having a place to live stopped being about living and became about profiting.
real estate today is a financial asset. giant companies, reits and people with lots of money buy dozens or hundreds of apartments and leave them empty. they wait for appreciation, or rent them out at absurd prices. the place to live became a speculation business and nobody talks about it (¬_¬)
airbnb
in tourist cities, short-term rentals pulled a ton of properties out of long-term rental. why rent for monthly housing when you can charge double per night from tourists?
and there's worse. there's affordable housing, the kind the government builds or subsidizes for low-income families, being rented on airbnb. the resident discovers they can earn way more from short stays than they'd pay in normal rent. so they rent it out, or sell the informal right to someone else who does it.
the result is that affordable housing never reaches those who actually need it. it becomes extra income for those who already had access.
and in Brazil there's an extra factor. when interest rates go up, financing gets super expensive and more people go into renting. that puts even more pressure on rent prices. and interest rates here are historically sky-high, right (´･ω･`)
has it always been this way?
no!
there's a famous stat from London. in the 90s, a house cost about 4 times the average annual salary. today it's like 12 to 15 times. to buy a decent apartment in a capital city, you need a whole decade of your entire salary. without eating, without spending on anything.
whoever bought land and property earlier made out really well. the value multiplied. but for today's youth, one salary barely covers rent. if it even covers it.
and this isn't just Brazil. it's a global problem. New York, Sydney, Vancouver, Lisbon, Barcelona. every place that became a tourist destination or tech hub, housing prices went through the roof. (╯°□°）╯
who wins from this?
whoever already owns property. reits. developers. short-term rental platforms. the system is set up for those who already have, to have more. and for those who don't, figure it out.
sometimes i wonder what it would be like if housing were treated as a basic right and not as an investment.
but i think that's too much utopia for the world we live in (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)
i'm here paying rent myself and watching the price go up every year. meanwhile there are people with 15 empty apartments. it's weird. it's sad. and nobody seems to care much.