We don’t have an instance stance on landlord apologia, but maybe we should make one, based on the number of people from other instances defending these mooching rent-seeking parasites.
i hope you do; seeing it is a depressing reminder of how much americans think that exploitation like this is okay and even more depressing to see people exploited like this want to perpetuate it.
/me sorts by controversial
You know what’s the fastest way to make landlords disappear? Ask about some broken shit around the house that they are required by law to fix. Radio silence for months guaranteed. Until the next rent increase of course.
For a lot of them, they don’t even care if there’s tenant turnover, especially if its a high-demand area. There’s no incentive to fix a broken AC; the tenants already signed the year lease. They can get to it next year when its time to clean up the place for the re-listing.
If it’s a longer term tenant, the landlord is actually disincentivized from fixing the AC, because they can fix the AC and jack the rent way up as soon as the old, abuse tenant inevitably leaves.
One of my friends suffered through this during the recent heat wave. They’ve been told there’s no budget for AC despite a recent $50 rent hike.
Their landlord is an independently wealthy multimillionaire — they don’t even need the money!
Landlord said to me “property tax has gone up. This is my only form of income. Will need to increase rent”
Told him “yeah, everything has gone up and my paycheck is still the same”.
Like, these types of relationships are so parasitic. This is the “nice” mom and pop style landlord too that every liberal seems to want to give a pass too.
Sure, are they less bad than the big corporate faceless landlords? Yes. But the entire relationship is the problem.
They get to justify forcing me out of my home because the value of the house that they own WENT UP.
That’s why their property tax is more. They literally own something that is more valuable and making it further impossible for me to ever buy a place of my own.
If they offered to let you buy it for the fair market value of the home, would you? That’s the only viable way for them to extract that house value without evicting you. A fair answer could be absolutely, and perhaps that should be something renters are given some rights to do, but just pointing out that a tax assessment doesn’t mean they have usable money unless they can do something to cash in.
I literally asked. He said he’s not selling.
That is unfortunate.
Old guy or younger guy? If this is their retirement income, they would probably be better off selling it and putting the proceeds into a nice account.
Of course those accounts also profit off of the inconvenience of others, but with social security all messed up, some form of screwing with the active working generation is needed to model retirement of the older generation, and a financial account is less egregious than sitting on potentially available housing stock.
I think I can answer most of your questions by saying he comes over to discuss the lease in a Mercedes Maybach. An SUV that starts at $178,000.
I don’t think age or other things really matter at that point.
He owns multiple properties and houses.
But, still, my entire point is that this relationship in itself is what needs to die. It’s not this individual dudes fault. It’s a system that allows people like this to exist that produce nothing.
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If that’s their whole retirement investment (as they said it’s their only income, no idea about us retirement details) if they don’t increase your rent, their net income will GO DOWN. Prices of everything also went up for them, if you think it’s hard with constant income, imagine with declining income.
The value of their house going up is useless to pay for bread.
You should get a bigger paycheck, average wage growth is around 5% in the US, higher than inflation even.
Sounds like they should get an actual job, rather than expecting someone else to pay for their retirement; someone who probably won’t get to retire themselves
If it’s their only income source I assume they are retired. If they aren’t, you are absolutely right.
Why do we have to sacrifice our future ability to retire and own a house because they bought all the houses and retired first?
How are the two related? It’s not a zero sum game, there’s new houses being built all the time.
There are studies recently released that show that the people who are buying houses 20 years ago are the same people buying houses today. It is a zero-sum game because nobody else is able to buy a house, especially not if they’re younger.
If that’s their whole retirement investment maybe they should get a job
They probably had a job for many decades, it’s how they bought and paid the house.
Sorry why should you pay NOW for a guy that workED many decades? Can you pay me for the work I did yesterday?
And now they are taking away the next generations ability to buy and pay for a house by making them fund their retirement.
People Mike that are not tge reason housepricees increase so mich that is 99% big speculators owning thousands oft units and hiking prices and rents.
How are they taking it away? There have always been people who rent and people who buy. Someone renting doesn’t prevent you from buying.
If i had Jeff Bozos money, I’d buy a bunch of houses and offer them to the homeless to get the back into society. Fucking bozo Bozos is. And that’s why I’ll never have Jeff Bozos money.
Capitalism rewards the worst most selfish hoarders of wealth. How can we build a system like this and expect this type of altruism? Makes no sense. The system was always broken.
