Irish Times looking for Landlords to have their say

I'm confused how you think owning and maintaining property is a passive activity that can only increase in value with no effort and no risk.

Your confusion might stem from the fact that I never said anything about risk or "only increasing in value". Try not adding in additional details you make up yourself and then attributing those made up things to others. It will make things easier for you to follow.

Well you are the word who used the word. You apparently consider it a business. I have no idea whether you run it as a business or as a hobby or how you want to run it. That is up to you. There are no laws preventing you from setting up a business structure and renting any property you own out in that manner should you decide to do so.

As mentioned, I have a few accidental landlords in my extended family who seem to be able to manage without drama or hysterics. So I find it surprising when I hear of others, especially those who apparently consider themselves to be doing the same as a business, who are struggling to cope. That's a bit strange don't you think?

Its not a possibility but an inevitability. There is no scenario in which it doesnt happen should the rate of selling keep up.

Why not sell? Who knows. Maybe these struggling landlords want to do their part to avoid a homeless crisis

The property owner if there is a crash or they get locked in and can't sell when they need to.

There been more than one thread where people lost the place they rented and couldn't get back into the property they own and rent.

It's implied by how you used the term "rent-seeking"

Assume renting housing is banned tomorrow. How do you house the people who the govt won't house and who can't afford to buy.

A landlord with a mortgage might be negative from a cashflow perspective but still be making money. I think a failure to acknowledge this is a big problem and big blind spot.

E.g.

200k value

150k mortgage costing 1k per month (say, 3% interest)

Rent @ 1400 per month, tax bill 600 per month

In theory the landlord is "losing" 200 per month from a cashflow perspective.

But in reality the landlord is investing 200 per month and reducing their mortgage balance by over 1000 per month.

So they feel like they are losing but in reality they are winning big time.

Assume renting housing is banned tomorrow.

A great victory against the landlords. LOL

How do you house the people who the govt won't house and who can't afford to buy.

I honestly don't think a lot of the people commenting online care, they own their own, inherited their own or never rented in their lives. They do not give a s*ite.

Your point is still wrong.

To explain in simple terms, rent-seeking concerns activity which results in someone being able to charge higher prices than they would otherwise were supply-demand curves allowed to settle at equilibrium. That could be cornering some market or scarce resource to manipulate its price - which would be trying to make the price go up for when you eventually sell it. Or it could be in grabbing a scarce resource such as a house and collecting rental income at higher than it actually costs to provide that. The former does not depend on regular payments of "rental income" from leasing it out, and the latter has no dependency on the price of the house increasing, nor on the "rental income" increasing or even staying the same. The "rental income" could decrease but still be above the equilibrium point.

(Rent-seeking could also be a case of getting laws or rules brought in to keep your own position artificially high. Or setting things up so that you make money without having to contribute or produce anything. In an ideal free market, the latter should not be possible.)

And the people getting evicted.