Does having an AirBNB setup make someone deserving of the guillotine or does that only apply to owners of multiple houses? What about apartments?
Please explain your reasoning as well.
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Saved. Conservatives are often described as “calling for blood”, so I’m saving a collection of calls for blood from the left, for when people forget about how casually you all threaten murder.
Thanks for adding to my collections.
Oooh damn you got them
Not trying to get them. Just making a little collection.
The right is responsible for almost all domestic terrorism in the states, and that’s according to the FBI/NSA, who are far from objective. Police (and the FBI and NSA are just federal police, obviously) are overwhelming conservative. There is no liberal cop to speak of. This is proven, undeniable, by the reluctance to prosecute the right. I guarantee you if anyone made death threats to Mitch McConnell the NSA would know exactly who that is. But every democratic lawmaker, even sympathizer, and it’s crickets. Death threats continue. You know, you don’t see a leftist version of libs of tictok with its owner bragging about inciting stochastic terroirism. It’s proven again with the heavy hand society uses on peaceful protestors. I’ve been in the protests. I’ve seen the police strike first. I’ve been in the tear gas. The polices us vs them mentality, that they are “at war” with civilians is sickening and entirely one sided. A leftist will say ACAB and if you’re a leftist, every cop will be happy to prove that correct for you, but no one thinks they’re at war with the police. Not acknowledging this is willful ignorance. That’s the kind of ignorance thats unforgivable, even by legal standards. That’s where you go down by association alone.
Blood is almost entirely on conservative hands. Not the other way around.
But suuuuure buddy. It’s the left that’s the problem. I’m envious of your ability to see reality as you choose it, no bullshit, truly I am. I’m unable to mold facts to fit my narrative, I simply have to make a narrative around objective fact. if that is how you describe yourself as well, I suggest you relook at the facts.
And as long as we’re holding facts high, since 2016 the majority of guns in America, which have never sold better, have been sold to those that identify center or left, so don’t think you’re a wolf amongst sheep. Trump winning and his entire presidency of eroding our rights and institutions while stoking division amongst us - truly unique amongst presidents, in a baaad way - woke millions and millions of people up…and America acquired about 20million new first time gun owners.
So curious here:
When I moved to the city I’m in now, I rented an apartment until I could figure out the best neighborhood in which to buy and to find the right house for me.
So it’s ok for me to buy a house and live in it, but it’s NOT ok to rent the apartment. It should have been provided to me, I guess. Is that right?
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So I have to find a place to rent that has an owner/operator? And hope it’s in a safe location? And hope there’s availability? And that I can afford it? And that it’s close enough to work? And that they offer month-to-month so I can leave when I find the right place?
Seems simple enough.
I agree with your points but I’m curious what your solution is to single family homes that are being rented out? The obvious one is everyone who wants to buy a place is able to, but not everyone wants to buy yet (younger people, people who want flexibility, people who know they are moving [only in that city for school], etc). Having some corporation own everything is also obviously the worst option, but that only really leaves the government and the mom and pop operations (that is people who own 1 place and buy another to rent it out). Should all single family homes be run as co-ops? Torn down and rental apartments built instead?
Again, I agree that single entities owning multiple rental places is a bad thing, but there doesn’t seem an obvious replacement. So I am genuinely curious as what can be done?
but not everyone wants to buy yet (younger people, people who want flexibility, people who know they are moving [only in that city for school], etc).
People don’t want to buy a house because it’s either unaffordable, unavailable or the process takes too long. If you eliminate those aspects of home ownership, people wouldn’t mind and maybe even prefer owning a home for short periods of time.
Don’t listen to anyone else mentions “guillotines”. It didn’t even work for the people of Paris, who eventually burned it.
The fundamental problem is, people want to live in certain locations and in modern homes. There’s plenty of cheap land in the middle of nowhere but no modern comforts. And modern homes are much harder to build than older ones were. This reduces the supply of new homes and increases the value of existing housing.
One potential solution is taxing rental income and supporting first time homebuyers more. Or maybe increasing regulations and inspections of rental properties. This would remove the worst landlords and lower the cost of buying a house. Literally tax rentals and send the money to first time homebuyers.
Landlord are fine, just like private farming is fine. Food is necessary to live too, but few people are clamoring for “government cheese”. The problem is the housing market is full of unregulated rentals where the only qualification to rent something is having the key. Make landlords jump through some hoops and the worst ones will sell to first time homebuyers.
New houses are fucking garbage, what are you talking about? You aren’t from the trades, clearly.
The only thing new houses have on old - speaking in generalizations - is a warranty - which is really what’s at issue here. And as it plays out, it’s super fucked up
The main number one metric for housing is livability. New houses are all glue and wood shavings. Literally what’s swept up after tree delamination for plywood. I’ve seen it. I’ve swept it up. I don’t even want to know the VOC release from OSB over time. If there’s ANY traceable amount (and of course there is) then the fact that I have to spend thousands putting in a RADON bypass cuz the ground wants to kill me for standing on it now yet swimming pools of profits from industry remain untouched and not held responsible. Yea…no. Old walls are best walls. Gypsum is nice but plaster isn’t out of reach. Old framing is best framing. Old wood floors can be found inches thick, no nailing. Carpet? Vinyl? Linoleum is only the best…NOFX song…arguably…Gen Z is suuuuper good. And Eat the Meek, New Boobs, Kill all the White Men, Creeping Out Sara, Idiots are Taking Over. Fuck. NOFX is just best, everything, really. Fat Mike seems like a cool ass dude to hang out with.
Um. Back on it…
PEX cannot be good for you, and even if not bad - yet - it’s not going to kill microbes like copper piping will - “upgrade” your pipes back to copper people, as a matter.of health). +1 old home
Hmm…Hardy board, that’s a modern win. Except it dulls your carbide immediately. That shits awesome for siding and water containment. +1 new homes
Modern windows are better. Without question.
Modern wiring wins over obvs.
Whatever. The WARRENTY. Don’t be the second owner of a new house. Do. Not. Do. It. Motherfucking chosen class gets zero percent interest rates and carried into new development, just to move 7 years later right before the “25yr” roof mysteriously needs to be replaced at 10years, just outside it’s warranty. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this. 1st owners have no costs going into house. 2nd owners, night shift, if you will, gets caught out, besides paying more for the house than the original owners did almost a decade ago, are going to have to absorb that extra 50k in repairs, essentially insuring 2nd owners NEVER rise above their position. Modern red-lining. Fuck bankers. Usury guarantees you’re going to hell. Fuck old money. Fuck everything -lord. Put feudalism back down, THAT SHIT IS BAD. The media only serves to persuade you of an opinion the owning class wants you to have without informing you of opposing opinions.