Oh, I know. I was just explaining why I’ll never be a billionaire. I care about people. Sad that that’s a fact of life
“understood, create a factory town and offer housing in exchange for employment.” ~ Bezos
is that not the only way to do it?
Please use gender neutral inclusive language, instead of landlord, use the gender neutral term, landleech.
I was ready to hate on this post… but you right.
Seconding this motion
How do people still argue that landlords are useful and necessary?
By being landlords or personally knowing landlords.
I swear my uncle is a good landlord. Keeps prices low, I swear he doesn’t rip off his renters. He would never do that.
If there were as many good landlords as I have heard this story we wouldn’t have any problems Kyle, sit the fuck back down.
Assuming this comment isn’t ironic: there is no such thing as a good landlord. Landlords are parasitic middlemen who live by leeching off the value created by workers. They contribute no value whatsoever.
This is admitted even in mainstream economics, its termed rent-seeking.
there is no such thing as a good landlord.
Okay, I’ll bite. I just bought a 4-bed/3-bath (actually 4 bathrooms, but bathroom math made it “3-bath”) because we are a family of four in an expensive tourist spot and wanted a guest bedroom for family and visitors. It just so happened one bed and a 3/4 bathroom is in an attached 1-bedroom apartment with its own kitchen and living room.
So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately. So the choice is be a landlord, or don’t offer housing (I suppose I could make it an AirBnB and make even more money, but this area is already fucked for housing for that reason).
So if there is no such thing as a good landlord, what would you recommend in a situation like this? Let someone live there for free? Then they’d be costing me money. Don’t rent it out? AirBnB?
What the hell kinda house has a bathroom per bedroom??? That’s insane.
My in-laws have a house with one of the bedrooms with it’s own bath and it’s own external entrance, you have to walk outside to get to that bedroom.
Yeah I mean, I could understand it being actually just three bathrooms, two for the main three bedrooms and one for the seperate unit. It’s not a self-contained unit without it. But if there are four toilets in that house that is massively overkill.
So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately.
If you don’t need that space, then you might as well sell it and let another family make use of it instead.
Yours is not a unique situation; a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out, and they have a lot of extra rooms and space they no longer need. Its the right decision anyway, as you’re now free to be more mobile, and get rid of all the years of accumulated junk.
Sure you can argue they dont need that space, but a lot of kids return after college. If I had kids I’d only downsize once they are well established. It’s about ensuring the security of your family and ensuring they have a place to come back to.
Is it better to let that sit space vacant for 4+ years though?
There are two options? Rent it for profit or leave it empty?
So you’re saying that person should sell their house because one of the rooms is unoccupied? What if their oldest loses their job and can’t find a new one, but has to move back, and then can’t because they downsized to a smaller house?
I’m not so sure that is a great solution.
What if their oldest loses their job and can’t find a new one, but has to move back, and then can’t because they downsized to a smaller house?
What if their oldest loses their job and now for no fault of their own the renter is suddenly forced to find a new place to live to accommodate the landlords son? But they’ve been spending their money on rent so they don’t have enough savings to find a decent place?
So you’re saying that person should sell their house because one of the rooms is unoccupied?
If they can’t afford it, yes? That’s what the rest of us do. We make do with what we have and budget accordingly. If something is too expensive, well tough. The problem is that a lot of people are facing problems like housing, food, and healthcare being too expensive, and all three of those things are required to live. At some point budgeting won’t save you.
I have no sympathy for people whose biggest problem is “I can’t afford this extra room in the house we own.”
a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out,
And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn’t moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially “downsizing” to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?
Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young’uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren’t in a position to buy a house and wouldn’t want to.
This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.” Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.
This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.”
Not the same at all, as lawyers do work to get paid.
Landlords rent-seek by charging access to important and scarce property that they themselves don’t use. They extract value through ownership alone, and add no labor value of their own to the process, that the tenants as owners couldn’t do for themselves.
If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?
What gives you the right to these people’s paychecks? If you’re not using it, then sell it, and don’t rent-seek.
There is nothing defensible about being a landlord. Its not exactly the same as owning slaves or owning capital, but all three are based on absentee ownership and extracting value from working people.
Downsize when you don’t need the space anymore? Would be my guess.
A lot of kids move back after college. I definitely wouldn’t downsize until my family was secure and for sure no longer needed the space.
Now the question is it better to allow that space sit vacant or rent out the space.
I think there is a defensible position for renting out a temporarily unused space in your primary home versus buying vacant properties solely to rent.
