“All I want to do is exploit struggling people for far more than my property is worth. Is that so wrong?!”
Even more ironic is that the “professional” landlords/property holding companies hire property managers who do literally all the work, including both the upkeep for the house and interaction with the tenants. Like, what exactly do you contribute at that point? What would change practically if I hired the property manager directly with the money I would be paying you? Especially when the most common pro-landlord argument (used by landlords themselves) is that they fix things around the house and maintain it.
“You expect me to unclog a toilet?!”
Yes. That’s exactly what I expect a landlord to do. And if you don’t live in the same city as your rental property, maybe that shouldn’t be allowed.
I am against landlords like everyone else, but I draw the line at unclogging the toilet. It isn’t worth the effort to report that and I don’t need people unnecessarily seeing my shit in the literal sense. Provided that it is a standard clog and not something wrong with the toilet.
I’m not talking standard clog. I don’t mind using a plunger. But sometimes you need more than that and they should either do it or spend their own money on a plumber ASAP.
Ah, I see. The Super Poo, the Toilet Destroyer, HAZMAT. Things that only a professional can do. Sometimes the rabbit doesn’t come out of the hat and you need an extra hand.
I had a landlord who wrote into the original version of the lease that I (as the tenant) would be responsible for any needed repairs to the sewer system. This was a much more extreme version of being unwilling to unclog a toilet lol. I said fuck that noise and he took the clause out. He turned out to be a good landlord and he didn’t raise my rent once in seven years, but his tendency to just try and get away with whatever he could in the lease had me a bit worried at the start.
For individuals who own like a single rental property as an investment property, you could blame the banks. Maybe the tenants don’t have the 20% the bank would require for a mortgage. But they can afford the monthly rent for the larger house rather than a smaller apartment. Also the landlord takes on the risk here. (Market value, no Rent payment, property damage, maintenance…)
They take on the risk? That’s hysterical. Landlords don’t risk market value. They buy up all the houses when they’re cheap, make their money back and then some by renting the property, then make even more money when the housing market goes up and they kick the tenant out to sell the property. They don’t risk property damage, that’s the entire point of a security deposit. They don’t “risk” maintenance, that’s called doing their job.
Ok kid. I think you missed the first sentence in my comment.
I don’t understand why a 20% deposit is necessary. If you can make repayments as you can make rent, let them own the house already
You don’t need 20%, you do need at least 3% in most cases. You then pay pmi which is an extra cost.
PMI sucks too. (Again, banks suck.) but it’s still better than paying rent.
In Australia its way more common for landlords to use propert management companies.
They charge about 5%, the tenant rings them and says “The hot water is out” they ring me and say “You need to authorise us to send a plumber” I say “Ok” they ring one of their go-to plumbers who attends super fast because they dont want to lose the repeat business of a property manager who has 100 properties to look after and they fix it at a fair rate because if they dont the property manager will find a new plumber.
When I was renting out my first house (had to move for work for a few years) I couldnt get an electrician for my own house as fast and as cheap as my property manager could get one for my tenants.
You guys are joking and everything, but that’s what they actually think
Someone I know is like this, unironically.
I rent out homes and I dont get any of these because I only rent out to hispanic working families. Fight me
Only some, usually the very right leaning ones or the very left leaning ones. Normal people behave normally.
I can assure you the very left leaning ones don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t be left leaning.
That was true a few years ago. Republicans were the good guys once too, but they sure as shit aren’t today. Things change.
Extreme left-leaning means they agree with Marx that Capitalism is a doomed system, and work towards its dismantling. If they don’t agree with that goal… they aren’t far left.
It’s so frustrating when people think left means BLM and LGBTQIA+ and vaccination. Those things are all great and I support them, but that’s not what makes me left: left is about Unions and social safety nets and community welfare and workers seizing the means of production.
Left is about how you feel regarding hierarchies.
Being against discriminating people based on gender or orientation is being against hierarchies that put women or LGBT at the bottom; being against exploitation or favoring unions is about improving the situation of people who are below in a currently existing hierarchy. If you want absolute gender and LGBT equality but wholeheartedly support the right of Boeing’s shareholders to gain lots of money and not to get taxed too much, you have some leftist ideas and some right-wing ideas. If you want to establish absolute socialism but think gay people especifically shouldn’t kiss in public, you have some leftist ideas and some right-wing ideas, because you’re putting gay people at the bottom of hierarchy.
