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0 pointsAnon109613d ago0 comments

You're failing to explain what dictates the price the market will bear.

> Why don't landlords undercut one another? They literally don't have to. The only outcome is less profit. You'll find a tenant eventually, at any price.

is very obviously not true, otherwise prices right now would be effectively infinite. Why are prices for an apartment in SF only 3k/mo instead of 30k? Surely under your reasoning a landlord could just wait and get a tenant at any price they set?

The answer is always supply and demand. As long as the supply is constrained or demand goes up faster the price will rise. But UBI doesn't change that math at all. (I say this as someone not actually a fan of UBI)

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estearum13d ago

> Why are prices for an apartment in SF only 3k/mo instead of 30k? Surely under your reasoning a landlord could just wait and get a tenant at any price they set?

No, because local wages cannot sustain those prices

If local wages could sustain those prices, then yes all rents would rise to that new higher local income level

That is (quite self-evidently) prices are so phenomenally high in ultra high-income areas like SF

Every single landlord is setting prices by the same metric: what can the people who would live here be able to afford? Competition between landlords is almost nil, which is why you find almost no "deals" anywhere. The market is totally efficient. Everyone agrees on how to set prices: by local wages.

cogman1012d ago

> Competition between landlords is almost nil

In fact, collusion with the likes of yeildstar is the name of the game. Everyone is setting prices based on what the algorithm tells them to set prices and they all benefit from that uprise in prices because there's basically no competition decreasing the price.

There's also been a steady consolidation of ownership of rental units which also artificially increases prices.

There's a reason nowhere in the country at this point has affordable housing.

randerson12d ago

> You're failing to explain what dictates the price the market will bear.

Most people like to live in the nicest place they can afford. This is a force pulling prices upward when many people with excess cash are competing for a limited supply of homes. Its why you'll pay more for the same size property in a wealthy neighborhood.

> Why are prices for an apartment in SF only 3k/mo instead of 30k?

Because some people in SF can only afford 3K/month. But if you added 3k/month to literally everyone's income, that number would increase.

(In case you're wondering why the many people with more than 3k/month don't crowd those people out: the wealthy depend on those 3k/month people for labor. At least for now.)

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