First, that doesn’t solve the problem because then somebody else has two units in one building.
Second, downsize… from a four bed to a three bed? Not sure what sense that makes. Our needs won’t have changed dramatically.
Another piece that I didn’t mention is that I’m in the military, in a place with 3-year tours (so fairly temporary), and the young single people who arrive usually don’t wany anything too permanent, and are not in a position to buy. But I do know what their allowance for housing it, so I would be able to charge less than their allowance for housing, meaning they would get money out of the deal (and stuff is expensive here, so I’m not sure how they live anyway), and I get a respectful, reliable tenant (and we could offer home-cooked meals to whoever stays).
I know it’s a unique circumstance, and an exception hardly disproves the rule, but I don’t think “there’s no such thing as a good landlord” is a true blanket statement.
Moving is kinda stressful though, but if you can manage that downsizing would probably be the right call.
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Suppose a person owns an apartment building. What’s the process they should follow to behave as a good person should?
This has nothing to do with being a “good” person.
That said.
They could create a housing cooperative where all the tenants are owner-members and share the property collectively. If they live in the building too they can also be an equal owner-member. If they live somewhere else, they have to give up ownership.
No ones acquires an entire apartment building in the first place with the purpose of living in it. They do it to become rent-seeking parasites.
But to your hypothetical, they could create a co-op as @queermunist@lemmy.ml mentioned.
wrong, run down apartments occasionally are cheaper than bulk climate controlled storage units while being completely usable for that purpose
Not an apartment complex, but a building makes sense.
I’m not saying it’s just, but there are some loans that allow you to buy a quadplex but you have to live there. You are free to rent out the remaining units.
Well obviously the most moral thing would be to live in it themselves or give it away to someone who actually wants to live in it. I accept that practically nobody is gonna be virtuous enough to just give away a free apartment to a homeless person, but selling it for a (at least somewhat) reasonable price is probably what I’d realistically do (assuming no close friend or family member wanted it).
Renting it out is still inherently exploiting the person living there.
Also consider that no “good person” simply owns a residential property that they don’t live in.
I know I’m not who you’re replying to and other people might disagree with parts of this, but can anyone seriously not agree that all landlords are scum?
Renting it out is still inherently exploiting the person living there.
There are legit reasons to rent and not own everything. Just like tools, might be better to rent a table saw than buy one that now you have to store and maintain.
Except tools aren’t a basic human need. Not having a hammer will not decrease my quality of life as much as not having a house
That’s not a reason for anyone to make money from rents.
Ok but this isn’t really the same thing. A home isn’t a tool you rent just to use when you need it. Everyone needs a shelter to live in.
You give two reasons it’s preferable to rent rather than own your home:
- You have to store it.
That’s just ridiculous.
- You have to maintain it.
You do realise that you’re still paying to maintain it, right? The landlord is just also taking extra. Even if the landlord were charging you only what was strictly necessary for maintenance (which they aren’t), they’d still have unnecessary leverage over you just for existing in a space.
Don’t try to make excuses for landlords. We all know they’re vermin. They’re not doing you any favours by forcing you to keep paying high prices to live.
(Edit: formatting)
Sell it to the tenants.
I don’t think I could rip off anyone if I decided to rent my place when I move. Hoping to keep it for my kid, but I’d basically charge the bare minimum, would even show the tenant what I pay as the owner so they’d understand. I wouldn’t use it as a profit source, but because land is scarce and I just happen to have spent years owning this.
But even then it may not be worth, sell it to a new owner and move on. I’m not greedy by any means, just want to be comfortable.
It would still be someone else paying you to keep your properties value up while receiving nothing of value for their money. You wouldn’t be on the same level as an intentionally evil landlord. Just be aware that you would still be siphoning money from a worker into your pocket.
It would still be someone else paying you to keep your properties value up while receiving nothing of value for their money.
Is not living on the street not really something of value? I feel that is something of value, isn’t it?
I dunno, I don’t have any interest in becoming a landlord but I commonly see people considering them as the most evil people in the world no matter what and it does confuse me a little bit. People always say landlords are always evil, but there are tenants who are weeks or months late on their rent, they destroy the place, etc, it doesn’t seem like such a dream job to me.
Is not living on the street not really something of value? I feel that is something of value, isn’t it?
