landlords
landlords
145 comments
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Slightly off-topic: Just found out that the word boycott comes from a British guy called Charles Boycott, who managed landlords properties in occupied Ireland. He got ostracized by the local community and people refused to serve him or work for him.
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TIL. neat!
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Some hoard, some invest. They rent it out at at exactly what it's worth by definition (ie what people will pay for it). If you think being a landlord is easy and a money maker, then become one yourself and win. Oh, you don't have the capital to invest, and if you did you'd rather spend it on other things? Well, yes, the landlord had to find the money to buy the property and not spend it on other things in order to be able to rent it to you.
Of course there are some shitty landlords, just as there some shitty tenants. And it's really important that landlords are regulated. But a lot of people would be totally fucked if they could only stay somewhere if they could buy it.-
Was gonna type out explanations about how treating housing, something we all need, like capital is inherently evil. But if you don't get why landlords are leeches you're either one of them and/or you've never been anything approaching poor. I can't imagine thinking there is worth derived from hoarding housing and gouging people to live in it .
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It's like trying to debate that the Earth isn't flat. You could spend the time and effort doing it, but you know they'll never actually change their mind.
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Housing....and food, water, clothes. Internet, cause how else are you supposed to maintain a job?
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Never been a landlord. I own now (well the bank does and I pay my mortgage), but I've spent my time paying rent. I found a place and paid the askiging amount as it was worth it to me And when the landlord upped the rent unreasonably, I told them to fuck off and moved. True, I haven't been poor by many standards. And I'm sure it sucks to not have enough to pay for necessities. I would want the government to provide a safety net, but I think if everyone just gets everything handed to them, we'd be a lot less of a productive society. And that's bad, as a productive society increases quality of life for all.
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ie what people will pay for it
If you need a place to live there is no thing as "what people will pay for" because people will pay whatever as long as they can afford it. And they pay because what's the alternative? Live on the street?
The only "fair" rent price is the one where the landlord doesn't make money from it and no, taking enough to pay for the mortgage is still making money.
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Taking enough to pay the mortgage would be a fair rent price, so long as it is a rent to own situation.
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Yes, people need a place to live. Just like they need food. But if one landlord is greedy and asking too much, then there should be others that you can turn to.
If being a landlord was so profitable and had no risk, then more people would build houses and rent them out. There would be a buyers market and the price would drop due to competition.
How much should a landlord get back from their investment? It's hard to define exactly because of risks of extra expenses, value drop, damages, changing legislation, etc. So how else should we determine it fairly other than a free market?If the likely profits are not worth the risk to invest in housing to rent out, then there there will not be any more rental units made.
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People love to say that we have to have landlords because otherwise no one could rent. Great! So then, let's have not-for-profit landlords or public housing.
Also, here is a basic refresher on "what something is worth". If you're drowning and someone offers to sell you a life vest for your life savings, then you might pay it so that you don't die. Immediately after that you would pass laws to prevent them from ever doing that kind of horrible shit again. At least, you would do that if you had an ounce of empathy... Do you?
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But there are many independent landlord options. The pricing is based on the market and not a instantaneous mark up. If being a landlord meant you couldn't make any money on your investment, why would anyone do it? Public housing is very different. That's getting the government to pay for it. Sounds great, except it's not 'free' - the tax money has to come from everyone else. If everyone got their house for free then everyone would have to pay in the cost of their house. But if you can't a afford to rent, you can't afford to pay that much in tax, so instead you want other people to pay more. But most people are stuggling now, even if they can afford to be in a house, so how can they afford to also pay your rent? Why is it fair to ask them to?
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Social housing is a brilliant solution, as the citizens of those countries that provide it will attest.
