Ifreann wrote:And landlords are different from businesses providing other kinds of rental services. Everything else people rent is something they only want or need for a limited period of time, and the service provider keeps a stock of that available for people to use for a few hours or days or whatever it is. But people who are renting somewhere to live, they're not in town for just a week, they're living in that place for years. They're renting a house, not because they only need to live there temporarily, but because they need to live there for the foreseeable future and can't afford to buy. And one of the reasons they can't afford to buy is that someone who only needed one place to live went and bought two or three or a thousand and is renting out what they're not using.
Actually, the average tenant only stays in a single place for 2.5 to 3 years.
That is "years", multiple, but not "the foreseeable future". Most renters are fairly transitory, moving around every 2-3 years.
https://tenantplanet.com/how-long-does-a-tenant-stay/