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One thing I’ve learned on reddit is that you never tell people on platforms like that or even this one that you’re a landlord. You could be the best landlord, never raise a reasonable rent, keep a well and promptly maintained property, and LanDlOrDs aRe The ScUm of ThE Earth!!1! is all you hear.
The very idea of being a landlord is pretty evil though? Like in a housing shortage you're hoarding property and profiting off it.
So while I generally agree with your sentiment, there are some obvious ways that sometime could be an ethical landlord.
What if you have a house that's too big, so you convert a floor into an apartment? You're adding to the number of housing units available. Should you be forced to sell a portion of your house/building to whoever wants to live there? Or should you be able to rent it out to someone at a reasonable rate? Do we want rules that discourage people from potentially adding units to the market?
I feel like the "all landlords are evil" narrative is way too simplistic, and that simplistic view turns off people who would otherwise support reasonable limits on landlords and housing ownership. Like, it's obvious that we need limits and taxes on people who own multiple properties, and it's obvious that there are companies that exploit renters and drive up prices, but it's all more complicated than just "landlords evil lol".
I rent my property because it's the only way I could've bought it at my age and I use that money to pay for the mortgage of it while I live somewhere I don't want to (under parent's wing in a crappy city) but angry people rarely if ever consider all scenarios
Someone else is litteraly paying your mortgage for you because you cannot afford it otherwise. How out of touch do you have to be to say that with a straight face?
Thanks for the insult and making my point, I can afford it but in my country you have to make a downpayment of 20% of the value and that ate into my savings, I want to recover some of my savings before moving to another city and eating into those savings more, plus I have to wait a year for my wife's job, is it wrong to rent it for that year before I move?
How am I making your point? You litteraly said that you could not afford the place, so you rented it out instead.
Someone is paying your mortgage for you because you cannot afford it, and then you will kick that person out when you want to. That person will then have to move again in a market that gets worse by the month.
I'd say that is pretty bad all around.
How can I not afford the place? This is just to make my life easier I would not artificially make it harder on me if I can rent it to some europeans that will stay on a sabatical in my country.
What is my other choice? Leave the place abandoned for a year until I move? Prices get worse every year and I found a great opportunity to buy now instead of wait until I could buy it without a bank loan. Prices doubled because I waited so this time I don't want to wait. My mortgage is 25% of my salary that's not bad is it?
You said that you rent the property you bought because that is the only way you could do it. That is litteraly your first sentence.
Someone else is paying your mortgage right now so that you can move in later.
I am not sure what else can be said.
Same not sure how I can explain myself better so let's just disagree and move on
This really goes to show that being a landlord requires no intelligence whatsoever.
So you're keeping home ownership away from someone who can afford to pay your mortgage is what you're really saying.
How did you come to this conclusion? If someone is renting it means they they can't pay for mortgage. Otherwise they would've done so. He said, that he needed to make a 20% payment to even get the mortgage. Idk how much money that was for him, but where I live that would be around 130k$. Clearly not everyone has that kind of cash.
And what's your solution? Disallow renting properties for which mortgage wasn't posted in full?
If you buy it, live in it. Stop contributing to the housing crisis. Greed got us here, it certainly won't get us out.
So disallowing renting. So you don't control your property, which means you don't own it but lease it.
This is problematic, since not being able to open your house is worse than having difficulties with obtaining it. I agree that generally having some people own a lot of housing units is bad, but not being able to own a house means communism. And not as a scare, but quite literally, as in definition.
If you buy it, live in it. That's not communism, that's taking control of a crisis. Feel free to rent out part of the house while you live in it, in fact some places are incentivizing exactly that. But owning multiple homes for profit is the problem, whether it's by corporations or "mom and pop" landlords. It's a problem we can and should fix.
Your assuming everyone wants to own property over renting.
House and property ownership has a lot of responsibility and expenses involved. Your water heater breaks well there is $1000+ your roof needs replacing there is 30K. All of that goes away when you rent as it isn't your responsibility.
If you own property it can be harder and more risky to relocate. I know a few people that bought in 2007 and then were stuck as they couldn't afford to move because they were upsidedown on their house.
Not saying renting is all sunshine and roses. I personally would rather own then rent but home ownership isn't for everyone.
But I do think it is a major problem when you have a few companies buying up all property so no one else can afford it. But I don't think being a Landlord is inherently evil.
Rentals should be socialized, not owned by corporations or private citizens.
Yikes
In a perfect world sure, government is fully funded and runs smoothly people care about the everyone etc.. etc..
