Title says it all, seen a lot of landlord bashing on here lately and thought if you can't beat them, join them complaining!
I'm probably considered a bit of a moderate on my stance on this point as in I'm neither on the side of landlord being a 'full time job' as owning a second property should not be a sufficient contribution to society to satisfy a comfortable lifestyle or on the side of 'we should just take their houses from them and burn them to death' because I'm just not that anarchic.
What annoys me is that landlords want rent to 'make a living' but the ownership of the property alone creates them additional asset value as the housing market climbs ever upwards. Ownership alone makes them indirect income, the rent is just pure cream scooping from the already heavy milk jugs that are filled by the work of the masses.
I know the field is ridiculously complex and a real solution will require significant, long term changes in society and economics. However, my short term solution has always been that the government should set limits on rent price based on property space and/or house price valuation.
If you have the luxury as an individual of owning a few properties then you should have the option to gain a small income from them, you should not be able to 100% live on the rent alone while ALSO having your assets gain ridiculous value over time and if you ever want more money and/or retire then SELL THE PROPERTY FOR CASH and let someone actually buy the dam thing!
And if your a company owning mass amounts of properties then, again, you have ridiculous asset value anyway so too bad you can't ALSO generate a profit from just the rent.
I feel like this would both:
a) allow people to afford renting decent properties to live in.
b) Put pressure on people to sell their spare properties which would allow the average no-homer the chance to buy a property.