Just compare it to buying property where you continously pay off your credit. You get something in return, ownership of a property. Just because you are too poor to afford that, thus being forced ot pay rent, you receive significantly less for the money you spend on housing. Also, and this might be a weird stance for americans, I don’t think anyone should be facing the choice of being able to pay rent and ending homeless on the street.
I dunno, I don’t have any interest in becoming a landlord but I commonly see people considering them as the most evil people in the world no matter what and it does confuse me a little bit.
They commonly siphon off income from workers to keep their properties value up. This is just pararsitic behaviour.
People always say landlords are always evil, but there are tenants who are weeks or months late on their rent, they destroy the place, etc, it doesn’t seem like such a dream job to me.
So bad tenants are an excuse to be an evil parasite towards every tenant there is? Also, being a landlord isn’t just a job. It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.
Just compare it to buying property where you continously pay off your credit. You get something in return, ownership of a property. Just because you are too poor to afford that, thus being forced ot pay rent, you receive significantly less for the money you spend on housing. Also, and this might be a weird stance for americans, I don’t think anyone should be facing the choice of being able to pay rent and ending homeless on the street.
So you’re saying that poor people should just… not live anywhere and instead should live on the street? I’m not sure I get your point, because if that is your point, it’s not a very good one.
They commonly siphon off income from workers to keep their properties value up. This is just pararsitic behaviour.
Sure they’re all evil parasites, whatever you say, I don’t think a large corporation renting out multiple buildings jumping at the chance to raise rent and/or evict someone who is even slightly late on rent is the same as an older man renting out a spare room in his house ever since his oldest moved out?
So bad tenants are an excuse to be an evil parasite towards every tenant there is? Also, being a landlord isn’t just a job. It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.
So bad tenants being excused from any culpability means that all landlords are automatically evil no matter what?
It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.
It is providing a place to stay for people who can’t otherwise afford one…? Or should those people just live on the street?
I posted elsewhere in this thread, some people want to rent. There is a market for legit renters without ripping them off. If it costs $2800 for my mortgage/hoa/utilities and I only charge $2800, I don’t see an issue. Any issues are coming out of my pocket at that price.
I don’t even know if I want to rent to someone, that’s a whole other set of headaches. I’d probably offer it to my kid, then move on. It’s not an income to me, but property is hard to come by, I would have to think about it. I’ve already paid into it, banks got their share, I went through a lot of trouble to get it, so it’s not like giving away tickets to a concert I couldn’t make.
Also I wouldn’t be “siphoning” anything, I’m renting what I own, just like toro car rentals. No one is making them do it. But my location is very great, neat public transit, near a very recently built town center, trails, lakes, etc. it’s not like they’re paying for a tent. Can move here for a year or so and find out it’s exactly what they want or what they hate.
I don’t even know if I want to rent to someone, that’s a whole other set of headaches.
I live with my elderly parents, taking care of them until they move into a nursing home or worse (although I’m not sure death is actually worse than a nursing home). In the meantime, I bought myself a small house nearby that I’m renovating and I plan to move there after I close out my parents’ house. I’m genuinely terrified of renting it out after having put so much time and effort into it. A lot of people rent in this neighborhood and I’ve seen firsthand what some tenants do to places.
But if I do rent it out, I’m a shitty scumlord? I’m a better person if I don’t rent it?
But if I do rent it out, I’m a shitty scumlord? I’m a better person if I don’t rent it?
this is my issue too. clearly the collective “landlord” that people are talking about are people that hoard homes and rent them out as an income. thats a bit much. but someone who just rents a single property, maybe in the city nearby where they used to live before they moved to a quieter area, i don’t see as an issue. a condo in a city could be a great place for a person to rent while they decide if that city is for them, or until their career takes them elsewhere. i don’t see renting as a problem
the problem in my opinion is these properties being bought up by corporations who follow no real set of laws and gouge renters in shitty apartments, coorborate with other apt buildings and price fix the area. that is a problem to me. renting from an older person or family who very possibly lived in the home you’re going to rent, so fucking what. do it or don’t, but don’t lump them in with corporation owned apt complexes and actual slumlords.
Cool story bro
I had a friend who was a landlady, but as an anarchist she more or less rented her building at cost so as to not need to sell it while she was taking care of her parents
The people saying that are usually hoping to become landlords themselves.
People not understanding the actual cost of owning and maintaining a house is my only argument for landlords. Or if you maintain it yourself it’s a knowledge and time requirement.
Not saying landlords did a great job maintaining the rentals I’ve lived in. But there was definitely a point in my life where renting made more sense than owning a house.
