"LRTs displace all the poor people"?

[MidTowner]

Now with something like apartment rentals, even if in theory you're supposed to make money, in practice that will only work if the apartment stays rented, the tenant pays the rent, there are no unanticipated expenses, etc. You're always taking risks. Hopefully you get rewarding for taking them by way of higher rates of return.

There's risk, but you have to purchase a property with a reasonable expectation of positive cash flow. To do otherwise necessarily means you're speculating that there will be capital appreciation...maybe that's not bad in some cases, but it's not quite the same as investing in rental property. Owen is talking about people who buy condos for "investment" with the expectation that they will be out of pocket every month. They're subsidizing their tenants.