r/clevercomebacks • • 21h ago

The math doesn't math...

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5.2k Upvotes

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266

u/D-Laz 21h ago

It has. But only because home prices fell in areas where zoning restrictions were lifted and NIMBYs were ignored

60

u/blbd 20h ago

This right here. It absolutely can with the right legislation, laws, and regs in place to drive the market forces. 

40

u/NeXtDracool 16h ago

Note: lifting zoning restrictions means "allow low rise residential, small shops and businesses and schools, not just single family homes", it does not mean "allow heavy industry in the middle of the neighborhood". NIMBYs like to intentionally mislead people about this.

Zoning aside, there are more things that have proven to lower rent or at least slow rent increases:

  • social housing programs
  • housing cooperatives
  • second generation rent stabilization regulation
  • nationalization of housing

16

u/fieldsofanfieldroad 20h ago

Basic economics should be taught to everyone. We learn about long shore drift and oxbow lakes more than we learn about inflation. 

3

u/Initial_Business2340 18h ago

Just a sign of the times

10

u/Blossom_Wish 17h ago

If deporting people lowered rent, rent would have collapsed in 2020 when everyone left the cities. It went UP.

3

u/Poke-Mom00 10h ago

Well it went down temporarily in super urban places for like a year. My landlord in DC was offering a free 2 months off rent for every person we got to sign a lease with him. But most of our building was young professionals that could move back with family and work remotely - so more elastic housing demand than more established communities.

3

u/DisputabIe_ Trusted Bot Hunter 6h ago

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3

u/Epic_Tea 20h ago

Came here to say the same thing

4

u/SoftRibbonn 17h ago

My landlord raised rent 20% last year, pretty sure it wasn’t because of Hondurans, it was because he could.

2

u/DisputabIe_ Trusted Bot Hunter 6h ago

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3

u/SweetTiaraa 17h ago

The math doesn’t math because rent isn’t based on immigrants, it’s based on landlords seeing what they can get away with.

5

u/BlossomBoww 17h ago

Bro thinks BlackRock is lowering rent if 5 people leave an apartment complex. Be serious.

3

u/Sharkfacedsnake 17h ago

Blackrock and other corporate landlords. has very little sway over the market. They own like 1% of rental units.

2

u/DowntownDamsel 12h ago

Landlords: “Thanks for deporting my tenants, now I can charge MORE because there’s less competition for housing… wait”

3

u/DisputabIe_ Trusted Bot Hunter 6h ago

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1

u/Ok-Morning6180 14h ago

Rent can drop, just need the supply to catch up and the zoning people to stop blocking everything. Most cities would rather protect parking lots than let apartments get built.

1

u/LiveBaddie 11h ago

Deportations don’t lower rent. Building more houses lowers rent. But that doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.

43

u/Personal_Gur855 20h ago

My rent increases every year. Trump keeps lying

84

u/ExistingBathroom9742 21h ago

No consumer is causing rent to increase. It’s not even demand. It is corporate ai buying of rental properties price fixing (illegally) causing rents to rise. And all housing prices.

29

u/velvetcrumb_ 20h ago

people keep reducing it to simple supply and demand when there are much bigger forces in the housing market especially corporate ownership and algorithmic pricing, driving costs up

1

u/sonofaresiii 7h ago

My personal experience is that rent is going up because ownership is becoming less accessible. It used to be, if rent got to be too much you'd just buy. That isn't an option for so many of us anymore, no matter how exorbitant rent becomes.

2

u/DisputabIe_ Trusted Bot Hunter 6h ago

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7

u/[deleted] 20h ago

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1

u/Systepup 9h ago

The settled and Realpage was not found culpable for anything, nor did they have to pay a fine. Yardi and others are still under investigation.

People don’t really understand how this software works. There are very few places in which owners have enough market share to dictate prices, and in almost all places they are price takers.

The absolute only way to lower prices is to increase demand. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson - both left-leaning progressives wrote a real Greta book called Abundance that partially discusses this topic. If we increase supply we reduce home prices, which disproportionately affects older people. It’s a zero sum game - and we as a society have decided to favor one group over the other - the incumbent. We do the same with rent control by rewarding the existing tenants over future ones. No simple answer here since a massive proportion of our economy depends on housing economics. I personally support increase in supply at the expense of prices, but I’m not willing to dismiss the opposition as cruel or capricious. There’s merit to their claims, despite the fact that I’m on the other side of the debate.

