yeah, in germany a few weeks ago the news made the headline that for-profit rent-out company vonovia makes 30c profit for every 1€ revenue. that’s extreme. that means they’re charging almost 50% more than they had to to operate at-cost.

also in vienna there’s a lot of city-owned apartments and rents here are really affordable. sincerely, written from my 550€/month apartment (roughly $600/month)

also a huge roadblock to lower construction costs is unnecessary complex building codes, zoning laws, and again zoning laws.

• unnecessarily complex construction regulations for example include zoning laws that prescribe that you can’t build multi-family houses on a single lot. this means two houses instead of two apartments in one house, which makes construction significantly more expensive.
• zoning laws also forbid in many places for example to operate supermarkets close to where you live. this is mostly a problem in the US, not so much in europe. it means you have to drive everywhere, which makes your cost-of-living higher.
• zoning laws, again, prescribe things such as minimum lot-size, which means you only have the option to buy 1 large lot instead of 1 small lot, even if you would be content with a smaller house on a small lot. also if not enough area is designated in a city as land for building, then that means that there’s a lack of supply, which makes the land more expensive, which makes the house more expensive.