Did you know there are more houses in the UK and USA to the population than ever before? We’ve never had MORE housing…and yet…crisis…? That doesn’t make NeoLiberal sense…I was told…
Lies. You were told lies.
The amount of housing, that’s true. Thatcher and Reagen really changed the game tho. If you were born past 1980, your future was already sacrificed before the better part of you hit your parents sheets.
Before Thatcher less than 10% of housing in the UK was rented. It was considered one of the most successful postwar decisions, to promote security and autonomy in the citizenry…and now? The housing crisis is literally at the heart of every single crisis the western world is having, the entire world over. It’s vampiric. Cannabalizing the economy and lowering GDP for NO FUCKING REASON.
I am not against rentals - AFTER everyone has been housed. Let people have vacation homes, sure. Shit. My grandfather put 3 kids thru school, golfed thrice a week, stay at home wife, two car garage, bought his kids cars, my father raced motocross semi pro (thousands of trophies - that probably cost a house in itself) and was still able to buy a vacation home off his sole income (just so you don’t lose sight in how much economic freedom neoliberalism has stolen from the working class). I’m also not against private insurance - as Cadillac insurance. Capitalists have proven, beyond a rational doubt, that if they’re allowed monopoly to provide a neccesity (by that I mean, only private sector agents) than the rest of us are steadily more and more fucked. This is exemplified in the Simpsons. Homer went from bumbling idiot to upper middle class. Nothing about them changed, it’s just every year it gets harder. 2020 was the easiest year of the decade - bank on that - and that’s pretty fucking harrowing if you ask me.
Private farming…who has an issue against the farmer? No one. People have issues with being fleeced. See Netflix 10 years ago to the streaming shit cacophony today. Yar me matey, seems like some things are back in fashion. If farmers decide to fleece on a starving population, I won’t be sympathetic when the farmers are served up with their wheat. Treat people with respect. It’s fundamental to social cohesion. Exploitation is not.
My point, ultimately, is that people are people and people are entirely predictable. Our problems are manufactured by greedy people in power who’ve been using mass media to propagandized obedience while they return wealth to preplague levels of serfdom. And they e overplayed their hand, and they know it, everyone knows it - that’s why everyone’s just waiting for when the violence to start. Not if, when. People, again, are entirely predictable. Frankly, imo, we’ll be much better off when notions of social engineering and social darwinism go the same way route as phrenology.
We seem to be on the same page and I get where your coming from on new constructions. But I don’t fully agree with you on modern housing. Even like 60 years ago they barely knew what a joist hanger was. It was all still dimensional lumber and thus not straight. The late 1800s to early 1900s housing stock is croooooooked as shit. Sure the lumber was thick, it still bent because it wasn’t supported properly. There was plenty of plywood which I’m sure is just as bad on VOCs (btw you can get no VOC OSB), but also they had lead paint, asbestos tile, asbestos joint compound, asbestos tile glue, asbestos ceiling insulation (I live near the mines, you should see the tailings piles); insulation if you had any was basically 4" of fiberglas, housewrap if there was any was tar paper (I’m sure also great on VOCs), radon was just as much of an issue but wasn’t mitigated at all. So yeah… Is there a lot of shoddy jobs in the new construction business? Hella. But are modern homes by definition worse than they were? I don’t think that is true at all. Modern building science is inarguably better.
PEX is sketch though ;)
Anyway, you’re alright, you don’t live near me do you? I need a GC ;P
Timber framing, and all Amish framing, is actually done with green wood. Attention is paid to grain of the beams and they are put up so as the wood dries and ages it’ll twist into itself making a more cohesive unit.
Sure it makes remodeling a bitch, but plum straight and true were never part of a remodelers lexicon to begin with.
Oh man, the quest for plum straight and true. Rick was well within his right to wipe Morty’s brain of it. It was probably the single greatest act of compassion we’ve seen him do. I wish he’d wipe mine.
Meh I disagree, it’s not just remodeling, it’s also fixing shit. And stuff like large format tiles which frankly I think are super in terms of maintenance (less grout, less failure points, less maintenance, etc). I dunno if you’ve ever lived in an Edwardian apartment building, they are very common in Montreal. A 2" drop over 2’ is not uncommon. It sucks. The floors creek like all hell. They are drafty af. Fire ratings between two town houses? Ain’t never heard of it! Sure some stuff was built better back in the days, but it’s foolish to think we can’t build stuff properly now a days. I’d take a properly engineered, built with care by a good GC, house any day over anything built in the past short of a stone castle. Traditionalism is dumb. Capitalism pushes the lowest bidder to become the standard, but it doesn’t mean that the craft hasn’t evolved for the better.
Oh I’m with you, believe me. Theres some great building tech now, things like aircrete and the hundred variations and uses of lime. And if course just caluz it’s old doesn’t mean better, there was definitely a gradient to build quality back then, same as today.
We can look at churches in Uppsala that were built with pine and have stood for 1000 years…in Sweden…and it’s clear we’re missing something in our knowledge today that they had (it was their harvesting practices, btw, fucking germ theory levels of brilliance). Or how the Japanese have relied on coppacing for lumber for 500 years and that’s why Japan still HAS trees and didn’t go all Rapanui/Easter Island. The Amish and green wood timber framing is another example - practices that take the future into account. It’s the planting of trees who’s shade you’ll never sit in.
It’s easy, and incorrect, to point at history and say it was ALL better then, because only the cream of the crip has survived. Survivorship bias, clear as day. Of course we can build with the same mindset today - we just DON’T.
For a substantial group of people building their own home, to their own standards, towards sustainability or fingerprint reduction is their main driving goal. Earthships are an attempt. Buckminster Fuller made his entire career building off such ideas. Fuck I want to live in a geodesic dome SOOO BAD. Only have to deal with rain when I have to brave society. (I figure where the segments meet I can channel the rain to irrigation channels for the foliage and trees in the inner biodome…and then I’m raising free range sugar gliders.)
I’m in the middle of building my redoubt now. Everything by hand, it’s tedious, requires a ton of knowledge and physically taxing, but it also screams of character, uniqueness and craftiness. I take a lot of fun making things intuitively crafty if you know, but invisable if you dont know. Microprocessors can be a part of that (Im a huge electromagnetism fanboy, I’ve spun up my own generators from magnet wire for custom windmills, and I’m debating doing it again for some microhydro but currently leaning stepper moters), hidden magnetic locks are fun. shit my firearm safe is a Rube-Goldman-machines worth of steps to open, and that’s if you even noticed it was there.
