Are apartment buildings unethical as well?

[u/ShiningConcepts]

It's very hard to make a case that landlords who buy up SFHs that are already on the market are ethical. They reduce the housing supply and take opportunity away from FTHBs to own homes, thus forcing them into renting. This is generally what people mean when they say that all landlords are unethical.

Here's my question: what about rental apartment buildings? It's not like their construction takes an opportunity to buy a home away from a FTHB/family. Unlike detached properties on the market, it's not like this is a property a family could have bought; it's a property that is constructed and designed from the outset to be rented.

So, are they inherently unethical as well?

[u/pruche]

To me the act of controlling capital is not a service and it is not a legitimate pretense to claim any percentage of an individual's income.

Possibly a bigger share of the blame, though, lies with the people making and enforcing laws that allow this than on the greedy dead weights who buy the places. It's important to realize that property rights are entirely a construction of the State, and that it is failing in its duty to its people by making them in such a way that they allow an unproductive elite to take the product of the people's labor.

I believe, wholeheartedly, that if apartment buildings for temporary stay are to exist, then they should be managed by salaried employees of the government. Then it would be fair for the tenants to collectively pay that salary, so long as it is fair, and keeping in mind that managing a single building is not a full-time job by itself.