In the US, worker rights and social participation in the economy often gets left out of “what it is the left” because of the Cold War persecution against anticapitalist ideals and the predominance of the Democratic Party’s old guard at establishing discourse, which creates a skewed vision.
I’m Left because my guiding principle for how countries should be managed is “The greatest good for the greatest number”.
This puts me in a collision course often with “lefties” who are just tribalists mindlessly parroting slogans and cheering for celebrities of “their side”, because they never validate what they hear from “their side” against any such principles, which is how you end up with “lefties” such as tankies or the kind of “feminist” who just happens to be a high middle class woman who thinks “breaking the glass ceiling in corporate management” is far more important than reducing the 40,000% wage difference between CEOs and the average employee, in other words putting “loyalty to the team” far above and beyond doing what’s best for society as a whole or simply trying to further their personal greed objectives using the some “group identity” as cover.
Those not capable of putting personal upside maximization or petty emotional needs (including all those related to tribalism) to the side if that is required for the greater good, are not leftwing, IMHO.
I’m left by default because I don’t support violent coups, and I don’t particularly care what some people choose to do with their genitals. Pretty pathetic when I put it that way, but that’s just how it is…
What did it mean before then?
As I said, things change.
Before then? It stood for general democratic desire and the idea that people should have the power over government rather than the old establishments. And before that… the concept of left and right didn’t exist. Since they came up during the French Revolution when the revolutionary members sat on the left side of the assembly in Versailles, opposite the supporters of the old regime on the right side.
Like… are you talking about ideological drift? In that case, all political forces have moved towards the right since the 80s. Most prominent in the US, where our “left” party is actually center right
I’m really not trying to dunk on you when I say this: you’ve fundamentally misunderstood the left-right political theory. A previously left-wing party can drift to the right and vice versa. A party called the “lefty left socialist communist hippy party” can be made up completely of right-wingers, and that doesn’t change the definition of left and right. I won’t try and explain the definitions of political left and right to you because there are almost definitely better explanations out there than I could give. I just implore you to find an impartial, unbiased explainer.
When was that, 160 years ago?
GHWB was pretty solid IMO. Unfairly got voted out for the whole ‘read my lips’ thing. Check out this speech at the UN Panel on Climate Change. He is coherent, dignified, rational, and reasonable. So you know, unelectable by today’s GOP, but we’ve known that for a while…
I was referring to Lincoln.
…and I’m saying GHWB wasn’t that bad IMO. The last reasonable republican of that generation. Somehow that’s a controversial thing to say though apparently 🙄
Im a left leaning landlord and im not like that at all. Im fixing everything thats needed and improving stuff from time to time but basically staying out of their lives.
Good guy landlord.
I wasn’t saying psycho left is common or that you’re like that, just that they exist. It’s harder to spot them because there seems to be so very many psycho right nuts lately.
“Left leaning landlord” is an oxymoron ;p
Or at least if someone actually held to their principles, they would not remain both for very long .
(The concept of a separate ownership class, which is the defining feature of landlordism, is in direct contradiction with leftism, which at the furthest end pushes for the destruction of these sorts of hierarchical class systems, or at the very least attempts to abolish the gatekeeping and hoarding of base necessities like shelter)
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4 liberals so far are mad at reality
“Fix my AC!”
Particularly ironic that this is being framed as “unreasonable” because landlords themselves directly argue that their upkeep of the house justifies the significant upcharge they take from tenants. Like, even if we argued that landlord as a career is 100% acceptable and valid, that would literally be your job, would be like a professional chef complaining about people saying “make me food!”
Had a cook who literally complained about receiving too many different kinds of orders and the customers were not even in a hurry
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If they can’t handle a low pressure restaurant where the customers aren’t in a hurry, there’s no way they can handle McDonald’s where the customers are actively hostile.
Cog in a machine
As a professional cook it be like that sometimes 😅
I’m sure that is a legit issue and the menu should be planned to reduce that load. In this case the guy was more suited to repetitive jobs in larger scale kitchens which mine isn’t.
