this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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Opportunity cost is the cost you have forgotten to account for. Having the building paid off does not reduce the cost.
Nope. Even setting aside rental income, the increase in property value itself has been plenty remunerative. Having the building paid off also allows one to borrow against the value of the asset, which offsets some opportunity costs.
I’m surprised people are actually arguing that real estate investors haven’t been richly rewarded enough. Ridiculous.
You are entering personal opinion territory with that remark, which has no place in a discussion, but I will stricken the opinion part and work with what information remains. Given that, I take it to mean that a business seeking profit does not necessarily need to find profit by way of cashflow, but rather asset appreciation. Is that a fair assessment?
That is technically true. Agriculture in particular loves that model – and it has burned many, many, many farmers before. Remember the 1980s? They had to go as far as to have concerts to try and bail farmers out because it got so bad. It is super high risk. Farmers will often put up with that insane risk because they have a passion for farming and will take the risk just so that they can do what they love.
Does anyone have a passion for being a landlord? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. Landlords are in it purely as a business. And a business is going to focus on income fundamentals to not go down the road of needing concerts to save them when the promise of asset inflation fails.
Of course, with big risk comes the potential for big reward, but there seems to be no reason for landlords to take that gamble. It is not a passion project.
I don’t know where you got the idea that profiting off of land value is some exotic and untenable investment strategy, one that requires “insane risk” and “passion”. Your example of landlords being reduced to desperate concerts is very silly.
You dismiss this as “personal opinion” without explanation, but the objective fact is that land value has gone up a lot in Canada, and real estate has tons of arbitrary tax advantages (like the Smith Maneuver). This has made real estate a remunerative investment. That’s been the consensus of the domestic and international investment community, which has poured money into Canadian real estate. This is so obvious, I’m surprised I’m having to say it!
Are you responding to someone named “Rocket” by chance?
I am. What’s going on? Does it not show up that way on everyone’s account?
Nothing nefarious or anything; I blocked them a while ago and I see they’re still being an edgy contrarian and pissing people off. I had noticed a bunch of comments that seemed out of place and had a hunch it was Rocket. Haha
Yes it's very remunerative. But have you stopped to consider it could be even more so? /s
And how much is this "costing" landlords, exactly?
First of all, fuck landlords and double fuck people that buy up single family homes to rent out. This is not an endorsement, just a basic explanation of opportunity cost for anyone interested.
Fuck landlords, in case you missed the first one.
Now that that's out of the way, opportunity cost is what you lose by not doing something else with your capital.
For example:
You assume you could make an average of 10% a year in the stock market.
You have 100k equity in a rental property.
You collect rent, after paying the mortgage, taxes, maintenance, and any other expenses you make 10k in a year.
That's 10% of your 100k in equity, the same you estimate you'd make in the market, no opportunity cost.
Some number of years later between paying more of your mortgage and increase in the value of the property you have 500k in equity.
You only increased rent enough to cover increases in taxes, maintenance, and other expenses so you still only make 10k a year.
That is now 2% of your 500k in equity.
The 8% difference between the 10% you think you could make in the stock market if you sold the place and the 2% you're getting without jacking up the rent, is the opportunity cost.
Of course there are more things to take into account, this is just to give you a basic idea.
Fuck landlords.
Wait. Am I misunderstanding you, are you completely off base, or is opportunity cost really just some handwavy estimation of how much money they maybe could have made in some hypothetical world where they made different investments? The fuck?
Yeah, breaks your heart, don't it?
You're not misunderstanding at all. Opportunity cost is that simple.
If I can get 5% guaranteed on a government bond, and my buddy needs some help to get out of a jam (and I'm as sure as I can be he'll pay me back) and he offers me 3%, if I give him the money I'm not doing a nice thing and making 3%, I'm an idiot that's losing 2%.
At least according to the people that can only think of more more more.