The software is not the cause, and even if you shut down all revenue and pricing management tools tomorrow (there are so many), landlords will go back to walking the street and optimizing manually. You can’t outlaw math :)

6

u/amilo111 20h ago

Yeah totally. Rent was flat for decades … centuries even … and then corporate ai happened in 2023 and now rent is out of control.

5

u/StreetofChimes 15h ago

Sarcasm? 

2

u/Same-Suggestion-1936 16h ago

Corporations aren't buying more land now than before AI, dude just pulled something out of his ass and blamed an existing problem on AI

3

u/DarthShiv 20h ago

Fact is literally any excuse is used to jack rents and landlords NEVER pass on savings. Ever.

Real estate agents even petition landlords to jack up rents because OTHERS are jacking up rents. How corrupt is that? Blatantly.

4

u/Huge_Melonss 12h ago

Rent has never gone down in the history of rent. Landlords will never voluntarily lower prices.

2

u/Poke-Mom00 10h ago

It’s gone down when you build a crap ton more units and gotten to a 15% vacancy rate. You get to that number and renters can start negotiating landlords down on rent. Average rent in Austin has gone down 20% in the past 4 years (in real 2022 USD).

2

u/DisputabIe_ Trusted Bot Hunter 6h ago

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18

u/Clembert-Hamlamp 20h ago

Of course! Everybody knows that 99% of Americans are immigrants. If they all go away there will be a TON of empty houses. And costs will have to go down!

11

u/Sleepwokesleepwoke 21h ago

Some people are sleeping so hard. Literally dreaming of things that will ever happen. 

4

u/Internal_Essay9230 20h ago

But, hey, think of all the cats and dogs not getting eaten! /s

5

u/MileHigh_FlyGuy 20h ago

Crazy, they're literally going down in my city - but it's nothing to do with immigrants

https://www.realtor.com/advice/hyperlocal/denver-rents-are-going-down/

6

u/TNSoccerGuy 20h ago

Well guys, if you remove that many people from the rental market you can reduce demand which will in turn reduce rent. The problem though is that will also negatively impact local economies everywhere which is not a good thing obviously.

3

u/Spiritual_Educator46 11h ago

Who are these morons going to blame when there’s no “illegal aliens” left to deport and prices continue to climb because Trump destroyed our bond market.

5

u/Schlieren1 19h ago

Average rent prices have certainly fallen at times. I don’t know why the OP would insinuate otherwise

4

u/Diabetesh 19h ago

From 2020 through 2021 approx 6 million people died in the us of all combined causes. We saw probably the largest increase in rent ilof the past decade during that time.

2

u/cutekittygirlyy 17h ago

Rent is not gonna be lower never, they prefer to blame others for their mistakes

5

u/htp-di-nsw 21h ago

I don't understand why deporting people would reduce rent. What's the claim there? What is their logic?

20

u/DiscussTek 21h ago

"More empty units because less people would make rent go down".

They ignore literally everything else that has to do with rent, not the least of which is landlords wanting a lot of no-effort money, and they know people are willing to pay this amount now, so even if the other factors went down, they'd keep it up.

9

u/explain_that_shit 20h ago

People can’t believe that the landlords and developers who control the property market, take steps to control the property market.

5

u/ltsouthernbelle 20h ago

They’d literally never let rent go down because there are fewer immigrants. If anything they’ll use that as a reason to increase it, “apartments for rent - now with fewer immigrants”

-1

u/amilo111 20h ago

Yeah. They are totally not subject to market dynamics and supply-demand. They’ve used some black magic to make sure rent always rises. Genius-level thinking.

2

u/biscuitboyisaac21 20h ago

You do know it is possible to manipulate the market right? Supply and demand can be artificially controlled. Ever heard of the diamond market?

0

u/amilo111 19h ago

Yeah totally. That’s exactly what’s happening.

0

u/explain_that_shit 18h ago

‘Black magic’ lol I know people think of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand as God, but I didn’t realise people were still applying the ‘Christian magic is good white magic, anything against God is bad black magic’ mindset from the Middle Ages NOR that inside that same mindset is a belief that such actions against God weren’t real? Or weren’t powerful enough to ever defeat God?

TLDR You’re running a potent mix of magical thinking and just world theory straight out of medieval Christianity mate, get with the empirical times

2

u/Equal_Refuse_4591 13h ago

'Just World' theory has fucked us so bad.

Something bad happen to you? What sins are you hiding?

Somethign good happen to you? You must be blessed by god.