We really need more control on rent prices so only high density housing is rentable. Or something, I don’t have answers for why my shitty house is worth 70% more than it was 5 years ago.
You don’t need a Lord to maintain a property though. That is the function of a superintendent, which is a role small landlords sometimes assume, and yes that is a job that should be compensated.
But it has nothing to do with owning and rentseeking.
My housing coop charges 38% market rate rent, maintains the common area, has a property manager, and provides units fridge/stove/furnace/AC, on 46 three bedroom townhouses.
So either landlords are wildly inefficient with their expenses, or they are taking a crazy margin over their operating expenses.
Right, I’m not arguing that landlords are good. They seem to be a symptom of a system set up to encourage their shitty behavior.
I do wonder if a housing co-op is protected by law in some way. Or more likely it relies on a few people having good intentions who are running it. A housing co-op with no intent of profiting, ever, would be a good system imo.
Well yeah that’s where I live.
There are regional housing federations that deal with helping the governance of these organizations https://www.housinginternational.coop/members/co-operative-housing-federation-of-canada/
These are all non-profits, that have bylaws governing them. If there’s a weird situation the coop can go into receivership and a new legal board established to resolve those problems.
There are companies that would do the maintenance for you, so I think if that was your concern, you could roll the dice with those while still actually owning the house.
But I will say if you aren’t going to be somewhere more than 2 years anyway (university or a work assignment), renting could make sense.
My parents own multiple rental properties and completely straight face told me it’s a charity cause they rent to people who can’t afford homes.
Meanwhile I’m engaging with my mutual aid group every week handing out about 400 meals, and survival gear for people who can’t afford anything.
Glad their fucking charity has turned enough profit to pay off the rentals, their main home, and their vacation spot though. /s
If they’re making profit, how in the world can they possibly think it’s charity?
I just found an article (from 1955) by my grandma where she argued that she prefers renting over building a house because she has more freedom that way. She can move more easily because she doesn’t have to find a buyer for her house, she doesn’t have to worry about something breaking because that’s on the landlord to fix and she doesn’t have to go into debt to live somewhere.
As far as I know she never owned a home, always rented. But all her kids bought houses.
Sure, but it sounds like she’s never been evicted for no reason.
And her rent probably didn’t take 100 hours of labor a month.
That does sound like a regulation problem in the capitalist hellacape that is the USA more than anything. I live in The Netherlands and evicting someone here is very difficult. A landlord needs to make his case in front of a judge and everything. There’s one reason with which they can evict a tenant with a bit more ease and that’s to use the property themselves, but they need to prove why they need it all of a sudden. And even then they need to pay the tenant roundabouts €7000 to help with the move.
I had a coworker liked that. He enjoyed renting because it meant having fewer responsibilities.
I disagreed, and countered that renting means being more dependent on somebody else. Some landlords are excellent at responding to repair calls, but there are so many more that will leave you hanging for an indetermined amount of time, while leaks continue or appliances break. Personally, I’d rather not have the quality of life in my own home be dependent on someone who doesn’t really care about me.
Sadly, I don’t have much of a choice. I would prefer being able to pick my own repair people or just fix simple things myself. Alas, like so many others, I work full time but remain stuck in the rent trap. Such freedom.
One of my coworkers said the same thing. After the third time they were forced to move they caved and bought a condo.
One of my big concerns is that access to psychological benefits of keeping a pet gets to be gatekept by the whims of someone else.
I’m also that coworker. Bought a 1995 build house in 2013, and sold it last year. Holy cost of maintenance. Roof, foundation, HVAC, plumbing, gutters, siding. We upgraded the windows too, so that was a choice, but nothing else was. Didn’t have money for professional interior upgrades because we were maintaining the structure itself instead.
If I ever buy a house ever again, it will be a condo so I’m only responsible for the INSIDE. As of right now, after all that, I’m happy renting. I’m so disinterested with painting and whatnot, that it doesn’t bug me to have white walls.
I do agree that the pet situation sucks though. We have 2 “aggressive breeds” that were strays we picked up off the street years ago (2016 and 2020), a Pit mix and a Dobie mix. Finding someone to rent to us with those was a chore. And for the few years we rented out our home (military. Lived in it while we were stationed there, rented it out for a few years, moved back in when we returned to the same duty station), we didn’t have a breed restriction.
We’re about to move across the country again, and I’m STOKED to be moving into an apartment. Rn we’re renting a SFH and it has been so nice knowing that money we had saved up isnt about to disappear because the water heater broke or whatever.