But in reality I really would be very hesitant to want to live in that world. It is very scary to have a single organization control all your housing. At least with the way it currently is if you don't like your landlord you can go somewhere else. If the government owns everything your kind of stuck dealing with the same organization no matter where you go. Governments are not immune to corruption and can screw you over even worse in some cases then an organization.
In my opinion the best solution is many private citizens and small rental companies combined with government enforcing laws protecting both parties. However one big issues I am seeing is huge companies buy up everything in a small area and build a monopolies on rentals. That isn't good either.
Governments are not immune to corruptions, but in the democracy there are ways to influence the government. Private companies that buy all the property are doing the corruption by design, in this case it's not even called corruption, it's normal profit-driven business, it's supposed to be like that. And you can't do shit about that, there is no ways to influence them
And you can’t do shit about that, there is no ways to influence them
You influence them via your business and local laws. That is why I specifically mentioned that the best solution is having multiple small companies. If you have problems with one you go to another one. Just like what you do with any other company. Yeah it stuck to have to move but it is better move and get a better situation then be stuck in a bad situation.
I actually recently learned about housing co-ops. Basically an apartment complex led by a committee of residents. It's non profit high density housing, so you can buy a share (meaning rent an apartment) at much lower rates. As an example, in my area the co-ops are at 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of traditional rentals. The downside is, from what I hear, the folks managing the apartment complex can be even worse than an HOA if you're unlucky.
IMO this is the sustainable way forward for housing.
I would love a co op
Yeah, I hope more open up. I reached out to one and they said they have a 2 year wait-list unfortunately, haha....
Threw down over 20k in fixes so far in our first year of homeownership, and due to interest rates and closing costs, we don't really have the opportunity to move anywhere else without taking a significant financial hit.
You bet it's not for everyone.
Yeah but you know what, you always have a home. It is very unlikely the bank will ever foreclose on you, they rarely do that, even in 2008 almost nobody lost their homes.
But me, I lose my home on my landlords whim. At any given time I may have just 30 days to pack my life up and fuck off, and there's nothing I can do about it.
You have stable permanent shelter. Don't undervalue that just because you have to maintain it.
Um, you have rights depending on your country of I’m not mistaken
Rights that allow me just 30 days to pack up and leave.
Right now the news in my area is rife with "renovictions" and landlords kicking people to "move family in" but they never have to give any proof of those things. There is regulation, but there is no enforcement.
That certainly sucks. Can you sue for wrongful eviction? I know that's a thing where I'm at.
Definitely not undervaluing it, however it's worth pointing out that 20k is over a years worth of rent for a similar property where I'm at.
Are you renting month to month? Typically where I'm from you sign 1 year long rental agreements, so that is surprising to hear. Additionally, in some states, if the tenant has been living in a location for over a year, the owner has to give two months notice.
At the end of the day, being financially locked down to a location vs having a "permanent" home, as well as having the opportunity to move wherever you want vs having no permanent home are two sides of the same coins.
You don't have the opportunity to move where you want when you're paying 50% or more of your takehome on rent. As an owner you have way more opportunity because you have equity you can leverage if you want to move. Renters have no equity.
It is the furthest thing from two sides of the same coin.
That sounds like an income vs cost of living issue to me. It wouldn't really be feasible to move until many, many years in if you were making mortgage payments of 50% or more of your takehome.
Ngl in this imagined scenario where shelter is taking up 50% of your income, you're kinda fucked regardless of renting or owning. There's no way you'd be able to save enough money to replace the roof (25k?) Replace aging sewer pipes (9k to reline, maybe 15k to replace?) Or replace the windows (haven't gotten quotes for this yet, but I'm dreading it). You'll have to get financing for those fixes, so that's even more interest.
However if you get a better job elsewhere, it is far easier to take advantage of that opportunity if you rent.
You have no equity when renting, but you also haven't spent a cent on maintenance, and you don't have to deal with closing costs, taxes, and whatnot.
Ngl in this imagined scenario where shelter is taking up 50% of your income
Imagined? Man, fuck you
Again. This sounds like more of an income vs cost of living issue than a renting vs owning issue.
Shelter taking up more than half your take home income is a rough place to be. If that's what you're going through I hope you're able to get into a better situation soon. Nothing much else to say, just the well wishes of a stranger on the Internet.
You're still paying for those repairs when you rent, it's just spread out.
You are basically insuring yourself against those expenses, which has a premium. If you are good with money and have a savings, you can afford not to pay that premium. Not everyone is in that position or smart enough with money. So many people are bad with money, that stuff really should be taught in school.
