Who is paying the up front cost to build and furnish a residential property in a world without landlords? Renters are renters precisely because they don't have the money for that.
A mortgage. The cost of ownership only exceeds the cost of renting because ownership costs have been driven up by profit making: historically (and still today in some countries) it was cheaper to buy a home than it was to rent. If landlords were restricted from buying homes then the costs of ownership would become affordable for the majority of people who rent. A Hacker News comment isn't the place to propose radical policy change but just for fun, consider a world in which the only way to become a landlord was by building property specifically to rent it out. The majority of rental properties were previously owner-occupier, landlords have decimated the amount of property available for owner-occupiers which has driven up costs (pushing more and more people into renting).
fastball|2 years ago
iterminate|2 years ago