FYI: You might “only” be responsible for what is inside your condo but you are 100% on the hook for the costs external to your unit.
Surfside in Miami has forced all of the Condos to re-imagine their finances. Some units are being hit with $100,000 Special Assessments to repair the foundation, or facade, or just keep sufficient balance. There is no way out of this except to sell. They can charge you whatever they want, whenever they want.
Also “external” problems are also yours. One of the 5 units above yours flood into yours? That’s a civil problem between you and the whichever unit it is. Good luck finding them, and getting your money. Even if you get it. You still have to deal with the trouble.
Had condo suffer water damage 11 times in 8 years due to various reasons caused by units above. Basically on your own. Condo board is not getting involved. You get all the problems of someone else’s lack of maintenance, and none of the benefits of your own maintenance.
Condo Fees went from $110/month to $930/month because ‘fuck me’ I guess. No control over that either. You can petition the board but it’s full of old nosy fucks.
Oof, glad I read this so we know what questions to ask/red flags to look out for if we ever do pull the trigger on purchasing a condo!
COA fees going from $110 to $930 is fucking wildly crazy work. Did they at least tell you WHY it shot up like that?
And its also crazy that special assessments cab be billed for that high per unit. We’d be fucked! I thought the point of paying COA fees each month was supposed to spread the cost of maintenance around/ensure there are savings in the bank to cover major repairs!
Either the fees didn’t jump straight to $930 from $110 or the person didn’t do due diligence in reviewing the condo’s budget before they bought.
They kinda are necessary, given how they’re the byproduct of capitalism’s private property model and its commodification.
You could technically remove them by having the state manage all the housing, but that’s overly idealistic given how that’d go against the ruling class interests which would cause heavy lobbying by big landowners. It would also make the state a monopoly landowner which would have its own implications.
In other words, they’re necessary not because they’re useful, but because of how dogshit the system is.
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But but who will extract the remaining surplus value that the employers missed?
People? Like IRL? I’ve only ever seen it happen online.
And then they raise rent. For what? They haven’t upgraded anything. They haven’t added any of that value to the property. Every year the house gets older. Cars lose value every year even if you maintain it perfectly.
I’m not a landlord but the taxes go up every single year. Home insurance goes up every single year. Both often by a lot. Compared to 2019 my taxes are up 45% and my home insurance is up 500%.
The land value is up purely because they ain’t making any more of it.
The cost to repair everything goes up every year. A part of my washing machine broke again. Part was $20 in 2017. Part was $60 4 months ago. Post Tarifs it will probably be closer to $100. Nevermind the labor if I can’t DIY.
Plenty of reasons for costs to go up each year.
Real question is :
Why the fuck aren’t the wages going up?
If that too kept up with inflation since the 1970s then we’d all be happier then pigs in shit.
The land is what’s gaining value, not the structure on it
friend bought a house and was super excited about it. it cost her a pretty penny.
It had black mold and almost killed her children. The landlord claimed they had no idea (they did)
they left (sold the house) for more than what she paid for. This was in California, the housing market is completely and utterly f****
Bought a house, but there was a landlord?
They probably bought it from someone who previously had rented it out.
That is just patently untrue.
And then they try to fuck you over when you leave the place by pinning all the costs of normal dilapidation on you. Fortunately where I live the law forbids it but it doesn’t stop them from trying every time.
Good tenants make the neighborhood more desirable. So the rent being raised is a way to punish good Tennant, and steal their hard earn benefit from their existential labour.
If there were only a set number of cars available and creating more was prohibitively expensive, cars would appreciate in value as well.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about the house; building more of those is expensive, but doable. It’s building more land that’s the tricky part
When I did a vacation in Sri Lanka our guide told us some cars appreciated in price because the government increased (I believe it was that) import taxes.
Edit: Appreciation due to car scarcity
Same happened everywhere during covid.
It’s mind-bending that a car now cost what a new house cost, when I was a kid.
The cost of goods should go up. It is a healthy sign of the economy. The fact that wages don’t is the problem.
(This was way after covid).
If I remember it correctly, the government is heavily restricting import of foreign brands.
Our guide drove an imported japanese EV.
When I married my wife and she moved in we tried renting out her house with a property management company. She got one tenant and had that tenant for over 2 years with no complaints and we never raised the rent, just enough to cover taxes going up too.