But you're not researching, hiring, and scheduling a contractor to fix it. You don't need to become an expert in long term planning and anticipate problems. You're not mentally cataloging basic maintenance tasks like when you last painted the siding or mowed the lawn.
Home ownership vs renting goes beyond equity and I know a lot of people who were happy renting because it gave them a huge chunk of free time back for trips, hobbies, etc.
Not everyone is able or willing to own their property, what would they do if landlords didn't exist?
Privatizing the right to have shelter is pretty scummy to be a thing to exist.
What if I build a house on a piece of land I own and want to rent it out?
The second construction is completed I'm all of a sudden a scumbag for privatizing someone else's right to shelter? Even though it's a house I built on my land? Doesn't make much sense to me.
You're moving the goal posts here. Did you buy the land for the purpose of building property? Bad. Did you convert arable land into housing? Bad. Was it a rocky bad piece of land that you invested in to build something more out of it? Good. Housing policy isn't binary but in most cases the current personal private multiownership model doesn't help anyone. My perspective is no one should be allowed to own more than one house, and if so anything beyond the first house should be heavily taxed.
Buying land for the purpose of building property is bad? I think any policy that discourages development of additional housing is probably not going to be great for house prices. Or if you're handing out houses in a lottery system, it won't be great for housing supply at least.
I'll give you an example; my country has food insecurity, rich people take arable farmland and build suburbs on that land instead of infilling the city downtown which has single detached homes less than a kilometre from the centre of the city. Do you think that this is a good thing they're buying this farmland for suburbs, or a bad thing?
So they would still have a landlord it would be the government instead and people would be pissed when the government increases rent or throws people out because they're destroying the place or not paying their rent...
I'd much prefer to have social housing than slumlords that want to make a profit on the rented space while also keeping the value of the building.
So, how does the government decide who gets beachfront property and who lives behind the power plant?
The same way that it works now? The unit is for rent, you take an appointment and the first person that qualifies get it.
This is not the gotcha you think it is. What so different than the current system?
Make it illegal to rent out property you don't live on.
If you want to rent out your basement, or build a seperate dwelling on your property then you are adding to the available housing and can rent that. Most people would rather build their own equity given the chance, and this would provide rentals for temporary living situations.
Like in a housing shortage you’re hoarding property and profiting off it.
Housing shortages are caused by bad government policy: namely, low-density zoning. Direct your anger towards the entity that deserves it, and make them fix their fuck-up.
(Note: I'm not making some kind of Libertarian "all government is bad" argument here. I'm saying that in this specific case, the laws need to be changed.)
There is enough empty property to house every homeless person 30 times. Some of those empty property are summer houses and shit, but even then the problem isn't the lack of housing, it's treating homes as a mean to make money out of people's basic needs. You can build the best walkable city in the world, but if it will be bought by professional landlords immediately it will not solve shit.
What's the alternative here? Only letting big companies without any ethical regards rent housing?
Sure, there's a good argument to be made that housing is essential to survive and as such should be provided by the government, but that's not the world we live in. In this society, it's likely someone is going to have to rent it out and I'd rather it be a person who actually gives a shit and can be held responsible rather than some faceless corporation.
Simple. Only individuals can buy single family homes. No renting of single family homes. And remove zoning restrictions to allow for more multifamily units.
Oh hoo hoo, when you talk about removing zoning restrictions things get hairy fast. The city of Houston has no zoning restrictions and from what I can tell (I’m not from there) some people love it and some people hate it. Apartments bring with it noise and generally clutter an area. You need nee infrastructure to manage an apartment, the tall place blocks the sun. Now if you’re in a city then you still have to think about where those apartments may be built. If they’re cheap and in a nice neighborhood then they’ll be snagged up so quickly. If they’re in a bad neighborhood then no one is going to want them. So what zoning restrictions would you recommend removing?
Actually in my experience faceless corporations tend to follow the rules much more stringently.
No it's absolutely not. Your comment displays a complete ignorance of the business.
It's not a business, it's a scam to take advantage of people
Not a scam. Not taking advantage of people. You're just wrong on all accounts.
Get a real job
I have a real job. It's called being a landlord.
what do you do as a landlord? Like when you come into work during your weird landlord schedule they always seem to have - what do you actually do?
Being a landlord means being self-employed. There's no set 8-5 M-F schedule like there is when working in an office.
It could mean meeting a contractor at 7:30am on a weekday or it could mean working on the weekend. Or staying at a property until 11pm painting to get it ready for a tenant.
