The truth of renting in London shines through: it is nothing but enslavement
What did the author mean by renters should get land titles? Is this person saying that renters are entitled to suddenly own what they rent? I&#x27;m not getting what they meant with that point or how that would work.<p>Look, I love a good rant as much as the next bloke, but renters are not <i>forced</i> to pay X% of their income. The word force has a specific meaning, and somebody <i>choosing</i> to rent a specific flat isn&#x27;t force. Renters choose to pay large amounts in order to live in a particular area. The reason that rates are so high is that there&#x27;s many, many people that want to live there. There&#x27;s certainly less expensive housing than a desirable apartment in the best London areas. What&#x27;s a fair way to determine who gets to live in a nice place in the most desirable areas?<p>Prices are based on supply and demand. Everybody, in every market, charges about as much as they can get. If your supermarket could sell a big bag of rice for $9,000, they would. If you could charge your employer $9,000 per hour for your services, you would. The reason that prices don&#x27;t inflate like this is that there&#x27;s always competition. If somebody tried to charge $9,000 for a bag of rice, the next person could charge $5,000, or $1,000, or so on and so on until the price that meets demand is found. If you tried to charge $9,000 per hour as your wage, your employer could find somebody else to do it for less too. This is how prices work. Landlords only manage to get $XXXX because there&#x27;s many people willing to pay that.<p>So if we&#x27;re complaining about rental prices, what&#x27;s wrong with supply and demand in cities? Many things, but in many cities, they do their damnedest to both reduce housing supply (stuff like price controls or building regulations that prevent new construction) at the same time as they&#x27;re increasing housing demand (the big cities where housing is most pricey are always filled with politicians trying their hardest to agitate for mass migration and bring in more economic migrants. Nothing wrong with people trying to better their situation, but this demand for housing necessarily puts pressure on housing prices).<p>Strictly as far as housing prices go, unless something is worked on with either the supply or the demand, I don&#x27;t see how any substantially better result emerges.