Who would buy and develop rental units if landlords didn’t exist?
Landlords seem to fulfill a very valuable part of the supply and demand driven marketplace.
Are you suggesting we eliminate renting altogether and force people to buy?
No I’m not suggesting we eliminate renting altogether. I do think there is an opportunity to limit how many rentals can exist in an area or the form of those rentals (multi family or single) in order to drive down housing prices in areas where landlords own a substantial amount of land. Alternatively I would suggest not privatizing ownership of rental housing and socializing the housing.
If you limit the amount of rentals then that will increase prices, not drive down. That’s because if there are fewer homes to rent and the same number of renters, prices will increase to the level that the renters will accept before they move somewhere else.
What should be fixed is to provide sufficient supply of both private and rental homes. Thus driving prices of both down. And this should be entirely possible if certain tradeoffs like not everyone getting that single-family home next to downtown near lake and sea is possible...