I had a rentoid that would call me for the most insane shit all the time. Changing light bulbs, fixing their own personal AC unit and stopping a neibourhood dog from barking.
When they were evicted I held the damage deposit because the hardwood floors and internal doors were damaged to fuck by their dog which they tried to claim as being normal wear and tear.
Sounds rough man. Maybe you should just sell the property, then you wouldn’t have to deal with such things.
Maybe you should buy the property then you won’t have to deal with renting.
I own my house, doesn’t mean I can’t see landlords are leaches that are screwing the housing market.
Anyone who owns a home is a landlord by definition. You’re a lord of alloted land.
It’s silly that you believe that landlords are the problem. The housing crisis is 100% Chinese, Arab and Large buisness investors.
You’re the type that talks about the environmental impact of the people when 80% of pollution comes from a single source.
Anyone who owns a home is a landlord by definition.
I suppose if you completely fail to understand context sure, but why would I bother trying to have a discussion with someone who fails to understand basic context?
The housing crisis is 100% Chinese, Arab and Large buisness investors.
And what are these investors doing? Are they perhaps being landlords and renting out the property?
No. Most of the properties are left empty…
Or just evict them. I rent a portion of my home that I live in.
Aw man, it’s almost like they think they are paying you…
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Not nearly enough. Rents due rentoid.
Yup, people here are generally young and have only had experience being on the tenant side of the equation. Someday they may find out what it is like being on the other side and that tenants can be pigs.
They may be good tenants and assume that most tenants are good tenants. Not realizing how rare that is.
Then you also have the ones who say every landlord is bad, which is clearly them just being a bad tenant.
I put my rent fairly low to help people out but the low income people are generally disasters to rent to.
Bad renters exist, but for every story like yours I have five places I’ve lived in where it took months to fix the A/C in summertime and the landlord just let it fucking go meanwhile holding out their greedy mitts demanding $2000 a month.
2 grand! To live in 90° heat, if I wanted to do that I’d just live on the street.
Fucking landloids.
demanding $2000 a month.
Could be very reasonable or even cheap depending on location.
Does cheap mean they’re allowed to not fulfill their maintenance requirements meanwhile showing up on the dot collection day to take rent?
No. Use your rights. Withhold payment until the service is restored.
Historically people with the title “lord” have had it so hard.
The Gaylords would like a word
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It truly is a wonder why y’all are hated. You’re so… humble.
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🖕😁
You can also tell by her anorexic physique that she’s no landchad. No fridge raiding happening here.
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Or all these people are fucking idiots who are just obsessed with labels and culture wars.
New here?
the alternative is that I don’t rent out part of my house and then there will be less housing
This is only part of it. The “housing shortage” exists not because there aren’t enough homes, but that there are not enough homes on the market. Truthfully, renting out a spare bedroom is not the focus of people’s ire (though through a certain lens it is still a problem, but I won’t go into it here). The problem is that rent seekers are pricing people out of the housing market, which is creating higher demand for rentals, which drives up the market price, ect. It’s a systemic problem, and not necessarily one of individual culpability. Another part of the problem is the commodification of homes: any action taken to address home affordability will necessarily drive down home values (they are the same thing, after all), and many people depend on the value of their home not dropping. It’s a bubble with millions of people at risk of loosing their homes if it pops.
There’s this convenient assumption for landlords that the rental market is full of people who simply want to be renters, or full of people who simply can’t afford to purchase their own home (usually by some moral failing), when the reality is that rent seekers are creating the problem that they claim to be solving. Houses wouldn’t be so expensive if there weren’t so many people buying houses for the purpose of renting out.
All these cucks can blow me.
Of course, there are other reasons why people might be angry with landlords.
Well that’s rather snowflakey… if you aren’t part of the problem why are you identifying with them?
The idea that ALL landlords are exploiting ALL tenants ALL of the time is just so fucking stupid it’s hard to listen to. Goods and services cost money, idk why that is such a hard concept to grasp. I lean left and will probably never vote R for the rest of my life, but it’s hard to listen to people like that who have no understanding of basic economics.
Landlords must exist because people need to rent housing, and it sure sounds like you’re doing it right. Some landlords (and some tenants) are awful human beings who should not be landlords while others are good people.
