When people trying to purchase their first home are outbid constantly by investors (corporate or not) who later try to rent out that same space at more than the first time buyer would be paying on their mortgage then no, you daft idiot, they are not providing a service.

This whole lAnDlOrDs ArE oUr FrIeNd shtick makes you look pathetic.

If not for landlords who would you rent from?

public housing is a thing, you know

The reason so many can't afford to buy is because so many houses are bought purely to be rented back out again, if no landlords existed housing prices would drop and more people could afford to buy.

For those who still couldn't, as others have said - public housing

If not for landlords who would you rent from?

If not for landlords who would suck all supply?

Landlords provide housing the way scalpers "provide" tickets. The solution for people who need can't afford to buy or who only need short term accommodation is public housing.

The CMHC used to provide funds to the provinces which would then build big public housing units with affordable rent. This provide a check & balance to the free market, keeping rents and house prices from skyrocketing. But then in the 80s and 90s, both Conservative and Liberal PMs successively defunded that aspect of the CMHC to solve budget issues, and those properties were destroyed as they reached their "maturity" date, regardless of whether the building was still usable or not.

I lived near one of them, located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SG2kkXeVsp3Nia2RA Check out the street view and click "see more dates" for 2012, that's housing for 90+families. Then in 2014 it was closed for demolition. And today it's still an empty grass lot. Almost 10 years as a Govt-owned empty lot, instead of affordable housing, because those Govts kept promising "market solutions" to housing problems.

But it turns out the "problem" with housing was letting the "free market" turn it into another Tulip Bulb craze, instead of keeping it an affordable necessity

Public housing. That's where you rent it from. Landlords serve no purpose in society that can't be solved in better ways.

For example, I would gladly purchase my apartment. The rent that I pay would be roughly equal to mortgage payments on the approximate value of the unit. But instead I'm stuck paying that amount so someone else can own it. Just cut out the parasite in the middle.

Please tell us more about how the types of people who decide to jack rent up to absurd levels when given the slightest push back are actually a good thing for society.

if not for landlords who would you rent from?

"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"

Decomodify housing. Like tax owning a home past like the 3th one so high it would destitute someone as rich as Musk in a month. Watch everyone who uses property for investment panic sell and crash the market into oblivion. The people who want to own a home can now do so and the rest can be bought up by the government for cheap to convert into public housing. Ez affordable housing and renting in one swoop.

I've NEVER met a landlord who had low prices, just government subsidized low income housing. Even large real-estate companies/ banks tend to offer better prices. Landlords fucking suck. Investing in a house, is like "investing" in water. You're just spending money to increase demand and make money, on SOMETHING PEOPLE NEED TO LIVE.

You can’t afford to buy

Because landlords are buying all the properties?

Found the landlord. If not for tenants, who would you and your estate agent squeeze for every possible cent, cutting every possible cost along the way so you can more horde wealth, buy more homes and get fat at other people's expense.

Nobody that wasn't bleeding renters would try and look reasonable by saying "corporations shouldn't be able to own too many houses".

The people complaining are not the ones who should be ashamed.

We don't need Capitalism any longer. We can do better.

The geniuses on this site think that if the government is your landlord then you don't have a landlord. Basically they want a form of communism. Public housing has it's place but as someone who has rented in the past it's not the sort of housing I'd choose unless it's a last resort.

In any case, VERY STRONG DISAGREE that the only rentals should be government run or co-ops.