Apparently, we need some more distractions from all the

Child Rape

Every real estate agent, every mortgage broker, could see the fraud in the housing market long by 2003, but either didn’t recognize it as fraud at the time, or didn’t care. They were all making money hand over fist to prop it up.

Zero down payment, 110% LTV mortgages, seller-paid closing costs, buyer is receiving a $3000 check at closing? ARM set to triple their rate in a year? Completely absurd, but the agent is only getting paid if the deal closes. The mortgage broker is only getting paid if the deal closes. The lender is only getting paid if the deal closes. The seller is only getting paid if the deal closes. Everyone needed this deal to close, so they did what it took to close the deal.

Lenders were offering “Continuing Education” credits that RE agents needed for their licenses. That “continuing education” consisted of seminars coaching agents to encourage these deals.

By 2003, buyers were underwater with their mortgages as soon as they signed them. Yet it took 5 more years for the bubble to actually burst.

The circular financing ponzi scheme behind AI will survive until someone can’t service debt. What happens then is either the collapse of the whole scheme, or the government declaring them “too big to fail” and allowing them to reorganize into a single corporate entity.

Is this so bad and horrible?

Yes.

Instead I’m renting it to a family of Ukrainian refugees.

You are actively exploiting refugees.

You are no different than the BnB or the investors. You are on the supply side of the problem. Rent is, indeed, the problem.

You could offer to sell your property to those tenants. You could act as a private lender, allowing them to pay you instead of a commercial bank. You could offer them a “land contract”, which is a rent-to-own arrangement. If they choose to leave your property in the next three years, it was no different than a rental. If they choose to stay beyond three years, it automatically converts to a private mortgage, and they begin earning equity.

They basically pay off my mortgage so that I’m not actively losing money on the whole thing.

Leaving it vacant and just paying the mortgage yourself, you are gaining equity in exchange for your money. You are not losing anything. Renting, you are gaining that equity without paying for it.

The only way renting isn’t a problem is if the rent is far less than a mortgage payment on the same property.