I love the new tech. Don’t get me wrong. Maybe it’s that I’m a xennial, and that I had an analog youth, idk. I own all the power tools - I also own the hand tool analog version and know how to use them. I’ve always maintained the position that I had to level up into power tools. Electric planers save a SHITTON of time but if I can’t plane by hand…then it’s just a crutch. I don’t even want to get into metal working by hand, I’ve done it, i prefer metal to wood so that entire attitude applied to metal before wood.
Anyway. I think we have more in common here than not, lol.
Yeah, owning a home is an expensive pain in the ass. I’m always spending either time or money doing some sort of work on it.
I definitely get not wanting the responsibility of all of the bullshit that comes with home ownership, and actually know a few people who sold their house and went back to renting because of it.
Landlords absolutely have their place, but corporations have no business being involved.
The presumption of this is that A. You spend as much if not more than rent on mortgage+maintenance and B. Landleeches actually maintain the properties they rent.
Mine is refusing to do basic repair on water damage to a plaster ceiling that is outgassing VoCs into my baby’s nursery. If we actually put him in the room he would be subject to a lifetime of respiratory issues. They are only doing work on the outside of the house which I have been requesting for over a year because the city is passing an ordinance that would result in them getting fined hard for the condition of the house.
You’ve never had government cheese I take it?
That is some of the best cheese I’ve ever had
I wish I could buy it
It’s just American cheese. If that’s the best you’ve ever had, you’re remembering incorrectly. Maybe it was the best thing you had at the time. It’s definitely not good cheese.
I just had some a few months ago, it’s still fire.
Best grilled cheeses ever.
Co-op housing are not all rental apartments. They come as single family dwellings, town houses, apartments, everything in between. It’s about how they’re used and regulated for the communities and individuals sake instead of an investor. You could find an appropriate housing style for all walks of life within co-ops, even those more private and secluded types.
The type of building is irrelavant to the problem. Anything that works for apartment complexes works just as well for a single family house. It’s always the land underneath that’s the issue.
And at the ond of the day any solution that include getting rid of landlords comes down to the government seizing “unused” or “inappropriately used” land more aggresively. Something that just doesn’t sit right with most people.
Owning a home and having roommates that share the mortgage
does make you a landlord by definition
give the “mom and pop” landlords time to come to their senses.
Ok, I’ll kick the roomate out into the cold, I could use the room for a shop/office anyway I was just helping out a friend, but if I have to choose between him being homeless and me being headless, “sorry homie it’s an easy choice.” He’ll understand.
If you are making money on a place where someone lives then it all counts.
Airbnb is worse than traditional landlords because they remove supply for people to live (excluding shared spaces).
What if you also live there?
I struggled with this a lot when I got a roommate last year that’s paying rent.
I’ve come to terms with it recognizing that we are supporting each other. I’m supporting them by providing them a stable and affordable place to live, and they’re supporting me by helping me make ends meet, especially in a time when I’m unemployed. I’m not profiting off of them or taking a living space from another family. I also plan to calculate the portion of equity they contribute to the mortgage and give it to them whenever I wind up selling.
You bastard, you’re basically Trump senior! /s
What if you need to move interstate for work for a year. Are you meant to sell your house? And incur all the selling and buying costs? Are you meant to leave it vacant for a year? Or are you meant to let people stay in it for free?
It makes sense to rent it out for the year, and rent yourself in the other state.
The long term solution to this is high quality public housing allowing people to move when needed. It’s a bit of a pipe dream in our current world, but if we are talking edge cases, I can be idealistic.
Ownership isn’t for everyone, that’s okay, but profiting from a basic need for another human, shelter, is immortal. We should be a society that provides basic needs to people without allowing others to exploit them for profit.
I am not saying everyone must own, and you can’t rent, but it’s the profiteering I have a problem with, not the need for someone to live or move.
Be careful with this dangerous logic. You’ll get pitchforked.
This is the internet, absolutes or gtfo!
You’re right; lots of shitty edge cases exist. If you are trading 1 for 1 it’s not the core issue.
People extorting money due to the finite nature of land, for the sole reason of having been born with better access to capital.
It’s just making money, due to having money. They didn’t invent anything, they didnt discover and invest in an emerging company. They didn’t do anything innovative or clever. Anyone born to wealth could have done it. Which is why those are, by far and away, the vast majority of landlords.
Even a Conservative, union busting aristocrat like Churchill knew how bad landlordism was and landlords have been hated throughout all of human history. It’s only the current neoliberal plague who’ve attempted to moralise it with rich people worship and bootstrap paradoxes.
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Not everyone who is a landlord is born into wealth. Someone born into poverty can also be a landlord.
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By your logic, grocery stores are the same. They don’t grow the food. They don’t invent new food. There’s nothing wrong with grocery stores either.
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The main reason landlords are hated is jealousy. People hate those who have something they don’t. Especially when landlords worked for what they have and the ones who are jealous didn’t – they want to be handed things for free without contributing. Look at the old parable of the ant and the grasshopper.
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they can but they’re so few and far between that they don’t need mentioning. Loads will claim to have been born poor too but experience has left me unable to trust those claims. I even reference the fact that its not literally all off them, so I’m not sure why you needed to mention it again.
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All landlords, I was very clear about that but people making money through simply being a middle person sucks too. Nothing close to landlords though which is why I didn’t mention them and they aren’t covered by what I said.
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Ah yes, the old “bitter or a hypocrite” trope. It has to be one or the other, as the amoral people who throw it around can’t comprehend a moral objection to exploitation, usually due to poor empathy and even poorer social skills. The only people who want something for doing no work is landlords and shareholders. Its just astral level projection from people born to wealth, who even try to moralise their explanation by claiming everyone else, not born to their privilege and opportunity, must be lazy.
It turns out, they dont care about anyone being bitter or hypothetical, let alone the morality of just about anything. They just really don’t want people talking about inequality or exploitation.
The only people who want something for doing no work is landlords and shareholders.
You are incorrect about that. Landlords absolutely do work.
Its not me who’s wrong, as owning something isn’t work.
Now, they might do some repairs or maintenance but thats actual work and not what they’re paid for.
What they’re paid for is for doing no work and they, like shareholders, are the only people who expect to be paid for doing no work.
Our society is so messed up that they even have people declaring ownership is work, on their behalf.
Being a landlord is in fact, work.
Simply owning a property is called being a real estate investor. You can invest in property without even setting foot in it.
But maintaining it, interacting with tenants, etc is all work and that’s what a landlord does. As such, people should get paid for their work.
Again, you’re wrong. “Landlord” sn’t work.
landlord
a person or organization that owns a room, building, or piece of land that someone else pays rent to use
You can’t just make up you’re own definition of words. A landlord can outsource all of that to a management company and still be a landlord.
