed up, that seems to be largely down to artificial restrictions on supply vs demand.