A bigger problem is happening in areas with housing shortages. Housing prices have been skyrocketing for 10+ years and home owners have been leveraging themselves with their home equity to buy other homes. On a large scale, that eats up a lot of housing supply, increases prices, and makes it more difficult for people without existing real estate equity to buy a house.
In the city where I live, owning a house is essentially not possible for middle-class people unless their parents give them a down payment. Even my girlfriend and I, who combine for more than triple the average household income in the city, are taking years and years to save for a $300k+ down payment that’s needed to bring the mortgage payment down to $6k/mo.
Landlords didn’t create the housing shortage, but I can see why someone who’s struggling to buy a house while watching landlords buy multiple houses can develop a hatred for them.
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I feel this so much. I own a property. I rented it out. I ran into that exact same lineup of expenses vs income you note here and… I ended up taking my house OFF the rental market. It’s just not worth it.
I keep getting into these discussions with people who yell “It’s immoral to buy a house and rent it out. Landlords must provide housing for renters at a loss so I can have cheap housing” and then… “It’s an investment and you as the owner must fund my low cost housing because you might earn equity in the property when you sell it in the future.”
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Even the father of capitalism thought landlords were parasites that only leeched off the economy
My old landlord refused to fix our water heater, the leaking roof causing mould and water damage, the outlets that were falling off, the broken light switches that didn’t work, the ceiling light that was flickering and and literally hanging by the wires. All for $2000/month + utilities. Then he kicked us out because he wanted to sell the place, but now he can’t sell it because no bank will touch it with the amount of water damage it has lmao.
Oh ya, can’t forget the 5 times he’s banged on our door threatening us with his lawyer because he stole $100 from us, we asked for it back, but he refused to answer our calls, so we had to wait 12 fucking months before our lease was up and we started paying month to month for us to subtract the $100 he owed us for 12 months from the payment.
I feel so bad for mine I’ve raised the amount I tip them every month from ~12% to 20%. You should, too - they struggle so hard.
(Lol)
Because I love my landlord so much I only communicate with him through my lawyer to make extra sure every letter is worded really nicely and politely, much more polite than anything I would every write him. Also got him two very nicely worded court orders by know he would’ve missed out on if it wasn’t for me.
You should tip at least 200%. Less is just selfish.
This landlord loving bullshit always starts as a joke until it isn’t.
Buy your own fucking house if you don’t think the owner deserves his rent money.
That’s an option that is actively being removed by massive firms. Empty houses are common, but available houses are few and affordable available houses are very rare.
It’s expensive to be poor
Can’t. Rich assholes and massive firms are buying them at insane prices so they can rent them out at double what a mortgage would cost. And that drives more people to apartments which drives their prices up.
There’s a housing shortage in my area, and 30 percent of houses are empty. But if you jack up the rent enough, you make more money off those that can pay the ransom than you would by lowering the rent to get all units rented. It’s an artificial scarcity created by landlords.
I work in municipal development and literally every single-family project that’s approached the city in the last 18 months is for rental only, because they figured out that mortgages don’t go up and eventually end, so why sell the houses at all?
You’re a troll right? Because I refuse to belive anyone could genuinely be this clueless.
You make use of someone’s services, you pay for it. If you hate landlords, don’t indebt yourself to landlords. I started off with nothing, now I’m a homeowner.
If I’m so fucking clueless, how come I have a mortgage and you don’t?
Thanks for solving the housing crisis. I never realized if I just lifted myself up by my bootstraps I could be a homeowner!
Idk, have you tried having rich parents?
Where did you live before you bought your house?
Is that approach available to 40-something single parents working at McDonald’s?
I lived in a basement suite, followed by a dump of an old house, before I found a slightly less dumpy old house to purchase in a rural area that most city folk would absolutely hate. This was all before the age of 20. Sold my old house about 7 or 8 years later to a younger man who had a very similar starting plan.
Now I have a 5 bedroom house on two acres. It’s not in some heavily populated area, it’s out in the country and it’s affordable.
Anyway, if you’re a single parent over 40 working at McDonald’s, you’ve made far too many bad decisions in life for me to be of any help.