Maintenance is work and people should be paid for work. However, the landlord will get paid regardless of who does it. Thats because “landlord” isn’t work which is why “landlording” isn’t a verb.
“Landlording” is a word. It’s the act of performing the work of a landlord.
Anyone can pay someone else to do work. But the act of hiring others and making sure they’re doing their job is still work.
The majority of landlords are known as “mom and pop” which means they only have a few rentals. Many small landlords don’t hire a large team because there’s not enough money coming in from the rental to do so.
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When AirBNB first arrived, I think we thought it would be a tool to let people rent a spare room in their house short term to travelers, with a built in system for reviews and reputation building to ensure that it’s safe for both parties.
Turns out it’s a platform that enables wannabe real estate moguls to buy up housing and convert it into unlicensed hotels for a tidy profit.
Also a way to enable breaking regulations for hotels.
House owning crisis incoming in USA ?
Incoming?
Next economic crisis in range I meant.
I am seeing a lot of posts regarding high rents recently.
I was speculating if this is the new domino in the line for the next economic crisis.
Landlords aren’t inherently evil - it’s a useful job… a good landlord will make sure that units are well maintained and appliances are functional. A good landlord is also a property manager.
Landlords get a bad name because passive income is a bullshit lie. If you’re earning “passive income” you’re stealing someone else’s income - there’s no such thing as money for nothing, if you’re getting money and doing nothing it’s because someone else isn’t being properly paid for their work.
How many landlords actually do it as a job? And how many just collect the checks and hire bottom of the barrel contractors for anything that involves work? In my experience it’s been the latter.
I think most of the older landlords were like this but their renters are very reluctant to move. The landlords that suck have high turn overs - and recently there’s been a wave of idiots buying apartments to park their money and get “free” income - so the environment is actively getting worse.
I have never had a single landlord where this isn’t the case, except in instances where they are too cheap to even hire professionals to do things that they don’t have the skill to do, and they get their dipshit son to “fix” the sink that fell clean out of the kitchen counter with a lumpy bead of clear silicone and a 1’ piece of 2x4 wedged underneath.
So basically, a good landlord doesn’t make any actually passive income? That makes sense. I just see a lot of people on here saying things like “we should kill all landlords” and they just sound ridiculous to me.
People say that because outside of modern times in the first world, landlords = the mafia. Without expensive police, landlords have to enforce their own rent. So if you’re socialist or any other political movement bad for landlords, they probably make up the biggest paramilitary force in your country and if you don’t decapitate that chain of command fast you get dumped in a cave with 20,000 other skeletons.
And even in a first world country, the police manhours dedicated to evictions and the private security industry funded almost entirely by landlords is something anybody who wants to deal with housing prices is going to have to worry about.
People speak in absolutes as it gets the point across. Also socialism is pretty hot here I myself am a democratic socialist and I have said “kill landlords/rich/owner class” but in reality when the socialist party get in the owner class wont be murder but forced to pay more taxes, slowly forgo they’re business and property.
So who’s to say that’s how it’s going to go?
it may not but as a guess, society tends to move inline with bettering the human condition capitalism was better than mercantilism but still leaves many to suffer, so socialism is the natural direction unless something comes up that we haven’t thought of yet.
Because fundamentally there’s nothing wrong with landlords as people. They live in an unfair system and they’re doing what’s best for them. That’s true of the vast majority of people. Change the system, create one where doing pro social things are rewarded, and landlords will become beneficial actors. Honestly, this is true for the vast majority of people. Very few people really need “the wall”
Lemmy is filled with a lot of extremists. Nuanced thinking is in short supply here.
The fact that this comment and the replies to it are all evenly upvoted and downvoted definitely helps your point lol
I do live in amazement that my original comment about landlords not being inherently evil wasn’t downvoted into the ground.
The internet is filled with a lot of extremists. Nuanced thinking is in short supply here.
Lemmy is particularly bad when it comes to topic like landlords
And if you have any nuanced opinion on anything, you get called an enlightened centrist who only wants half a genocide.
So basically, a good landlord doesn’t make any actually passive income? That makes sense. I just see a lot of people on here saying things like “we should kill all landlords” and they just sound ridiculous to me.
There’s a lot of teenage edgelords on here. Or at least people with that level of maturity.
To me the question is whether the result of what you’re doing makes the world around you better or worse. Would the people living in your place be better off if you were out of the equation? Then you’re a bad landlord.
If you’re making money from providing labor for the people who live in a place you own, and they’re paying your costs to do so, I think there’s a case for that being a reasonable occupation to hold. If there’s an issue with it, it’s not my highest priority, and there’s definitely some value in flexible housing stock for people.
If your goal is passive income, or you’re making money from owning housing and denying that ownership to people who need a place to live, then you’re behaving as a parasite, and I think it’s reasonable for people to give you an amount of respect proportional to that.
People have some myth of passive income. I sold all my rentals because they were taking to much time. I never turned a profit but it was good for my taxes. If you want to slum lord you can turn a profit but even I dislike those people.
Market rent is basically set by current home costs. Any long term owners who have 15+ year old tax base essentially get to pocket the difference due to lower property taxes. Any newer buyer who is renting can only cover costs.
That is incorrect. I can tell you’ve never rented to people rent is set by the market. Supply and demand.
It doesn’t matter if the house cost 800k. If the market rent is 2k a month. That’s all you’ll get.
In the area where I had my rentals, the houses are 500k but the rent is only 1k. Now I bought in 2008 and only paid 120k. So only lost some money but I made it up in tax benefits.
People really don’t understand the economics of landlords. They think it’s all money in the pocket. It’s not. It’s a very thin profit margin with most the benefit being taxes.
I can tell at a glance you’re really bad at math. 🤦♂️
I am very good at math but thanks for the worthless reply.
Maybe you should just give up
Ah the creepy stalker again. Creepy.
Another thing that pisses me off is that I’m literally paying >100% of the cost of the property over time, yet they retain full ownership. It’s an investment with essentially zero risk, if you have a tenant that isn’t a racoon.
Not sure I have a good solution for that issue, honestly, but the idea of it irks me.
My overall position boils down to: Housing should never generate profit. A landlord can take pay for the work they do, and put money aside for maintenance, but there should never be a profit made on rent.
This was less of an issue before as we could save to buy property. Now we must inherit
This is the main issue. There’s not enough skilled workers to actually make enough houses and homebuilding supplies. It’s so expensive and the average person can’t do it up to code.
