I think the trade is, you buy the landlord a house, the landlord gets a house, and the landlord gets the capital gain on the house.

No, the taxpayers take on the risk because the landlord uses an LLC.

Yeah, I'm generally ok if somebody is charging a reasonable rent which covers their reasonable mortgage, so long as they're still taking care of all the other stuff (repairs, city taxes, etc).

What burns me is people who either a) knowingly buy in a hot, excessively priced market with full intent to charge excessive rents while providing absolutely minimal service or support

b) bought 10+ years ago but have pumped up rents to the same as those who bought at mortgages 2-3x the rate, citing "market rates" and often doing sketchy things to raise rents including renovictions etc, while being shitty - often absentee - slumlords

Maybe I'm showing my age, but there did used to be quite a good number of mom & pop type landlords who weren't shit, and while the commercial ones cost a bit more there was a decent mix.

Now, the commercial ones are actually mostly a safer bet in small cities. They'll raise rent every year but consistently, and the decent ones are pretty prompt about repairs and not fucking people over deposits etc. There are bad ones but it's pretty easy to tell which are which. The problem is of course that availability at the good ones is lower and they do cost more.

Good private landlords are increasingly hard to come by, as the best ones generally end up quitting after either getting too old or after a bad tenant experience, while the slumlords have leveraged their existing properties to finance buying more and more, leading to a market full of increasingly overpriced mould-monsters.

GPU/ticket scalpers take on a risk too. But we don't give a shit about them getting fucked by the risk, neither should we give a shit about landlords getting fucked. They're no different than scalpers.

But what's worse is, usually they never take on risk to begin with. Insurance companies take on the risk of actual damage. Banks take on some of the risk from the mortgage.

And usually, these landlords are operating under LLCs of some variety. So even if things went belly up, the fat cats get golden parachutes and the maintenance people get fucked.

Landlords are a scurge, and need to be ended as a social class.

Yea I rent my first house out. Mortgage is 900 and they pay 2000. If they bought my house right now it'd cost them 2800 monthly. Plus their rent is cheaper than the local average by a long shot.