It's why they blame rape victims and why for years juries accepted 'well she was asking for it'

Because how could god allow a pure, righteous woman to be raped? If it happened, it's because she deserved it

And that's only one circumstance. Poverty is the same. Oh you're poor? What did you do wrong?

1

u/[deleted] 17h ago

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1

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0

u/amilo111 20h ago

Yeah. Those lazy fucks net an average of $2007/year for renting out a unit. Terrible people.

2

u/Firm-Cheesecake-4488 10h ago

My spouse and I rent an apartment out to an acquaintance for $3k. Most renters don't realize that typical investment properties have basically no cash-flow. The payoff comes, hopefully, when you sell the place in 20 years.

What we pay towards the mortgage, HOA fees, property tax, and upkeep is almost exactly equal to the rent. If taxes or HOA fees go up, the rent goes up by the same amount.

It's not some insidious scheme where we're trying to rip off our tenant. It's just a way to diversify our assets so it's not all sitting in stocks. I would imagine this is the case for any landlord who owns fewer than 5 units.

3

u/Firm-Cheesecake-4488 10h ago

So of course market demand CAN influence rent price, but the number itself is not made up. It's greatly determined by mortgage interest rates, area taxes, and HOA fees.

5

u/CaptainOwlBeard 21h ago

Supply and demand. Remove demand pressure on a constant supply, and in theory prices reduce. There are a thousand variables for which rents decrease as a result, and it probably isn't your rent, but on the margins, that makes some sense.

1

u/Youngnathan2011 20h ago

Yeah it's never true in any country.

1

u/Pofwoffle 19h ago

Even if it were true, who gives a fuck? I'm not in the habit of fucking over other people just for my own benefit either way.

1

u/CalyrexTact 20h ago

They don’t have logic, they just follow their feelings. Ironically, the facts don’t care about their feelings.

2

u/Particular-Date6138 19h ago

The only time I saw rent go down was after the lock down and too many "luxury" apartments were built on the same block.

2

u/Alteredbeast1984 12h ago

Rent going down where I live currently

3

u/L0LTHED0G 19h ago

My college town appears to be dropping rent because fewer foreign students are coming.

4 bedroom high rise for below $1400 and $4000 in gift cards. 

1

u/abgry_krakow87 20h ago

Rent will go up either way

1

u/icearrowx 18h ago

This is the dumbest take I've seen today. Congrats.

1

u/RaiseWide5460 17h ago

Well, really if 35 million people disappear from the housing market in a short period of time that number of vacancies really would tend to drive down the cost of housing. It's basic supply vs demand.

1

u/Slymook 11h ago

There is insane mental gymnastics going on trying to discredit that less demand does have an impact.

I’m not saying it isn’t a corporate greed thing too with price fixing. I’m not saying don’t blame the elites. But people are too immature for a nuanced conversation about this. I vote blue but are we really to PC now to at least acknowledge that demand has an impact on pricing? Not even getting into the weeds on immigration here, just on a general level I see some in this thread not admitting that demand does make some impact.

1

u/Blacksad9999 17h ago

Being nobody can afford to buy a house, private equity has now moved into the rental market to corner that and jack up pricing.

1

u/Frostaman 16h ago
  1. It does come down sometimes, especially after some policy change or economy slump. But in the long run, it should be in increasing trend.

  2. I doubt illegal alien could have money to afford a decent housing, I expect they just live with someone they knows rather than pay money to live? Please let me know if they really do.

1

u/Octoclops8 15h ago

If there's a minimum wage there should also be a maximum rent.

1

u/TheMightyTywin 14h ago

Rome was completely abandoned and had a population of 0 during the gothic war in 546-547. I bet rent was cheap then.

1

u/Honkey85 14h ago

It's true. But the other prices will increase dramatically. Imagine all the farms not having enough people. The prices for food will increase...

And - that whole deportation thing makes you just shitty people.

1

u/kryo2019 14h ago

Hey guess what, in Vancouver Canada we aren't "deporting illegals" and our rent has gone down some. How? The provincial government has forced changes to the building bylaws when it comes to transit orientated development that forces the municipalities to allow building heights to sky scraper levels within certain distances of train station and such.

We've had a bunch of developers go ham and we're finally at a point where new builds have to offer a ton of incentives, and existing buildings have to actually be competitive with their pricing thus resulting in lower rents compared to previous years highs

1

u/ohmyfarts 13h ago

Wrong went down during Covid 

2

u/BusinessLetterhead47 12h ago

Our work health insurance went up...because we, "Used it too much".

