3 ms·

If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tena

by thunky 4y ago

If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tenant? Now what if she owns 10 rentals? 1,000? 10,000? I think we probably just need to agree to disagree that this is a form of exploitation. Now if there is actual price fixing or collusion going on, that's another matter.

anigbrowl 4y ago
Since you clearly read the article and have shown awareness of the issues in your other comments prior to this one, offering such simplistic arguments smacks of disingenuity. Good discussions happen when you lead with your best arguments, not a string of weak ones designed to exhaust your interlocutor.
richbell 4y ago
> If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tenant? Now what if she owns 10 rentals? 1,000? 10,000? > ... > Now if there is actual price fixing or collusion going on, that's another matter. If your friend owns 10,000 rentals and sets prices unilaterally, thats blatantly anti-consumer if not monopolistic. Shelter is a basic need and people will pay as much as they can to keep a roof over their heads, until they reach the breaking point. If you have several friends that control a sizable amount of the housing supply in an area and they agree to charge a certain amount and artificially limit the availabile supply, that seems like price fixing to me. Doesn't matter if you have three friends or three hundred friends. ) When competitors collude, prices are inflated and the customer is cheated. https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/810261/download#:~:text=When%20competitors%20collude%2C%20prices%20are,United%20States%20Department%20of%20Justice https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/810261/download#:~:text=Whe.... In either case, the prices are inflated and people are being cheated.
- thunky 4y ago
  > If your friend owns 10,000 rentals and sets prices unilaterally, thats blatantly anti-consumer if not monopolistic. In my example, the friend is only "fixing" the rent in the sense that it was broken (artificially low) before. I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area, and I didn't say she was setting rents artificially high. I don't see a crime. For some reason you're assuming that anytime rent is raised it's a violation of the tenant's rights.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    > I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area Actually, it was you who introduced the idea that she owned 10,000 rentals. Please don't insult people's intelligence by suggesting that 10,000 rental units in a market is too small to affect overall pricing. > If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tenant? Now what if she owns 10 rentals? 1,000? 10,000?
  - richbell 4y ago
    > In my example, the friend is only "fixing" the rent in the sense that it was broken (artificially low) before ... For some reason you're assuming that anytime rent is raised it's a violation of the tenant's rights. Artificially low according to what metric — that people are only paying 30-50% of their income towards housing? People are willing to pay a lot for housing because they often have to. I consider it highly unethical to frame squeezing as much money out of people for shelter as "[taking] away the tenant's ability to exploit an inefficiency in market pricing." Inequality, reliance on food shelters, and homelessness were already bad enough before 2020 and have only gotten significantly worse. Not to mention that many people who would have been able to purchase homes are unable to do so because of large capital groups or investors purchasing large swathes of homes, significantly driving up the costs, and then renting out that supply at inflated rates or converting them to short-term rentals. It benefits no one except those who are already wealthy. > I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area, and I didn't say she was setting rents artificially high. In fairness you provided 1,000 and 10,000 as examples of the number of rentals she might own. Regardless, 1k to 2k is a significant jump in rent and there's likely important context beyond the numbers. A real world example I'm familiar with is people moving from a big city to a small town. Is it unethical or criminal for the rent to jump from 1k to 2k if people are willing to pay for it? Not necessarily. But doing so tends to price out people who actually grew up in that town, especially people with lower or fixed incomes, leading to a strain on social systems and homelessness.
    - thunky 4y ago
      > I consider it highly unethical to frame squeezing as much money out of people for shelter as "[taking] away the tenant's ability to exploit an inefficiency in market pricing" Maybe I shouldn't have used the word exploit. I didn't mean that the tenant is cheating the landlord, I just meant that there is an inefficiency in the market and the tenant is able to use it to their advantage. Rents, like house prices, do have a fair market value. Buyers and sellers are constantly engaging in negotiations every day in order to set prices on the whole. If software helps the buyer or seller negotiate more effectively, that's fine by me. I don't disagree with you that it's become much more difficult for people to afford housing and other necessities. It's a huge problem. And I think you're on the right track when you mention large investors buying investment property. I wouldn't be opposed to limiting foreign investment. Crossing my fingers that with rates finally rising, housing/rental investment becomes less attractive and the market comes back down to earth and rents come down with it.

