People often compare landlords to scalpers but this isn't the case. A scalper uses their money and gives you the product at the end of it. They are useless middlemen who artificially drive up prices. Landlords don't use their money to buy the house. They use your money to pay for their mortgage, insurance and repairs and you don't even get the product at the end of it. It's made even worse by the fact that scalpers aren't selling goods that are largely inelastic. Look at a price chart of rent over many years and you see that the price going down is simply a myth because no matter how much prices go up people don't want to be homeless so they'll get roomates and work more jobs. Scalpers are bad but they are saints compared to landlords.