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Two things: first, landlords aren't entitled to a profit, and second, landlord input costs might be completely different from an owner resident.

On the first point, if the landlord's costs are $2000/month, and the market rent for that unit is $1900/month, the landlord would rather lose $100/month on a lease than lose $2000/month on a vacant property.

On the second, it might be that the landlord bought the place when it was much cheaper, or has a much lower interest rate than what is available today. So if the landlord's costs are $2000/month for a property that would now cost $4000/month at today's purchase prices and interest rates, but can rent for $3000/month at a profit to himself.

Similarly, some volume landlords can spread certain costs around and not pay nearly as much as an owner resident. It might cost $1200 to hire a plumber to do a 6-hour job, but it also might cost $150 to simply have a plumber on the payroll to do that job, if you've got enough steady work that it's cheaper to have him around.

Because markets aren't perfectly rational. If they were perfectly efficient, no company would ever be able to make a profit at all. But we don't live in that perfect Econ 101 world, and companies can make profits because inefficiencies exist in the economy. As such, sometimes rent can be more expensive than owning.

Because if you buy a house, it's just you and the bank, so you need to cover the banks risk for you as an individual, meaning higher interest rates. Larger purchases, or a group of houses are covered by different loan types, flexible rates at for example international rated plus half a point.. and that is mich cheaper. The rate might fluctuate.. but if the government strongarms the fed to keep the loans practically free, companies borrow for free plus half a point. And that is a lot of difference.

Racket.

A racquet is what you hit your insurance adjuster with when you're tired of his racket.

Renting could never compare to owning, as Equity is the biggest source of wealth for the middle class in the US. Not owning equity to pass on to your kids is one of the worst mistakes you can make. IF you can afford that sort of thing.

you divide the amount of money that it costs by the amount of dollars you would pay to rent something like that per month and then figure that's how long it'll take for you to look at a duck instead of a chicken

This is only looking at a point in time, not the life of the loan. In the US at least, we have fixed rate loans (many countries do not have that). So your "rent" when you mortgage a home is fixed for 30 years. When you rent, your rental costs increase with inflation every year. While it might be 14% higher to mortgage than rent right now, in a few years your mortgage will stay the same while your rent will have increased. Yes, there are repair/maintenance costs, but after 5 years or so you are saving enough per month to pay for those repairs.

When you mortgage a home as an investment property, you are leveraging your money 5-1 (on a 20% down payment)

If rent covers 90% of the mortgage, you still make an absolutely huge profit amortized over the loan.

If you consider the tax incentives (interest write off, depreciation, capital gains deferment, pass through deduction) the gap in the rent can be covered.

Consider paying 50k down on a 250k house, the. Paying an additional 15 percent over the life of the loan (around 40k) to cover for gaps in rent.

Over the life of the loan you turned 90 grand into 250 grand (and a house is an appreciating asset, so it will likely be worth more than 250 by the end of it all)

Deduct depreciation (value of the home minus land value over 27.5 years) and carry over losses can even make up for the gap of rent you pay entirely over time.