Before, if you had some small amount of money and a lot of time you could just buy a small plot and build a house yourself. Now you’d be an idiot to waste time doing that. No one will buy your handmade house even if it’s up to code.
Apartments in cities used to be cheap because the city stank of horse manure and smoke, and there were no elevators. Basically we’ve made the world much nicer and realized people will pay an arm and a leg for a nice place to live.
i blame investors, career landlords, rentals are more profitable than banks.
Actually the housing crisis has gotten so bad that I’ve seen quite a number of “handmade houses” sell in my region (US Pacific Northwest). And they’re selling for way more than just land value…
Even if you own your home mortgage free, you’re going to be paying >100% of its value in maintenance and opportunity cost over the first ten years.
Also, I would just like to point out that I have very rarely had a landlord do maintenance on the property I live in. One building hadn’t seen a lick of maintenance in over 30 years, until I finally convinced them to replace the oven.
it would surprise you to learn that many business owners are shit at their jobs. You’ve never heard of mechanics ripping off people for headlight fluid? Or shoddy construction work?
This isn’t a landlord problem. it’s a human one.
Sure, let’s assume that’s true. The difference though is, I own the property. I get something out of the deal other than a temporary roof over my head - something I would argue is a human right.
If I were renting, I would be paying all those same costs, plus a profit margin - and I wouldn’t own anything at all. Someone else gets to cash out on the investment that I entirely paid for.
You misunderstand. The comparison I’m trying to make is this:
- Scenario 1: You own a home mortgage-free. You pay maintenance costs and taxes on that property.
- Scenario 2: You own the value of the same home in cash. You rent a home to live in.
How high does rent need to be before it becomes a better financial choice to choose scenario 1 over scenario 2? The break-even point is around the price where you would end up paying off the entire value of the home over ten years.
Ahh, gotcha. That’s fair, then.
There are some interesting scenarios I’ve seen contracted out that you might be interested in.
Scenario: Co-op housing, you lease a lot with housing (based on your desired price point) with a 100-year lease. You may “purchase” a portion of the capital that the co-op housing has on your leased property (lets say 100k value property). The invested money can be used for loans or other means (like how capital can be used for leverage) through the co-op (think State-employee-credit-unions which are co-ops themselves). Any interest or value accrued while maintaining that lease is passed onto the signer of that lease. Aka, 100k property sold 20 years later for 200k you receive a 100k “buyout” from the co-op if you’re leaving.
Heavily regulated with plenty of stipulations of course so nefarious actors and “flippers” don’t buy. The co-op retains the property for future housing even if you die at 118. Have seem family clauses so it can be passed down as well. There’s just so many versatile and victimless situations that can be created which have the community and the individual in mind for fairness.
there absolutely should be a profit for rent. Being a good landlord is work, work should be compensated. Taking the risk of ownership (low though it might be) should be compensated.
The issue isn’t profit. The issue is a) artificial lack of supply driving up prices b) greed and exploitation of basic needs.
In some countries, like some of the USA, you get clean drinking water pumped into your house for your toilets. However you do the math a) people need to work on the system to keep it working and they should get paid a living wage b) water is a need even more than housing. We pay for water, and people make profit on it. How you pay for it - taxes, city rates, privately - whatever, you pay for it.
that isn’t the issue, just like paying rent isn’t the issue. it’s the amount which is.
the solution is simple and already exists: universal basic income, and make basic needs like water and rent limited by this amount.
Pay and profit are not the same thing, though. A landlord can be compensated for work without making a profit.
Agreed on UBI though.
you should be paid enough to make a profit. profit = money left over from being paid after expenses.
If you spend some time - any time - you should be compensated an amount that allows you to do things you actually want to do.
I’m not sure you knew what the word “profit” means, but hopefully you do now, or can find a better way to express what you mean.
Compensation for work - even if that work is performed by the owner - is an expense, not profit.
Tap water is not really a for-profit enterprise. Even Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, though there are some well paid lawyers and engineers on staff, has to justify their rates and re-invest it all into water supply reliability. No shareholders making a profit on tap water.
UBI would not prevent landlords from profit. If we can afford to spend trillions on concrete bridges, we could build public housing in every city.
“shareholders” have nothing to do with any part of this conversation.
UBI has nothing to do with preventing profit. Which is good, because we shouldn’t be preventing profit. We should be preventing exploitation.
there’s no such thing as money for nothing, if you’re getting money and doing nothing it’s because someone else isn’t being properly paid for their work
I earn around 3 to 6k a year of passive income from owning stocks. It’s passive because once I’ve bought the stocks I no longer need to actively do anything to earn interests but it’s not “money for nothing” either because I had to work to earn the money to invest and having one’s money invested into someone else’s business is always inherently risky. Interests are compensation for the risk I’m taking by buying shares in a company and betting on it’s success. Renting property is effectively the same thing. It’s not necessarily what you do that makes it good or bad, it’s how you do it.
I’m not sure what angle you’re coming from here. Anything with a risk involved is inherently not bad? or the origin of the investment capital was morally sound, so the profit off the investment must also be morally sound? I’m not even going to touch on the fundamentals and optics of the stock market at this point and what it has done to the economy, business practices, enshittification, etc etc.
Anything with a risk involved is inherently not bad?
No, but that it’s not money for nothing. It’s compensation for the risk I’m taking of never getting my money back.
It’s not obvious to me that any of this is inherently bad. Like with everything it depends on how you use it. Greedy landlords that don’t do their duties are bad. It’s not the being landlord itself that’s the issue. Me owning a small part of a company isn’t bad - that company treating its employees bad and polluting the envoronment is.
I’m not delusional with righteousness to the point where I don’t get what you’re saying. Obviously we’re all having conversations involving the nuances so it’s a legitimate debate. It’s late and I’m having trouble breaking it down into a short reply without a wall of text so hopefully you’ll fill in the gaps of my meaning.
I suppose it depends on what “hat” you’re wearing. Are we individuals surviving and trying to continue in a turbulent society like 99% of the populace, or are we participating and forming a society we wish to see our younger generations take over? No matter my rhetoric, I don’t fault anyone for the actions they take in today’s world so don’t take anything I say personally. That being said, “land” is a finite resource. There is no getting over or around that. It’s a simple physics matter that everyone is just glossing over for their financial portfolio. These are the “Oil Baron’s Lite” of the old world brought to the new. You can’t think of the new world without the realization that the world is getting smaller over time. I refuse to believe anyone is that dense when it comes to physical manifestations, the “world pie” in being continually split up amongst the more fortunate.