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I see the downvotes and am choosing to extend the olive branch instead: I understand your perspective about how people who could not afford to buy a home would be shit outta luck, but this perspective limits itself to the boundaries imposed by the capitalist need to commidify basic human necessities. Homes should be guaranteed for everyone. Yes we have the resources and yes it is possible to do. In fact, all the empty homes already exist to house everyone in the states. It has nothing to do with 'good' or 'bad' landlords, the concept of a landlord is directly opposed to housing all people, as they are financially incentivized to maximize rent and to keep a pool of unhoused people in society with which to maintain the threat of homelessness. There is no invisible hand of the market.
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Dipshit.
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lol "what people will pay" = "what it's worth by definition"
you are joking right? trying to make fun if landlords?
because hoarding, limiting supply will artificially rise the prices of a necessity.
it's pure evil, and with no moral justification besides you being selfish.
Imagine being thirsty in a desert, and I have gallons of water, but you and everyone else will die without it. I could give you all some at the cost of whatever it costs to distribute. or I could be a lazy fuck, and only give water to them highest bidder, they'll trade all their income for something I made artificially expensive.
then pat myself on the back because I save some people from thirst, and let the "ungrateful" die.
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Landlords arent hoarding. They have to rent out their properties to cover their investment.
Imagine you went to a bank and convinced them to lend you money to become a landlord. You'd pay for land, pay architects and engineers and labourers and buy materials and build the house. Then you'd pay lawyers and other service providers to get things ready and find some tenants. All the time you'd be paying biweekly mortgage payments. Then you start to get rent payments from your tenants (usually). It covers your mortgage payments, your insurance and legal fees and property taxes and maintenance costs mostly - you're not making any significant money over the mortgage payments - but you figure that's ok as you now 'own' the house that you can sell later at a profit for all your work - as long as the real estate market doesn't crash - or you can't find renters and fail to pay your mortgage so the bank forecloses. So then maybe 10 years later you sell (paying huge capital gains tax) and now you've got some money out of it, and you can reinvest then and build two houses and do the same thing again. In another 10 years you make more to retire on if things go well. Or maybe you lost because house prices stagnated. But at least you housed three families for your effort.
And yet people call you evil with no moral justification because they don't understand how the world works. Kinda sad really.
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ie what people will pay for it
funny thing about basic human needs. You can mark them way up because the alternative is freezing to death in a ditch.
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Mao theme intensifies
Jokes aside, housing should be one those "essential money pits" because it's a place of shelter not some stock on the NYSE. Housing is a human right that we all should have access to.
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Yes that would be nice. But someone has to build the housing, maintain it, etc. or should the labourers who build the houses have to work for free? it seems that apart from going full communist, what we really need it more competitive housing options. Like smaller apartments with just minimal necessities in a location that is on cheaper real estate but has transit. Somewhere that people can use as their human right to basic shelter as it's very affordable or fully government sponsored. That would take the pressure out of the housing market at allow rent of nicer places to drop a bit.
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if being a landlord is stuch an unthankful job. get a real job
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Being a landlord can be a real job - if you have enough properties to manage, there are endless repairs or grievances to deal with. There's government regulations, there's tenant vetting and legal stuff. I wouldn't want to a landlord because I would hate to deal with people complaining over stupid shit, not paying their rent on time, etc. But we really do need landlords or else there wouldn't be any way to rent an apartment. And many people can't afford to buy a house.
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Geez, I think you had a good point and now it seems you are being burned at the stake. But arguments are good if held in good faith, and I see your point, and mostly agree.
The problem is everyone wants a good house in a good area, yet there is only a limited supply. Houses are a depreciating asset, breaks down etc, the land in a desirable area is what makes it expensive and appreciated. So by logic the landlord took a chance and bought a place to rent out, that will depreciate but they focused on location, location, location in the hope it will bring in a profit (speculation).
Honestly if the area is desirable, close to working areas, good reputation with low crime... It will sell itself and becomes desirable thus increasing price.
But no one forced you to live in a nice area, I moved to a rural town, where a nice family home is cheaper than a 1 bedroom flat in the city more than 3 hours drive from me. Unfortunately yes that means less comfortable options like work or services a city can provide me. But some benefits like I love the isolation and community a small community brings.