There’s no set 8-5 M-F schedule like there is when working in an office.
that's why I mentioned the weird schedule they always have. My current one has some shit like Saturday 1 pm to 4 pm and then they don't reopen until Tuesday at noon then are closed again on Wednesday. Like what the fuck.
I never see my landlord doing shit like that. Just show people to new apartments usually.
I work from home and look outside. I see people move in and move out all the time. I rarely see the guy in charge doing anything other than handing over some keys.
or it could mean owning cheap apartment complex and having a building manager take care of almost everything.
Wrong.
I'd make a point, but you didn't bother. Typical landlord unwilling to put in the work.
Another person who doesn't know what they're talking about who is anti-business.
I'm sure they're not anti business, just anti exploitation
Well then it doesn't make sense because being a landlord has nothing to do with exploitation.
I mean, even the dictionary spells it out pretty clearly.
"Explotation: The act of using someone unfairly for your own advantage"
And that has nothing to do with landlords.
Whatever helps you sleep night!
it has everything to do with maximizing rents and minimizing costs at the expensive of the people living in those properties. There is a reason why there are rules about increasing rents and protests / laws against demovicitions.
Unfortunately you don't understand the business.
thanks for illuminating it for me with your vast knowledge.
What's more pro-business than wanting the people doing all the work to get paid without the leech shareholders that contribute nothing taking all the incentive for that work?
"It's not scalping, iT's A bUiSnEsS!"
Not the same thing.
Purchasing something that there is a limited amount of in order to profit off someone else wanting it. Sure sounds the same to me...
No, wait, they are different. Concert tickets are necessary for survival.
This is a textbook case of "I don't understand that thing, so I'm going to irrationally fear and hate that thing". Making a comparison of two things that are completely different displays that lack of understanding.
This is a textbook example of "I can't defend a thing, so I'm just going to say you're wrong for disliking without offering any actual arguments for it." Making no statements other than "No, your wrong!" Displays your lack of justification.
Best case scenario, rent is low and only covers taxes and building upkeep. Then you're essentially getting a zero interest loan since property is valuable and it's being loaned for free.
Rent is obscene virtually everywhere. Rent should not preclude someone from saving money towards owning their own home, and it really does.
Also, the available, functionally livable land is going to quickly get smaller with climate change. So the more viable land is hoarded, the more people are pushed into desperate and bad living situations. (For example, who are the people with homes on coastlines affected by rising sea levels going to actually sell their soon-to-be-underwater property to? Won't it effectively be valueless under water?)
Michigan's Upper Peninsula is being gentrified because it's an area least likely to be affected by climate change. A lot of the mega-rich are buying property around that area.
Yeah, that'll push the prices up even higher.
I don't disagree. Obscenely high rent is common and bad. That means the interest on the loan that you are getting is extremely high. The solutions would be subsiding it by government owned housing, allowing new housing (especially high density) to be built, and discouraging people from living in cities. I think we should do both the first two.
I think everyone in your replies is conflating being a full time landlord and a part time landlord. One of them is definitely more evil than the other.
Idk my previous landlord was part time and was still hell.
My previous landlord was amazing. Dealt with every issue that arose in a timely fashion, never raised my rent (which was already very fair based on the location), and even installed central AC after my first kid was born since the house was old and could get pretty hot in the summers.
And she wasn’t the only good landlord I’ve had.
Sorry your experience has been bad with renting, and I agree that most landlords are terrible (I’ve had plenty of those as well), but just because you haven’t ever had a good landlord doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Like you’ll ever buy a house yourself and support all of the taxes and upkeep with your nonexistent pay
If the rent is covering the taxes and upkeep then the renter is paying it anyway through a middle man.
If the rent isn't covering costs then the landlord is bad at this and won't be a landlord for long.
Well, renting out property is the only way for most people to achieve some moderate wealth.
You should never achieve wealth by the oppression of someone else. Housing is a human right, not a salary.
Should farmers not make money? Healthcare workers? Mechanics? Bus drivers? You can argue that this should be socialized, but it is still a salary.
I said achieve wealth. These people aren't generating large amounts of personal wealth by withholding a basic human right from someone
I've had shitty landlords and good ones. My current one hasn't changed the rent price in 4 years, comes out same day or next day to deal with issues... to be honest I wish I could copy and paste my current landlord to my next place too 😭
One of my old landlords tried to charge me for damage I didn't cause... but guess who recorded every nook and cranny in 4K after accepting the keys, and used that footage to dispute and get my full deposit back 🤪🤪
My last landlord didn't raise my rent for seven years. I was thankful until I moved out and he still hasn't been able to re-rent the place after two years despite dropping the rent by $100. He just didn't want to risk losing his prize schmuck lol.
