Well if your city had their shit together they would upzone neighborhoods so that multi family housing was legal. Single family only neighborhoods restrict housing availiblity, so of course landlords take advantage of it! It’s like if there were a food shortage, of course prices will go up and yes people will start selling expired food in back-allies. Your area probably has more jobs then housing, the only way to fix that is more housing, or you know less jobs.

This is only profitable because we have a severe shortage of housing, also multi family housing is illegal in much of the US, thus, whole neighborhoods zoned single family…