by sebastos | 2026-01-10 22:04:19+00:00
That’s fine as a “second order” rebuttal, but you’re leaving out _third_ order effects which are where all the action is in terms of the unique horribleness of real estate rental.

The world is full of goods that share many of the nasty features that the real estate rental market has. For example, it’s not hard to find goods where:

- The value partially derives from the limited supply

- The limited supply is artificially limited by forces that the market cannot correct for (either because law prevents entrance of new competitors, or because would-be competitors are colluding to form a cartel that is deliberately restricting it)

For instance, taxi medallions and diamonds meet these criteria.

What makes rental housing special is other qualities:

- The vast majority of a rental property’s value derives from its proximity to publicly funded resources which the seller did not create themselves. If your tax dollars pay for a new park, the value of that park is vacuumed up by the landlords near the park. (This is what it IS to be an economic rent… thus the name.)

- Demand at the low end is extremely inelastic. People have to live somewhere if their life is entangled with that city. Compare with diamonds or taxi medallions, which you can opt out of.

- In theory, most landlord-tenant relationships operate on a year-long cadence because it mixes flexibility with predictability. The renter doesn’t have to commit their life to staying in a particular city for multiple years just to please some landlord, and the landlord gets to re-auction the rental rights by re-setting the price once a year, keeping up with the going market rate. However, in practice, most renters end up wanting to stay more than one year, and are not mentally or logistically preparing to move. Thus, a substantial price increase is disruptive. You might be tempted to say that the real problem is that the renter went in blind without guarantees about what they were really getting signed up for, and thus a fix could be to secure much longer leases which schedule the rent increases up front. However, as the lease duration goes up, the chances go up that the renter experiences changes in life circumstance that make it impossible or intolerable to continue renting. Barring the creation of a society of debt prisoners, the landlord will inevitably end up enduring lease breaks. Because the switching cost is uniquely high, this creates a fundamental dilemma: people don’t want to move until they do, yet they need to be prepared to move frequently - unless they secure longer leases, which they can’t realistically promise to honor.

So yes, you have cartel behavior and supply distorted by out-of-band zoning restrictions that the market can’t correct, but those are par for the course. The real anger comes from the fact that a place to live isn’t really a “good” in the first place - everybody needs one, and while a roof over your head and good plumbing is worth _something_, the rent you’re paying is driven primarily by a segment of our society _preventing_ you from being able to live close to the public center unless you pay their troll toll. This is where the perceived injustice comes from. When you layer in the Gordian knot of lease duration, rent increase, and the high switching costs, that’s when people really start to hate you.