What I most hate is landlords who put an automatic 5% (or whatever) increase into an auto-renewing lease. It's bullshit because their mortgage generally isn't increasing like that.
But taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs do
But my wage doesn't.
Probably because most users are americans and there renters barely have any protections.
There's no such thing as a good landlord
I'm sorry for your negative experiences, but please be mindful that not only your subjective world exists. I might have been extremely lucky, but all my previous rental places were maintained by nice folks.
Its not that the person themselves cant be "good" but the act of hoarding and limiting access to a basic human need, like shelter, to use it as leverage in order to extort profit from others is wrong.
Landlord-ing is inherently bad it doesnt matter if the person doing it is the nicest person on earth.I'd say it depends on the scale and the intentions.
"Nice folks" doesn't mean shit if they are paying the absolute minimum to upkeep a building and never missing a chance to raise the rent. The overwhelming amount of landlords are the above.
None of these points have applied to them. I get the feeling it might be a case of culture differences, maybe the toxic landlording mentioned in the meme is more prevalent in the US?
Will you tell us a story about a good ethical landlord?
My previous one hasn't raised rent for five years, and even then he asked if it would be okay with us. Which it was, for even the raised rent was significantly below the market rate and he always responded quickly to any issues we have raised. He was a blue-collar worker who inherited a flat he didn't want to sell, so rented it out to those who couldn't afford to buy a property on their own.
why didn't he want to sell it?
To use it later when his children would need it.
Perhaps, if you could explain what "ethical" means in this context.
You can click on the "Show context" button to see who I responded to in order to gauge the proper context of ethical landlord in this case.
Not just being a landlord, owning a property at all, no matter how much you paid and when, means you're rich...
As a couple we own a condo paid 85k in the early 2010s and a cottage paid 50k in 2020 (that was on the market for months)? I've had many users tell me I've got no business talking about the housing crisis because I'm privileged... Because the two of us are able to afford the mortgage on 135k in property???
Considering I have a very good credit score and a full time job but the banks wouldn't lend me that much regardless if I could find a shack for that little, yea, sounds like privilege to a lot of us out here.
You can have the best credit score ever, if you're working minimum wage then you can't expect to get a loan. I bought the condo with 10k down making about 40k/year to give you an idea...
Anyone with a mediocre amount of business sense or anyone that actually owns / owned (or pretends they own via a mortgage) real estate knows exactly how terribly difficult it is to just keep everything running.
This alone explains why reddit and such have no damn clue why renting is so expensive.
As a landlord and someone who loves shenanigans, it's been great. It's never been easier to piss off dozens of people I don't like at once.
Like, sure dude, my owning a few houses is totally the reason your city that I don't live in won't build new housing to meet demand, and I totally enjoy spending all of my weekends doing manual labor fixing shit for my tenants.
my owning a few houses is totally the reason your city that I don't live in won't build new housing to meet demand
You're literally buying the supply and creating a demand by owning more than you can personally use.
If you want to have an actual debate about housing supply and demand, I'm always down for reasonable discussion.
Ultimately what matters is that enough supply is built to meet buyer demand, whether it be from owner occupants or landlords. Landlords can buy up or build as much housing as they want, but as long as there's still more available, the prices will stay reasonable and owner occupants will have no issues getting affordable housing. And buying up too much will crater the rental rates if there are significantly fewer potential tenants than available units. There are plenty of markets where this is the case, the city I am in is one of them. Someone on a $50k salary here would have no issues finding a modestly sized SFH in a reasonably nice working class neighborhood. Cheaper if you're willing to go for a condo or townhouse.
That's what I have to do on my weekends too, and I don't own shit.
never mind the fact that that landlord probably worked hard to buy his first property and subsequent properties to self-employ themselves in the first place
covid hoarders also worked hard to buy up all the hand sanitizer and toilet paper
also, pick a monster dictator who committed genocide, they worked hard too
working hard doesn't mean you're doing good things, you can work hard and be evil
landlords are creating a scarcity of places for people to home and feed their families in order to charge those families money to get rich off, and, regardless of how "nice" they pretend to be in fixing the sink if it clogs, will throw a baby into the street to be homeless if their demands for money aren't met.
I've never really seen a landlord who does all those things, unless they also live in the property and wanted roommates to help with the mortgage.