this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Are you asking why isn't everybody stealing each other's property?
If there's little repercussion and everyone is broke, yes.
I think you either a) underestimate people's desires to not be absolute assholes; or b) underestimate how often this happens.
Very possibly. But the train of thought loses me.
If squatters were a very big problem, and most squatters come from overstaying rentals, fewer people would be landlords because of the high risk. There would be squatter insurance for landlords.
I don't see that. So in our current situation, either squatters are not really that big of a problem, or the insurance industry is not being greedy enough? You can see why I think it's the former.
And it also wouldn't explain the high vacancy rate.
But here's an idea that fits what we see more closely. You have a bunch of unrentable units because they're not up to code. The owner doesn't want to fix it. They're just sitting on the property hoping it goes up in value so they can sell it. Squatters see that and move in because they don't care if it's up to code. The owners freak out because squatters reduce the property value.