But when we wanted to move to a larger house we gave her an 8 month notice we couldn’t renew since the market is so bad and we needed to sell. And my wife wasn’t profiting at all, she was still in the red from the repairs and setting up the house to rent out. We offered her like $10k off the price.
Anyway long story short, the tenant gave us hell for those 8 months, and when she moved out we found she never complained about anything because she ignored all the problems which made things worse and the house needed thousands of more dollars to prepare and sell.
She’ll never try being a landlord again, she hated it and the tenant shit talked her “landlord” on Facebook all the time like she was some evil monster.
I don’t know how anyone else does the landlord thing, this must be all the ones run by evil corporations.
This was a house my wife bought for like $150-180k originally.
Yeah being a landlord makes you into the bad guy despite intentions. You’ll always make back whatever “losses” you incurred in equity, because we have a crazy for profit housing market.
Landlord/renter is an abominable financial relationship.
Tough shit. Must be so inconvenient for you to not keep up on repairs to your own building. That’s on you.
Standard rent is at least 1-1.5% of current not original value per month and taxes are about that per year.
you probably bought for 150 you earned 100,000 when it ballooned up to 250k rented it for at least 2500 a month x24 months or 60,000 paid 6000 each to taxes and management pocketed another 48,000
When you sold realizing that cool 100k you naturally had to do all the repairs and upkeep you had been putting off so you ended up coming out of pocket for “thousands”
In the end you netted 140k for doing 10 hours work once whereas the median worker earns 200-250
You probably charged here so much to ensure you made the “market rate” eg people like you that she had no funds saved to actually move and you probably nickel and dimed her deposit away for stuff that was actually on you.
Where am I wrong?
Wow lots of assumptions here. My wife only rented it out enough to cover her expenses (mortgage, insurance, property management, etc). She only netted $100 a month as “profit” but that doesn’t include taxes at the end of the year, and she was paying towards $6000 she owed to house repairs. It doesn’t include repairs needed from normal wear and tear and tenant damage.
A lot of your assumptions are based on profit towards selling the house, which in this situation means its not sustainable on its own without you covering everything out of pocket.
The real kicker here is that her tenant made more money than my wife. The tenant was making at least $10,000/month per bank statements.
Your other comments are false also. State laws here are very clear on what can be charged as a deposit.
None of that was my point though, and I realize sharing that here on a meme was dumb on my part. I’m not looking for sympathy, I was just feeling a rare moment of sharing an experience often overlooked: two hard working people who independently buy a starter home, meet later, and one moves in with the other and tries to rent out their house. Landlords aren’t always evil but your reply demonstrated all the immediate assumptions and biases. After all, why should anyone be allowed to own more than one home, right? Especially if they try to rent it out? I guess Air BNB is better.
A lot of us lived in rentals and heard talk about the dream of rental supplemental income, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and not really feasible without an insane rate or having enough cash to not pay a mortgage. It’s probably why more companies are trying to buy up houses.
Wow what a messed up situation. Surprising to hear the tenant was wealthy. I still maintain that the only winning move is not to play.
Cry us a river
Have you tried getting a job?
No sympathy for landlords.
No sympathy lmao, you dont get to cry
I have managed a building with 8 units before. Never again.
I once had a lady’s ceiling collapse. I then come to learn she’s been putting a bucket out to catch water for months, never told anyone about it. What should have been a quick 15 minute fix ended up being a total nightmare.
Had one dude who was a heroin addict. Kept flushing needles. The plumbing had to be taken apart multiple times to get his needles out.
Had a lady who kept adopting cats, wouldn’t get them fixed. She would then let them out into the hall to spray the walls with what was basically straight ammonia, except grosser.
I could go on all day, trash fires, fucking litter, a phycological inability to break down cardboard. I think my blood pressure just spiked writing this.
You couldn’t pay me to be a landlord. People are awful.
If it’s any consolation, I’m in an 8-unit owner-occupied condo rn and my kitchen ceiling collapsed last week because the HOA refused to fix a roof leak for almost two years. So now what should have been a couple hundred dollar roof patch is thousands of dollars coming out of my HOA payments.
Bullshit you just didn’t do any maintenance
people will ignore problems if they think someone else will deal with them
Mod removed my post without reason. Maybe cussing offended them.
The market seems to self select for bad landlords. All the well intentioned ones I know got burned and stopped renting.
‘well intentioned’ and landlord dont go togther
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based tenant fuck your eldery leechlords
Very similar situation.