Nothing stops anyone from moving. In my country the government has tried to give RDP housing to the poor, except it stays theirs and if you get a work somewhere else or have to move due to wide variety of reasons, sorry lost your housing benefits, you cannot sell or swap or anything, a stupid law and makes people choose between housing or a better paying work, hopefully opposition is trying to give these people ownership rights and further strengthen property rights in general.
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So then what would you recommend happen instead? Landlords don’t provide the house? They give it to you for free? Like it’s fun to complain but what’s your solution exactly?
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The solution is collective ownership of housing. Housing is a right, as much as healthcare or education, and centralizing and socializing housing would ensure affordable access for everyone, as it has historically.
Housing could be owned by unions, by local councils, by the central government or by all of the above, and then rented at maintenance costs to tenants under no threat of eviction. This was the case in the Soviet Union for example, and led to the total elimination of homelessness and to the average rent costing 3% of the average monthly income.
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No but that would be communism and that's bad.
So what can we do to fix the problem without taking thr landlord dick out of our mouths?
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One option would be the rent you pay slowly increases your ownership share of the house/appartment. If you live in the same place for 20 or 30 years and have paid enough to approximately match the value of the house you now own it and don't have to pay any more rent.
Just the first thing that cane to mind
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Fair enough, that’s all I was looking for was a solution to the problem instead of just complaining. I am not a landlord but I do like the rent to own model, it’s a solid idea.
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Who would offer a property to you in that scenario though? We're talking state funded housing right as there's no incentive for private landlords to outlay the money for you to pay it off slowly while living there
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What if housing were owned collectively by the people who fucking lived there and the landlords were hunted in the streets like fucking dogs for all the innocent blood they've spilled? Or something with bamboo? Maybe build houses with it after?
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I wish we could go back to the 1960s and make Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) legal for commercial real estate only. Prohibit residential.
Maybe that doesn’t solve the problem fully, but turning a commodity that everyone needs into a large scale investment vehicle was a mistake.
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Damage is done, landlords won't surrender, and too much of our stolen money will be used to buy elections.
The solution is blood. No other will work. The landlords must die.
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The solution is to tax any property that is not your primary residence 10x the normal amount. Landlords will pay the tax or be forced to sell. Especially if no one rents it at whatever ridiculous price they would set.
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Or take the greatest hits of Maoism. One of these is going to happen, and I have a favorite. I want revenge.
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Back in the 19th century, Henry George suggested to solve this with a very high land value tax.
The idea, in a nutshell, is that a good chunk of the worth of a property is not the building itself but the land it is built on - and that component does not come from the landlord's investment, it comes from the community's effort. Take that away, and housing prices will dramatically drop (or at least - stop rising so steeply) because real estate will no longer be such an attractive investment avenue, since most of the value that comes from the land will be taxed away. The part that remains - the value of the building itself - is the part that landlords really do have to build and maintain themselves.
I'm usually skeptical about economic ideologies that claim to be both morally correct and utility increasing - simply because I've never seen an economic ideology that doesn't claim to be both these things. But here I think Georgism did manage to show a direct link between the two, so I'm more inclined to believe in it.
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Despite the fact I got downvoted to hell for my comment I appreciate the well thought out and articulated response. Very well said.
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I had one slumlord out of like 3 landlords... dude kept my deposit despite the reason I moved out being upstairs neighbors were cooking meth. Police were watching the place to build a case. Others charged like tax/cost of upkeep plus 30%. My last apartment was $600/mo in 2006 with garbage/water/electric/gas. Also replaced my water heater within 16 hours. Not all landlords are dicks, just most of them.
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What does this have to do with Godzilla?
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He would fix our landlord problem if we let him.
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145 comments
Nobody gets a second house until everyone's had their first.
But then there will be nobody to rent your second house too!
That's the neat thing!