Housing costs are way out of whack

[macdoc]

The insurance companies want higher evaluations, the councils want higher amounts to base rates on, the agents want higher amounts to earn commissions on....the advertising mediums want a churn to increase their revenue.....the banks want to write bigger mortgages...

Some countries and even Canada to a degree have countered this with co-op housing but even sharing a house with friends can be legally fraught and in some cases flat out illegal thanks to antiquated bylaws targetting rooming houses etc. Zoned for "single family dwellings" whatever the fuck a single family is these days.

Add in AIrBnB outside the zoning rules, punitive bylaws about all sorts of crap and even willing developers trying to build lower cost shelter have a maze of red tape to navigate even to get approval and councils tend to be populated by realtors and other vested interests.

Australia was particularly bad with negative gearing allowing the "haves" to save on taxes by aquiring additional homes to rent out....and Australia sucks for renter protection.

If interests ...or rather when interest rates rise there are going to be a lot stranded fish.

and still hundreds of thousands of working poor which will put additional pressure on social services.

[macdoc]

RE who owns....REITs are a plague - 65% margins they brag about and are gobbling up houses even in remote communities, dash of paint and increase rents 50% or more leaving fixed income people literally out in the cold. The AIRBNB bunch add to this and flat out flippers - often foreign based.

So even lower middle class is hollowed out to be effectively indentured to either landlords or the banks.
Just fucking pisses me off that this predation goes unchecked

Political shit like this is just infuriating
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/0 ... hback.html

[Brian Peacock]

You forget that Landlordism isn't a moral philosophy.

[macdoc]

It can however be subject to prevailing mores and gov oversight way the fuck more than it is.
Shelter should be like water and medical and care and not subject entirely to market whims and predation which is is being in spades currently.

[Brian Peacock]

I agree. And yet we seem out of step with the prevailing mores of our times.