Reason I’m asking is because I have an aunt that owns like maybe 3 - 5 (not sure the exact amount) small townhouses around the city (well, when I say “city” think of like the areas around a city where theres no tall buildings, but only small 2-3 stories single family homes in the neighborhood) and have these houses up for rent, and honestly, my aunt and her husband doesn’t seem like a terrible people. They still work a normal job, and have to pay taxes like everyone else have to. They still have their own debts to pay. I’m not sure exactly how, but my parents say they did a combination of saving up money and taking loans from banks to be able to buy these properties, fix them, then put them up for rent. They don’t overcharge, and usually charge slightly below the market to retain tenants, and fix things (or hire people to fix things) when their tenants request them.
I mean, they are just trying to survive in this capitalistic world. They wanna save up for retirement, and fund their kids to college, and leave something for their kids, so they have less of stress in life. I don’t see them as bad people. I mean, its not like they own multiple apartment buildings, or doing excessive wealth hoarding.
Do leftists mean people like my aunt too? Or are they an exception to the “landlords are bad” sentinment?
My landlord sends me a legal 14-day notice to pay or leave the day after my graceperiod(first of the month to the fifth) before my first paycheck of the month. This is en lieu of a simple email or phonecall. They communicate with legal threats even though I clue them in on months that would be difficult. The valuation went up on the property recently and I am halfway though a one year lease. They want to increase the rent again but can’t do it without improvements and a new tenant.
I do believe a lot of landlords don’t care and will make decisions based on what makes them more money versus the well-being of the people living in their property. But I don’t agree that landlords as a concept are bad, and that they all should sell their extra properties to reduce the crazy prices we’re having.
There are plenty of reasons someone would prefer to rent than to buy, and if there are no landlords or rental houses what happens to those cases? I personally have attended university not at my home city, and I rented an apartment with other students. It makes no sense to buy in that situation. People who intend to live somewhere temporarily would mostly prefer to rent, what would happen then?
There is a problem with regulation, big companies owning whole apartment buildings, and generally small greedy landlords what will make their tenants life hell. But cutting out the whole concept is trading one issue with another.
Unless your aunt is transferring equity in those homes to the tenants based on the amount they pay in rent, then yes, she’s a leech. “Providing shelter” isn’t the service your aunt is providing; she’s just preventing someone else from owning a home.
And before anyone says “but renting is all some people can afford, they can’t save up enough to make a down payment” - yes, sure, that’s true. But that’s a symptom of the shitty housing market (really the shitty state of the middle class in general*), and landlords aren’t making it any better by hoarding property, even if it’s “just” 3 to 5 townhomes.
It’s shades of gray. A company that rents out millions of houses is millions times worse than your aunt. Your aunt is still contributing to unaffordable housing and keeping 2-3 families from permanent housing. How bad she is is up for debate and I for one don’t care to debate that. Being upset about people like your aunt is pointless when we should be insanely angry about corporate mass homeownership.
Here’s the thing: landlords make a profit, right? Where does that profit come from? There are better and worse landlords, but any time there’s a profit there’s money being taken away from people.
No one is coming after your aunt, but that’s where it comes from. They’re leaching money away from tenants. Some are worse than others, but it is by definition parasitic if you’re making a profit and not providing a service.
Does your Aunt get paid rent from the people living in those houses? Is that rent more than it costs to own and maintain the properties? Yeah, thought so. Yes, your aunt is a parasite. She is extracting profit from other people simply by virtue of being the one to own the property that she doesn’t live in. She isn’t providing value, she’s restricting access.
She may be a lovely lady the rest of the time, I’m sure she lives a vibrant and full life elsewhere, but that doesn’t change what she’s doing. Nobody owns “a couple of houses as an investment” if they’re not making money off of them, and they’re only making money by extracting it from the people who have to rent.
I can see the evil in what these large corporations are doing but I have rented in the past when I was neither prepared for the burden of home ownership nor planning to stay in that location for a long time. If I couldn’t have rented what would I have done? I would have been essentially FORCED into owning a home or what, living in the streets? And what if you wish to move but no one wants to buy your house? More you are forced to stay out turn evil by buying two houses.
It’s ok to love your aunt. She didn’t make the rules she’s just living by them. If there’s a problem with the system, start at the top.
Exactly, buying and selling homes is a lot more time-consuming than ending and starting a lease. Also as an owner you have responsibility to declare/disclose any major problems to the buyer. If you’re just moving out of a rental you may never even meet the next tenant. Rentals are always going to be a necessity, and people like your aunt are often the nicest people to rent from.
I also know at least one person who prefers to rent an apartment because he doesn’t want to mow the lawn or fix a faucet. He just called the superintendent.
Some people need to rent, that does not mean individuals need to horde houses to rent out to them for profit.
They may be what YOU are saying, but that is not what MANY here say. I’ve seen it many times that profiting on something essential for life is wrong/evil.
Yes, profiting on something essential for life is wrong. I have not said anything to the contrary.
Well, you kind of did when you said some people need to rent. Why would anyone rent to that someone for no profit? How would that landlord live? Government subsidies?
It would vary depending on who’s saying it.
Your Aunt should be paying enough taxes that owning a second property should be more or less unfeasible.
A fair system would have her seeking other retirement vehicles.
Why don’t you ask them?
“Leftists”
Hmmm…
Well the proper lefty take is supposed to be that the system is bad - not that anyone who profits from the system is a bad person.
Leftists don’t say that, advocates for the Chinese Dictatorship say that.
When we say landlords are bad, it’s not really about the individual people so much as it’s about the system as a whole. Ideally, the human right to housing should be guaranteed for everyone, along with the right to be cared for in retirement. How many elderly people don’t own their own homes, and have rent to pay as an additional expense making it harder for them to retire? Sure, landlordism can provide a source of income for people who can’t work, but for every case of that, there’s another case of someone who can’t work who doesn’t have the privilege of owning a home, such that the existing system makes them even more desperate. So logically, it doesn’t really make sense as a justification.
Cases like this should be considered when we’re looking at how best to implement our ideals, but not for determining our ideals in the first place. The just thing is that everyone should have a secure place to live. That’s the ideal. In implementing that ideal, we should consider that houses currently are used as a form of investment and many people simply use them that way without a second thought, because of social norms. If we simply seized and redistributed everyone’s properties tomorrow, some people like your aunt would be disproportionately affected, compared to if they had invested in stocks that can be just as unethical. It would probably still be better for most people than doing nothing, but we ought to craft policy in such a way that we’re not trolley probleming it (except regarding the people at the very top, for whom it’s unavoidable), but rather such that it provides benefits while harming as few people as possible.
When society is organized justly and the wealth of the people on the top is redistributed, there will be enough to go around that everyone ought to be able to benefit from it. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a problem to compensate small landlords for their properties and ensure that they aren’t harmed by any changes in policy.
“Landlords provide housing like scalpers provide concert tickets.”
https://lifehacker.com/why-everyone-hates-landlords-now-1849100799
That said, I do think there need to be ways to rent housing rather than buy it, since many people need that flexibility. Looks like the answer to that might be community land trusts?
What a magnificent comparison!
Or public housing