by thunky 4y ago

anigbrowl 4y ago

Since you clearly read the article and have shown awareness of the issues in your other comments prior to this one, offering such simplistic arguments smacks of disingenuity. Good discussions happen when you lead with your best arguments, not a string of weak ones designed to exhaust your interlocutor.

richbell 4y ago

> If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tenant? Now what if she owns 10 rentals? 1,000? 10,000? > ... > Now if there is actual price fixing or collusion going on, that's another matter. If your friend owns 10,000 rentals and sets prices unilaterally, thats blatantly anti-consumer if not monopolistic. Shelter is a basic need and people will pay as much as they can to keep a roof over their heads, until they reach the breaking point. If you have several friends that control a sizable amount of the housing supply in an area and they agree to charge a certain amount and artificially limit the availabile supply, that seems like price fixing to me. Doesn't matter if you have three friends or three hundred friends. ) When competitors collude, prices are inflated and the customer is cheated. https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/810261/download#:~:text=When%20competitors%20collude%2C%20prices%20are,United%20States%20Department%20of%20Justice https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/810261/download#:~:text=Whe.... In either case, the prices are inflated and people are being cheated.

thunky 4y ago
> If your friend owns 10,000 rentals and sets prices unilaterally, thats blatantly anti-consumer if not monopolistic. In my example, the friend is only "fixing" the rent in the sense that it was broken (artificially low) before. I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area, and I didn't say she was setting rents artificially high. I don't see a crime. For some reason you're assuming that anytime rent is raised it's a violation of the tenant's rights.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  > I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area Actually, it was you who introduced the idea that she owned 10,000 rentals. Please don't insult people's intelligence by suggesting that 10,000 rental units in a market is too small to affect overall pricing. > If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tenant? Now what if she owns 10 rentals? 1,000? 10,000?
- richbell 4y ago
  > In my example, the friend is only "fixing" the rent in the sense that it was broken (artificially low) before ... For some reason you're assuming that anytime rent is raised it's a violation of the tenant's rights. Artificially low according to what metric — that people are only paying 30-50% of their income towards housing? People are willing to pay a lot for housing because they often have to. I consider it highly unethical to frame squeezing as much money out of people for shelter as "[taking] away the tenant's ability to exploit an inefficiency in market pricing." Inequality, reliance on food shelters, and homelessness were already bad enough before 2020 and have only gotten significantly worse. Not to mention that many people who would have been able to purchase homes are unable to do so because of large capital groups or investors purchasing large swathes of homes, significantly driving up the costs, and then renting out that supply at inflated rates or converting them to short-term rentals. It benefits no one except those who are already wealthy. > I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area, and I didn't say she was setting rents artificially high. In fairness you provided 1,000 and 10,000 as examples of the number of rentals she might own. Regardless, 1k to 2k is a significant jump in rent and there's likely important context beyond the numbers. A real world example I'm familiar with is people moving from a big city to a small town. Is it unethical or criminal for the rent to jump from 1k to 2k if people are willing to pay for it? Not necessarily. But doing so tends to price out people who actually grew up in that town, especially people with lower or fixed incomes, leading to a strain on social systems and homelessness.
  - thunky 4y ago
    > I consider it highly unethical to frame squeezing as much money out of people for shelter as "[taking] away the tenant's ability to exploit an inefficiency in market pricing" Maybe I shouldn't have used the word exploit. I didn't mean that the tenant is cheating the landlord, I just meant that there is an inefficiency in the market and the tenant is able to use it to their advantage. Rents, like house prices, do have a fair market value. Buyers and sellers are constantly engaging in negotiations every day in order to set prices on the whole. If software helps the buyer or seller negotiate more effectively, that's fine by me. I don't disagree with you that it's become much more difficult for people to afford housing and other necessities. It's a huge problem. And I think you're on the right track when you mention large investors buying investment property. I wouldn't be opposed to limiting foreign investment. Crossing my fingers that with rates finally rising, housing/rental investment becomes less attractive and the market comes back down to earth and rents come down with it.