Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
The problem is that when rent is priced at the maximum that the market can bear, it means that most people can't afford adequate housing. I understand the desire to make the most profit possible and I would probably be doing the same thing if I was a landlord. But as someone who rented most of my life, it was pretty frustrating to be paying almost what a mortgage would be in rent, but not being able to ever save up a down payment because I was at the that "what the market can bear" threshold. Lucky for me, my fortunes changed, but I still feel for people in that situation.
Affordable housing is probably one of, if not the biggest factor in the social health of a city. It affect the health of the population, crime, development... pretty much everything. I think Nenshi is right to be concerned about gouging.
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Pricing at a market rate is not gouging. Investors are not in business to minimize their return and any investor that does is total moron. You can't honestly say that if you had place where renting it for a $1000 covers your cost with a small profit (maybe $100) could be rented for $2000, you wouldn't rent it for the higher amount. At the same time, if the landlord had to rent it out at loss, the same people complaining right now would be laughing about how the greedy landlords are getting what they deserve.
Right now the market rate is high partly because of policies that Nenshi himself and city council are pushing. If they approved development permits and didn't try to push a higher density kind of living only, there would be more housing available on the market.
Basically Nenshi wants landlords to help him run a social program at their detriment. Why isn't he telling people to live where they can afford to or life within their means?