Inflation causing high rents
Editor:
To everyone complaining about expensive rents: please feel free to go buy a house.
To the employers whose employees can’t afford to stay, please feel free to pay them a real living wage. Yes, it means prices will go up ... that is called inflation and as a business owner you need to keep pace with it.
The alternative is government subsidized housing which we all end up paying for anyway ... and I don’t know about you, but my taxes are high enough while I watch governments bloat with inefficiencies and corruption.
But as a homeowner and landlord who provides excellent housing to many, I am sick and tired of hearing about “gouging” and “dirty slumlords.” I didn’t risk hard earned cash so that tenants could live below cost. If you want that please ask your parents to buy you a home ... I am sure they would be happy to lose money every month.
The entitlement of some simply blows me away.
Yes, vacancy is very low and rents and prices are rising. Welcome to economics 101 – supply and demand.
But in the years when rents and prices were dropping I wasn’t asking the government to subsidize my losses. I was sucking it up and dealing with it. I was creative. I made ends meet ... as were many, many landlords ... unfortunately, some went bankrupt in the process.
If you want to blame anyone for expensive rents, blame your government. If I could buy 100 more houses to rent out without having to give up my first child I would do it tomorrow. Unfortunately, the government imposed rules to make it increasingly difficult to do so.
If governments want to get into “Affordable Housing” they should do so in recessions and downturns in the economy (like smart investors do) and not in booms. Recessions are great times to pick up cheap inventory, create jobs and strengthen the market in both the short and long term.
Lastly, to the media ... some balanced coverage would be much appreciated. The full story. The full picture. Not just the bleeding heart “I can’t afford my rent” stories.
Wade Graham,
Canmore