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Landlord = banned. Your kids will get back at you some day, no doubt about that.
*2/3 of the tiny portion of the value someone creates that their boss actually lets them keep
Its not the first time I’ve heard this, but I’m not sure I agree with this sentiment. The product I produce only has the value it has, because a lot of people work to make it so. And a huge part of that is managing costumers, understanding them prioritizing they requests and managing a team. If my workgets sold for 100 I would only be able to sell it at 50 because I do not have the costumer relationship
managing costumers, understanding them prioritizing they requests and managing a team.
All of which is also being done by employees who are being paid less than they produce.
What do you think a boss does? They are also employees.
Not at the top.
The labour theory of value is completely compatible with everything you just said.
10 workers do 1 value worth of work on product, whether that be manufacturing, shipping, logistics, marketing, so on
boss pays them 0.5 value each
boss sells for 10
boss lives off the stolen 5 value
I am posing this in the most abstract simple way possible. Obviously in an actual supply chain, many bosses would be stealing different amounts of value all throughout the process, as each worker added value to the final product over time.
You are assuming that bosses do nothing. They add value. Not all of them, but in general they do. At my work place we pretty much begged my boss to please hire someone between him and us to manage tasks. Because my boss adds value Ina bunch of ways but he was so busy he could spare the time for the things we needed him so year long projects failed.
Management is labor, sure. It all adds to the collective labor expended necessary for producing a widget, say, 1 hour of cumulative labor expended through dead labor (the percentage of tools used up) and living labor. Let’s put constant capital at .5 hours, and variable at .5 hours. The value of the widget is 1 hour of socially necessary labor time, and it is sold for this price on the commodity market when supply meets demand.
Where do profits come from, then? From living labor. The price of the commodity labor-power is regulated around the average cost of subsistence. A worker may only need to truly work for 3 hours in a day to produce their social consumption, but they are paid for those 3 hours as spread out over 8, 9, 10, etc. hours. The difference between paid hours and the unpaid hours forms the surplus value extracted, which is the chief component in profit (though not the same).
That’s an oversimplification, but the point is that ownership adds no value. Management and administration can, but not ownership alone. It is only ownership of the constant capital that the owner entitles themselves to the profits, participating in a Money -> Commodities(means of production + labor power) -> Production(combination of MoP and Lp) -> Commodities’ (greater value than original commodities) -> Money’ (greater sum of money than originally fronted, fresh for the surplus to contribute to subsistence of the capitalist as well as expanded production). This is just a Money -> Greater Money circuit, which exponentially grows, the only action being buying and selling from the owners perspective (and this is often automated by having others do it).
I didn’t read it all. But I think we agree. The problem is owners. Not bosses. People who get to do nothing and still get paid
Then I think you should reread @glimmer_twin@hexbear.net’s comments with that understanding. We all agree that management is a necessary part of the social production process, but that it is ownership that entitles people to stealing from the working class.
I now understand what they mean, but I stand by my coment because it does seem to blame bosses. It’s just a matter of wording
Hey, those buildings and apartments aren’t gonna rent themselves! /s
lazy moocher doesnt even begin to describe what this class of parasitic pieces of dog shit are. there are no words to even describe them. they’re a cancer, a plague, they need to be eradicated.
i can not imagine thinking in my brain that i should just get a free house that someone else has to pay for by getting a real job just because i was able to secure a loan and they werent
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so if nobody will rent to you because renting is evil and you STILL can’t get a loan, where do you live? I think you kind of glossed straight over the unable to get a loan part which is going to poke them either way. Free house doesn’t exist.
jesse what the fuck are you talking about
If you can’t get a loan to buy a house, what makes you think that will change if there are no rooms for rent?
For real though not understanding how loans work at all is on brand for you guys, If you want to go back to the days when everyone could own a house why don’t you go attack the zoning laws that make houses so expensive and survivable, then we can go back to shanty towns that burn thousands and crawl with disease but hey everyone can own their own no loan hovel right?
dude you are literally arguing against a point nobody made because you’re too stupid to follow anything and now you’re crashing out to defend landlords
lmfaoo. rofl.
I’m literally arguing a point that someone made, then the comment was deleted. I think you’re projecting an inability to follow things onto me when really it’s a struggle that you’re coping with yourself.
Reflexively hating all landlords is a symptom of not understanding how things work and, probably more importantly, a burning desire not to understand a goddamn thing.
cringe
Rent is due in 5 days.
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