There is nothing wrong with keeping units empty to manage overall rental yield.
It becomes an issue if a group of landlords agree not to rent below a certain threshold in a community. This is classic price fixing - leaving renters no alternative other than paying the minimum rate set.
> It becomes an issue if a group of landlords agree not to rent below a certain threshold in a community. This is classic price fixing - leaving renters no alternative other than paying the minimum rate set.
This is exactly what's happening, though. Landlords using RealPage/YieldStar are required to follow its guidelines and need permissions from the company to make exceptions. It's technology mediated collusion to price-fix.
It was an answer to the rhetorical comment that if housing stopped yielding a return on investment then there would be no housing.
I don't see the possible parallel with farmers, all there is in common is land potentially owned as property. Farmers bear fruits through labour. Real estate investors bear returns on capital.
That's interesting you mention some people going hungry, most people's inability to slap logs together to make shelter, and resorting to tax collection and distribution.
There have been many attempts to eliminate bearing returns on capital. They all resulted in a prostrate, non-functioning economy. There are two input requirements for a functioning business:
People who need housing? It's what they call a necessity good. We get it, you have rentals - maybe it would do you some good to read more and write less.
The issue is rent-seeking. This is the basest form of rent-seeking and the downstream effects are felt by the entire economy.
So yes, there is something wrong with it. Instead of letting the prices float to the settling rate of the market, they're being manipulated to reach a specific financial goal.
That is morally reprehensible, especially when it comes to shelter.
> There is nothing wrong with keeping units empty to manage overall rental yield.
That's like saying there's nothing wrong from profiteering during a crisis. Are you for stores drastically increasing prices on essentials like water and food during a natural disaster?
Here's the thing. When there's a natural disaster, it used to be that everybody outside the disaster zone would fill jerry cans with gas, load up their pickup trucks with supplies, and immediately drive into the disaster zone and sell it with high prices. They'd get there far faster than the government.
With the anti-gouging laws, nobody bothers doing that anymore.
The result is (pick one):
1. no anti-gouging laws. Gas and supplies are available.
2. anti-gouging laws. No supplies are available.
In which case are the people needing supplies better off?
With 2. We can look into the application of these laws and figure out why nobody is picking up the opportunity to reasonably profit by making gas and supplies available.
Profeetering is defined as taking advantage of a situation to increase prices beyond "reasonable"
The law is clear with one thing: profteering by committing a crime is legally wrong.
It leaves us with cases where no crime was committed. But this post argues collusion happened in the case of property let pricing. let's not make the gasless situation the rule to the exceptions.
> We can look into the application of these laws and figure out why nobody is picking up the opportunity to reasonably profit by making gas and supplies available.
A reasonable price is what people are willing to pay for it. It's that old Law of Supply and Demand again.
> The law is clear with one thing: profteering by committing a crime is legally wrong.
Enjoy the inevitable resulting shortages, then.
BTW, anti-gouging laws also cause hoarding, making the shortages even worse.
Those who grew up with the spectre of communism threatening the end of America, if not the whole world may be convinced that that's true, especially those in the upper middle class with less pressing financial concerns, but those who've now lived through several "once-in-lifetime" economic crises and been thrust into the job market may be less convinced. Watching the American brand of capitalism rot slowly from the inside isn't a convincing argument that the laws of supply and demand are immutable natural laws handed down by Republican Jesus and some may even be looking for better. Watching mainstream media dramatize and exaggerate, to the point of hysteria, it's no wonder that hoarding seems like an incurable problem with rationing, but if you're able to understand that's the media creating a circus, you're hopefully able to see past some of the rhetoric from the previous century.
That's a false dichotomy. The only reason supplies aren't available anyway is because they've been soaked up by scalpers. The situation you're describing it a textbook example, not something that happens in the real world.
The only reason scalpers buy things is to resell them. Scalping does not cause a shortage.
The reason supplies aren't available is the local supply is out of action from the disaster, and nobody has any incentive to bring supplies in to the disaster zone.
Scalping by definition causes a shortage due to speculators buying up large quantities of something with the plans of selling it at an inflated price caused by a lack of supply.
It isn't the only reason, but saying it doesn't cause shortages is absurd. Availability of things like masks, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper rapidly recovered once people who drove across entire states emptying shelves were shut down.
The only purpose to scalping is reselling it. Not taking it out of supply.
> caused by a lack of supply.
Scalping neither increases nor decreases supply.
> Availability of things like masks, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper rapidly recovered once people who drove across entire states emptying shelves were shut down.
People were hoarding, not scalping. And they were hoarding because stores were not allowed to increase the price.
So it used to be that rich people were able to get supplies previously, and now rich people are in the same situation that the poor people were always in?
Under gas rationing in WW2, people would sell the gas they didn't need at high prices in the black market. Along with the black market came crime, because it was illegal.
I don't think profiteering is what's going on here. Its more like if you had a large block of shares to sell in a public company you might offer it up in smaller pieces so that you get a better price than if you were selling your full inventory all at once.
Landlords should serve the public. "We will provide less service to the public so we can make more money" is horseshit. Deliberately limiting access to a critical human resource should be criminal.