Same with the company. Sure, owning a small portion of a profitable company is fucking fantastic in today’s eyes and society. Look at Hershey or Apple with the continued labor practices everyone promotes with purchases. You would be financially insane to say those are bad companies to be invested in. Is that the end to the societal metric though? Profit over outcome? Which is your formula, “Past societal norms + societal progression” or “societal progression + Future societal norms”.
The past “Venture Capitalist” in the 1920’s might’ve gotten away without knowing where the actual “labor” or environmental degradation of your invested companies profit might impact or subjugate from. In the 2020’s though? You’re either reaping too much of a profit to care, or you’re too lazy to do due diligence so you’re not worried about the actual risk of an investment after all.
To emphasize this, I’ve had both types of landlords:
One apartment I moved into was available because it was the owners residence, but he had to move away for two years because of his job. He wanted to move back afterwards, so he put some money into refurbishing an already decent place, and rented it out to me at a price that mostly just covered mortgage, maintenance, and wear & tear. Best landlord I ever had.
Afterwards I spent two years in a typical predatory unit that was a normal house, but had been, as cheaply as possible, been renovated/converted into a place meant for packing as many renters as possible. It was expensive, there was always something wrong, it took ages to get anything fixed, and it was obvious that the owner who lived elsewhere only used the peiperty as passive income. The only reason why I stayed that long was economic desperation, and a housing market that was awful.
Official communist stance: Corporate landlords who spend all their resources into buying more houses to price everyone out of the market. Renting out a single room out of your family house is immoral, but doesn’t hold a candle to the absolute evil of corporate landlords.
Remember: Communists don’t give a shit about individuals; that’s liberalism. They care about systems and dismantling them. It’s those who throw themselves in front of those systems to defend them who end up becoming causalities. There are plenty of examples in socialist history where the most evil of abusers would willingly give up their power (out of cowardice) and would ultimately go on to live a normal life. Perfect example of this was the literal king of China who the figurehead of the system oppressing them. When the communists won they gave up their power and their response was pretty much “You had no way of knowing what you were doing was wrong, we’re going to teach you why it was wrong” and even though it was a LOT of work, they did eventually get the picture and integrated into post-monarchy society.
TL;DR don’t die on the hill and you won’t die on the hill
Renting out a single room out of your family house is immoral
Why? It seems to me that if you’re accommodating having someone in your home, being compensated for that inconvenience wouldn’t be immoral. Certainly not any more immoral than having that room go unused would be.
Because this is rent-seeking, which leads to exploitation of labor via owning Capital.
Rent-seeking behavior is when you seek economic rent (more compensation than is required for a resource to be employed) without creating value. If you repurpose a room to make it available to someone to rent, you’re creating value. Likely part of how you’re creating that value is via your own labor.
The home you live in is generally considered to be personal property, not private property, so ownership of capital isn’t happening in this scenario. “Doing X is immoral because it leads to you doing Y, which is immoral” (that it would lead to the exploitation of labor) is a slippery slope argument without any basis (and with plenty of anecdotal counterpoints).
You are not creating Value by allowing someone to use a room for a fee. This is just using the already created Value to rent-seek.
Using a room to rent out becomes Private Property, not Personal Property.
You are not creating Value by allowing someone to use a room for a fee.
You created value when you made the room suitable for someone else’s use rather than your own. The room was not available and now it is. Value is an output, and the room didn’t intrinsically have value.
This is just using the already created Value to rent-seek.
Your understanding of rent-seeking is not one I’ve seen literally anywhere else. What’s the basis for that?
Using a room to rent out becomes Private Property, not Personal Property.
How so?
There’s no new value being created, the room was created once. Renting it out takes no labor, it isn’t a service, it is literally just seeking income from ownership. “Value” isn’t some mystical thing, it’s a measure of inputs and outputs, and in the case of renting a room out, there are no new inputs.
It becomes Private Property the second you become a landlord and rent-seek. Rather than using it for yourself, you seek value from ownership.
I’m using fairly standard understandings of rent-seeking, pretending that allowing someone else to use something you own via a fee is providing a service is landlord justification, it isn’t a service.
So there is absolutely no value to let someone else have a place to sleep safely?
You created value when you made the room suitable for someone else’s use rather than your own.
The “Value” of the room was created when it was constructed and taxed. The “additional value” of a remodel will be reflected in the tax statements and property value (which is usually a return when sold). The room always had value, just not as a business asset which you want. These comments and the ones below are some of the craziest mental gymnastics I’ve seen this year. “but the landlord is my hero and stopped me from freezing by charging me 150% on the only place I can afford because all the real mean landlords took all the other houses”. It’s a scam, a con. A lord and serf arrangement carried on through centuries of oppression. It’s a grift, has been since it’s inception. Which came first, a house or a landlord? Which one was necessary and which one was created with excess capital that was distributed unequally?
Official Communist stance: there is zero distinction between personal property and private property. Hand over you toothbrush.
It’s the People’s Democratic Toothbrush, thank you very much. Now do 100 push-ups for Dialectical Materialism and become a Professional Letarian, a Pro-Letarian if you will, comrade! /s
You are entering a business relation where you have all of the power and their livelihood is completely at your whim. This is deeply coercive.
What’s the moral alternative?
Publicly owned housing.
Unionized housing is also a great option, where all rent is democratically controlled by the tenants and goes towards enriching your lives.
That’s certainly a more directly achievable plan within the framework of Capitalism, absolutely. Still, ideally all housing would be publicly or personally owned.
Idealism is the enemy of material change. We can fantasize about a perfect world all we want but that won’t make anyone’s lives better. What does drive change is fucking around and finding out. Seeing what works, what doesn’t, and then working off of that.
Decommodify housing so that everyone can buy a house if they want to. That way renting becomes a choice, rather than forced on them.
Right…
What’s the moral alternative for an individual without the power to make that change, who you said would be behaving immorally if they rented out a room from their family home?
That’s not what people are saying. The situation itself is immoral, but you would not individually call people doing the best they can within that framework immoral.
Saying that “there’s no ethical consumption under Capitalism” isn’t damning for the consumers, but for Capitalism itself.
Thanks for clarifying. Phrased / thought of as “a situation wherein X happens is immoral,” it makes sense.
My confusion came from not doing that, even after reading the “Remember:” text in the comment, thanks to my conflating my personal belief that the individuals who are part of corporations that purchase houses in mass and rent them out are behaving immorally (vs being actors in an immoral situation) being adjacent with a statement about an individual renting out a room.
That concept of morality feels more similar to what I think of as “fairness” (though not an exact match) than to individual morality.
I feel like there must be a different word used to convey the moral judgment of someone who isn’t doing the best they can within the framework - i.e., someone who is choosing to exploit laborers for profit in excess of anything they could use for themselves.
