You’re not just paying the landlord, you’re paying to outbid all the other people who want to live in that space. Even if you could somehow remove the landlord from the equation, there’s no way you’d get your place for $50/month.
replyWhy won't you just buy an apartment/condo then?
replyBecause we've spent the last 50 years with housing inflation above wage inflation and compound interest is the most powerful force. Tax burden has moved ever more to the working classes and away from the wealthy. So we're making less and the price has gone up.
replyit’s illegal to build more of them in almost all places in the US. San Jose, a city of over 1M people, was zoned 96% SFH until like 5 years ago.
replySo prices do existing ones are high. Labor is taxed heavily compared to rental income so it’s a slog to break into the capitalist class. This wasn’t the case 50 years ago though, because we let people built apartment buildings then. So plenty of people could buy in at that time.
“basically nothing back at all,” or, “ the time value of money.”
replyWe must differentiate between capital and land. They aren’t the same thing. OP is saying that his landlord is profiting off land. This is indeed doing nothing, and has nothing to do with the time value of money, in the sense that the time value of money is due to capital, not land.
replyThis is a common misunderstanding. Henry George made it very clear in the 1890s where the distinction lies.