Our HR rep said, "It will go back down if we can use it less."

Me, shouting from the back, "THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!"

I started a whole thing...people were pissed. It was like they just needed on person to call bullshit.

1

u/The0nlyPenguin 12h ago

My rent went down when i re-signed during covid, that was neat, still was overpaying

2

u/wallyrules75 9h ago

Only once in my life did rents decrease and it took a worldwide pandemic to achieve it. And that was temporary.

1

u/MonoBlancoATX 7h ago

It turns out BOTH statements are false.

1

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-6

u/Own_Log1380 21h ago

Uh...except it can? I hate trump as much as the next guy but this is just false

10

u/DiscussTek 21h ago

"It can" doesn't mean "It will" and the history of everything ever has shown "it won't" is the correct prediction.

-3

u/Own_Log1380 21h ago

Rents are uh...theyre down 1.5% compared to last year. Again not much but you cant call trump a lying pig (which he is) while lying about how economics work

https://www.realtor.com/research/june-2026-rent/

7

u/Veshaad 20h ago

Where I'm at a bunch of investment companies moved in and bought a majority of the complexes across the city. They have done nothing to update them, and most suck at maintenance, but they've priced tenants out of units they've lived in for years/decades. It's not just in this city either.

7

u/IntensiveNurse3645 20h ago

This is happening to my husband and I right now. We just got notice last week that they're increasing our rent over 30%. Coincidentally, our neighborhood was bought out by an investment company about six months ago. They're slapping on a shitty, mismatched backsplash in the kitchen and throwing down that awful gray LVP flooring to justify it. Really compliments the Spanish styling of the rest of the house and doesn't clash at all... At least it's finally cheaper to buy a house than to keep renting again in my area. We've been here for seven years. Our next door neighbor finally moved out after 15 years due to the increase.

-3

u/Own_Log1380 20h ago

At my city rents have been down from 1500 to around 900-1000. Because ya know, its a big country and conditions are different depending on the area which is why the study i linked used median rent not local

1

u/Tavernknight 20h ago

Sounds like where I used to live. When I left 4 years ago, I was paying $1600 a month for a small 1 bedroom and bathroom apartment. I checked a few months ago and that same apartment is now $900 a month. And that wasn't due to deportations. It's because the city built a whole bunch of new housing developments and apartment complexes.

1

u/Own_Log1380 19h ago

Which is stated in the study I already linked.

2

u/DiscussTek 17h ago

So, I read the entire thing, and it is... Super comprehensive, but I can actually see something major about the thing that you've missed entirely...

They're taking the median, not about the overall price, and not counting the quality of the units. Some units that are below the median, pushing the median down, are objectively unlivable, either because they are barely passable for a jail cell (I've lived in one of those when down on my luck, that was actually horrible), or because the building itself is in a state of disrepair that shouldn't be legal to rent, with mold, decrepit staircases that can fail and harm someone badly, or other things that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

And this median being pulled down by unlivable units (at least in my area) is not proof that the housing is getting better.

And that's before we even start thinking about how rent went from less than 20% of your monthly paycheck to about 75% of it, over the course of 20 years. This isn't even remotely normal. Necessities shouldn't be crippling to have, and even if I were to accept that the "down 1.5%" is a valid thing that isn't fueled by unlivable housing, that amount is still far too fucking low of a drop.

1

u/Youngnathan2011 20h ago

Could, but won't. Landlords will never lower prices from the goodness of their hearts.

2

u/Own_Log1380 20h ago

See study above in another comment. Again, hate him all you want but dont lie about stuff just because its politically convinent when theres tons of stuff you can get mad at him for

0

u/Qweeq13 20h ago

It is a common misconception that rent prices are high because of lack of homes. But in reality rent is high only in places with heavy population concentration, big cities, famous places, tourist traps, business districts.

People simply need to be near the places they work, study, where their family is, where they just "want to be" and those places are surprisingly rare compared to population so you have massive crowding in certain places making rent exceedingly expensive.

Those hot spots is the actual problem, housing problem is an infrastructure problem above anything else.

No amount of getting rid of unwanted people or building homes in god forsaken places where no one wants to live is ever going to change that simple fact.

0

u/enigmaticsince87 9h ago

The COVID pandemic says otherwise. I rented my apartment in 2020, got a 40% lower rent than the previous tenants. Fucking win.