I’d appreciate if you could justify your position. I think, when you carefully consider it, you’ll understand that it’s skewed the wrong way and not justifiable.
If I buy a house with a mortgage, it costs a lot of money, but I can live in it right away and afterwards I have a house, which I can sell. If I rent, I only get to live in it for so long as I pay rent - I own nothing at the end. You get more for your mortgage but pay less, surely the rent should be lower and proportionate to what you’re getting?
Sure, if rent was cheaper than a mortgage, people would be far less inclined to be landlords - but why should that be a given path to profit? Why should the housing supply by usurped by those who already have an excess of wealth?
Sure. The terms of the owner’s financing are none of the renter’s business. The only facts that are relevant are that the owner is willing to rent out their property at a certain price, and the renter is willing to pay that price, and both parties are entering into the transaction of their own free will. If the owner and renter are unable to agree on a price, they are free to go their separate ways. No harm, no foul.
The renter has no real choice, though. The renter can either accept the price the landlord offers, or go to another landlord who offers the same price, or be homeless. This makes the renter open to exploitation by landlords. Sure, every landlord does it - but that doesn’t make it any less exploitation.
This is exactly the type of thing where government should come in and regulate. I’m saying that such regulation should position rents as lower than mortgage rates.