Decouple immoral actions from your person. That’s liberalism. No self-respecting socialist would see someone stealing bread and call them immoral for the situation their material conditions forced them into. They would call the situation immoral and they would be right.
Self-sacrifice is false consciousness and akin to moral austerity.
Oh! So your statement was basically “a situation where someone has to rent a room from someone, even if that person is just renting a room out of their family house, is immoral?” That clears things up - thanks for explaining.
There’s way too much money in the hands of the wealthy. What are they going to do with it all? Invest in the stock market. All the good investments are overvalued. All the bad investments are have been saturated too. What else can they do with all of that money. They gotta put it somewhere.
So they put excess money into real estate. So the price of real estate has been driven up so much that it’s over valued like any other avenue of investment.
The stock prices being overvalued isn’t good but isn’t something that’ll affect regular people. But their real estate investments being over valued? Well that real estate isn’t an investment to someone that simply needs a place to live.
And that’s the problem, the price of housing is priced above what the people what people outside of the investor class can afford. And the investor class wants a return on their investment in the overprices real estate (that they collectively drove the price up on) so charge a lot for rent. Of course maybe if people moved to another area that would put downward pressure on the rent prices. But AirBnB is there so if this happens they can still get income from that when no one can afford the insanely high rent.
So the overarching problem is the wealthy have wayyy too much money and are dumping their excess wealth into real estate and pricing people that just need a place to live out of the market. AirBnB isn’t the cause of the problem but it makes the problem worse.
One of many problems caused by the unwillingness to simply tax the wealthy.
The stock market is rigged too – I’ve seen multiple instances where hedgies are using algorithms to do their stock trading, only to get something wrong, and we end up… REVERSING THE TRADES FOR THEM!!!
Algo-traders, should be permanently locked into their trades. Make a mistake – oh…fucking…well.
Quite the opposite, western stock markets are highly regulated. What you saw was probably high frequency traders making a transaction that they were not allowed to make. Depending on markets and contracts they have very tight rules they need to adhere to, things like how many orders they can place in a day or in a second, how many they can cancel etc. If they mess up the transaction could be reversed and they’d regret doing so - mistake or not. Depending on the offence they could face fines or hours/days not allowed to trade (ie shitloads of money). These things DO get enforced.
If they just make a mistake, they have to suck it up, someone doesn’t get their bonus that quarter. There is no rollback button.
The high frequency traders have specialized hardware that executes trades on nanosecond scale directly connected to exchange DRAM. They can make a trade on an asset and reverse it before anyone even knows it was a bad trade. Meanwhile the dumb money waits.
Does having an airbnb bikeshed get the guillotine?
I am a reluctant landlord. If I had my way, I wouldn’t have any properties other people lived in, but alas there are other factors at play. I’m a renter myself, and hope to buy a house soon, but the properties that my family has dog me still.
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Location, location, location.
If only it were that easy my friend.
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That’s quite a lot of assumptions. And they’re all incorrect.
Man there’s so much indiscriminate hate in here. I rent out an apartment to some tenants, and I rent myself, elsewhere. So I’m both a landlord and a tenant.
The rent I receive doesn’t even cover the cost of the apartment. I’m losing money on it every year. So I’m subsidising someone’s housing.
So why all the hate?
I like moving around so I’m not going sell and buy every couple of years.
What’s causing you to lose money on your apartment?
I have to pay interest on the loan, and lots of other owning costs, that are greater then the rent I receive.
The rent I receive doesn’t even cover the cost of the apartment. I’m losing money on it every year. So I’m subsidising someone’s housing.
The third statement might be true, but it does not follow from the first two. Are the two houses of equal size? Are they in equally desirable locations? Also, is the market price of the house you are renting out increasing? You need to account for these.
Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear. I meant the rent I receive from my tenant doesn’t cover the interest on the loan for that place. I don’t own the apartment outright. I have a mortgage with a bank. That bank charges me interest on the loan. There are also other costs of owning.
Ah okay.
Because landlording, as a practice, is a fundamental flaw in the system we live in.
That doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, but it makes you a part of a bad system.
To some degree, we’re all part of a bad system. Every time we buy a latte, or a smartphone, we’re participating in a broken system that causes unimaginable harm. Half the shit you own was probably made with slave labour.
That’s what “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” means. It’s not saying “don’t consume”, it’s saying the idea of living a morally pure life in a morally defunct system is impossible.
We don’t yet know what a future post-capitalist housing system will look like. Maybe your particular scenario is one that will eventually be seen as perfectly acceptable.
For now, if you feel what you’re doing is completely justified then you can simply assume that the hate isn’t directed at you. You don’t have to jump in and justify yourself at every turn. That’s no different than being the guy who has to yell “I’m not like that” every time a woman talks about how shitty her interactions with men are.
And even if what you’re doing isn’t a moral good in the world, it may simply be that it’s the best you can do in a bad system. We’re all just trying to survive, and capitalism demands that we be morally impure in order to live, because there are no morally pure ways left to live. Again, you don’t need to justify that. We’re trying to fix a broken system. No one here called you out personally by name.
It’s indiscriminate hate without proposing a better system. It’s just lazy. It’s not that I feel personally attacked. It’s that I think the criticism is lazy and I’m using my situation to demonstrate my point.
Just because you can find one example of a good use of a bad system, doesn’t make it a good system. That’s like saying that monarchy was good actually because you can name some good kings.
Can you suggest a better system?
First off, let’s assess the purpose of this question. If you’re implying that an argument against a system is invalid without a fully thought out proposal to replace it, you’re engaging in pointless sophistry. If someone says “I think my leg is broken” you don’t ask them to tell you exactly how they think it should be fixed before you believe them. We don’t have to know the solution in order to realise we have a problem.
With that caveat out of the way, I’m personally a big advocate for getting private capital out of rental markets. I know a lot of people just want to eliminate renting altogether, but I agree that this is short sighted. It either relies on the idea that everyone owns their home, which isn’t always practical, or that people simply have homes provided at no cost, which opens up its own complications. Basically, while I am in favour of the total destruction of capitalism, I don’t think that has to mean getting rid of money. Money is a very useful way of tokenising resources so that they can easily be exchanged. This allows for more efficient distribution of the correct resources to the people who most need them.
What I want to see is rentals at a price that everyone can afford l. Obviously, in an ideal scenario this would be paired with UBI to ensure that no one ever goes unhoused, but we’ll focus on the housing side for now.
If given total power over my country’s political system, I would look to implement a scheme that would ultimately result in rentals being handled only by Crown corporations (not-for-profit entities operating at arm’s length from the government) created with a mandate to provide affordable rental properties. These corporations would invest building and buying housing in their area in order to fulfill this mandate. They would also be required to offer rent to own schemes. Rental rates would be set by a formula that would account for factors affecting the desirability of a property such as location, square footage and amenities. Conflicts would be solved by waiting lists.
Private rentals would be outlawed (with possible carve-outs for situations like a property owner who is temporarily away from their primary residence - even in these situations, the rental would be handled by the Crown corp with the collected rents passing to the property owner, minus a handling fee). Most likely this scheme would be phased in over time, allowing investment property owners to sell off their properties to the Crown corps. Investors would take a hit on this, but any economic downsides will be more than offset by the upside of the vast majority of the populace becoming, in effect, significantly wealthier (in GDP terms the economy would certainly shrink, but GDP is a terrible measure of economic health).
Unfortunately necessary disclaimer: This is the rough outline of a proposal. Were I actually in a position to implement it, a LOT of details would be worked out in committee, with advice from respected experts. This disclaimer shall be henceforth known as “The Sign”. Do not make me tap “The Sign.”
Thanks for your detailed reply. I mostly agree with you.
Would rents increase if an area becomes more desirable? For example if I rent a house on a large block of land and the population grows significantly and we now need higher density, would I be encouraged or forced to move? That seems to be a problem where I live. When we had a smaller population, big blocks were fine. Now we need higher density but people don’t want to move and don’t want apartment buildings near them.
To be decided by committee. We’d have to study both options and examine the potential negative and positive impacts.
In general the goal of the rent formula would be to keep average rents at a low percentage of average incomes. That means a typical two person apartment should clock in at, say for arguments sake, around 20% of monthly minimum wage. So even if there was some flex in rental prices, it should basically be impossible for anyone to struggle to make rent.
That said, I think it would definitely be important to ensure that an increase in desirability in an area doesn’t end up punishing the existing inhabitants. That way lies gentrification. This would tend to argue against factoring in desirability. A waiting list system will naturally push people away from areas that are highly desirable, since no one will want to wait that long for somewhere to live. I suspect that alone would be a sufficient solution, but again, I’d like to see it studied.
Obviously, there are problems this can’t solve, but they need their own solutions. More walkable neighbourhoods, better public transit, these are the kind of factors that would help reduce housing pressure on specific areas by making everywhere more desirable to live. Same goes for ensuring fair distribution of resources to schools and other public amenities, and so on.
Also I think things can only be bad in comparison to something “good”. In your broken leg example, we know what an unbroken leg is, so that’s obviously the desired state. With the landlord criticism, there’s no obvious desired state.
I’d argue that the obvious desired state is simple; people should not struggle to afford housing. Every other consideration is secondary to that. The question is just how to get there.
I made this point in another comment but it’s because you’re forced to rent, even if it doesn’t make sense for you. Corporate landlords have bought out all the housing and commodified it, pricing out normal people who just want to live. It’s either play their game or die on the streets.
Nobody would give a shit about renting if it were just a convenience thing, or a viable alternative to home ownership.
We don’t really have corporate landlords, as far as I know. Can you link to a source? Also, what country are you in? Maybe it’s different there.
According to a quick search it seems home ownership is even lower in the down under than they are in the Americas, a region deeply oppressed by rampant landlordism. There’s a not-insignificant chance you’re currently paying rent to a corporation and not even know it. (or more likely to your parents, this is Lemmy after all)
I think you need to brush up on your media literacy a little bit there. (downvote wasn’t mine, it was someone else)
Not sure what you mean by media literacy. In Australia 95% of dwellings are owned by individuals/families.
Worst fucking strawman I’ve seen.
This is just a question. WTF
Yeah, wrong place to expect a reasoned reply, buddy. Here it’s mostly extremists who claim they’re the good guys because their extreme is the good extreme.
There’s plenty of people renting out properties on airbnb all year round. And yes, they’re landlords. These are perfectly good houses someone could live in, but instead they’re used for tourism and money, and not even the kind of tourism money where the hotel owner is actually responsible for cleaning and the full cost of the property. A proper hotel is better for society than a hundred full time airbnbs.
This doesn’t seem like an open question to me.
AirBnB is horrible for local housing prices, because it removes long-term housing from the supply in exchange for more expensive short-term rentals. Guillotines are too nice for AirBnB owners; They should be thrown feet-first into a wood chipper.
I don’t think the Airbnb we stayed at in Charleston which was just this lovely lady’s extra bedroom in her house really affected the local housing market. She doesn’t want to rent long term and have to have roommates, she likes having guests and showing them around her city, and we’re still friends several years later, so no housing is being lost, and it’s actually a good experience. A single bedroom rental isn’t a big deal to me.
I’m middling about the other Airbnb we stayed at, it was a sort of apartment, but I don’t know who would have wanted to live there full time, the bedroom was only large enough to get a double bed in, let alone a dresser or anything, and we slept terribly, and while the kitchen and living room and bathroom were nice enough, there was no storage and a million stairs. The guy who owns it is a friend who owns the restaurant it’s above and said he never has much luck with long term renters wanting it, as it is also noisy because of the location and smells of food all the time. I think a place such as that fares better as an Airbnb too. Short term rentals should not displace housing for sure, but I’m not sure they’re all bad.
They’re all bad. Full stop. You’re rationalizing with “just”. That lovely lady would’ve downsized or eventually would’ve had a full-time resident (even a friend or family), there is absolutely zero incentive while she’s able to take advantage of the situation. Is she a registered business and paying taxes like all the other short term stay? That second guy, come on, you’re really not that blind right? No one is willing to PAY what he wants for that rental. He can get that price point he wants with short term rentals.
I hate the housing narrative because everyone plays real fucking coy when it comes to their scenario. Do we have a housing shortage crisis or not? Do we have housing for all immigrants or for refugees across the world? Is rent and housing prices sky rocketing because of demand? Like wtf, any defense is just a pity story “think about the rich people with their easy life, we might be them one day!” Every single fucker in here defending renting just wants an easy scam to get rich and hates to see their future “dream” squashed like that.
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I’ve always appreciated people who rent out rooms or expand their homes to let people rent a private space with airbnb.
I also don’t think VRBO, home away, house trip, and other companies that support this business model get enough visibility in the criticism against the model.
Which was the original stated intent of AirBnB. Going out of town for a day or two? Let someone stay for a day or two while they’re in town. Your place is watched while you’re out of town, it helps pay for your hotel while you’re gone, and everyone is happy.
But in practice, people buy houses for the sole purpose of listing them on AirBnB for 30% of the mortgage payment. They don’t care if it sits vacant for 80% of the month, because the four or five days it’s in use pays for the mortgage.