How did you buy the basement suite? Or did you rent it? Almost nobody graduates high school with enough cash to buy a house, so…
far too many bad decisions
Hard disagree. I work as a programmer which pays well enough to be comfortable. The work doesn’t suit everyone, and even if it did, we need people doing other things than programming for the world to work! That includes fast food, retail, etc. The cliche is teenagers and college kids, but in fact over half of people making minimum wage are older.
That includes a lot of single parents – spouse left, now they have to scramble for income even before child support kicks in. They’re not all just jackasses you can dismiss with “bah, they made their bed”.
My problem with your advice to “just buy a house” is that it’s not actionable for at least half the population.
Your know, I guess experiences vary widely, but the landlords I know don’t fit all the hate. For instance, one of my employees decided to rent her house instead of selling it when her family needed a bigger one. They’ve been renting to the same family for a decade or more without ever raising the rent. The family could not afford to buy any house, let alone the one they’re in, so renting allows them to live in a kind of place they couldn’t afford otherwise. My employee has let them skip rent a few times when times were hard.
I know a few similar stories. Maybe it’s different with people who own apartment buildings or whatever, but I just don’t see being a landlord as inherently bad. Like anything else, you can do it ethically or unethically.
Sounds like a problem with the price of housing, which is a not entirely unrelated issue.
Yeah, for sure - I live in southern California, which has about as high a cost of real estate as you’re going to find, but that isn’t caused by landlords. I mean, if you bought a new car and were selling your old one, you’d probably sell it for whatever the market would pay, right? Maybe if you’re really well off you’d just give it to someone, but most of us are going to sell for the going rate. It’s the same with houses. If I can easily get $500k for my house, I’m not going to list it for $400k just to be nice - I could use the money.
Do people feel like it’s inherently more laudable to sell their house than to rent it? It seems like, as long as they’re not gouging, they’re doing more of a service by renting to people who can’t afford to buy, and also covering all the costs of repairs and risk of damage that renters don’t have to worry about.
I just don’t get the hate broadly, though the management company who ran my daughter’s apartment complex were assholes.
I work in a real estate adjacent field, part of the housing issue IS very much because of big companies and people just buying up all the houses to rent them for passive income.
I don’t care if people have 2 or 3 houses but when they own 8 or 9 or hundreds then yea we have an issue.
Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. In every business, it’s possible to be predatory. Big companies are doing some really shitty things, and we should try to figure out how to stop that.
But some people are saying that being a landlord is inherently unethical - the moment someone rents a property, they’re a vile leach. I just think that’s wrong.
My last land lord raised rent by 2.5x after the first year. When we moved out he kept the full security deposit because “the inside of the oven was dirty”
Your mileage may vary
4 beautiful words that worked wonders with my shitty landlord who tried to keep my deposit “normal wear and tear”.
As soon as I stated that, the lady changed her tune completely.
Your landlord is allowed to raise it by that much? I’m Dutch and we have limits on how much rent can increase, which was a maximum of 4.1% in 2023.
I’m a land lord, did exactly what people say we all did. 15 years ago I bought two 200k homes for 30k each… they are an income plan for my kids so they don’t have to necessarily worry about taking a better paying job instead of something they want to do. Probably a little naive now. But I run the houses at a bare minimum profit just so the government won’t come after me due running a loss on my taxes. I have raised rent only enough to do that. I pay for a property management firm to take care of the properties so that the tenants have 24 hour response to issues. I’ve had the same tenants for 12 years in both properties. Every 4 years or so I have one of the rooms that the tenants want renovated. It’s a right off so doesn’t costa fortune ava the house gets slowly updated. Not every landlord is an asshole. Some of us play the long game without screwing people. But I realize that I am part of the problem. I am part of the reason for less supply in the market. But selling my properties will make my children’s lives less secure and I’m not willing to do that. So i do partially deserve some of the blame.
I don’t see you having any blame. Supply and demand for housing includes everything, including rentals. You would be part of the problem if you bought those places and left them empty as vacation spots or something. You didn’t, you’re supplying them to people who I’m guessing wouldn’t be able to buy them themselves. You’re not driving up the cost of housing. I’d argue that, since you’re charging less than you could, you’re actually lowering it.
He literally is driving up the cost of housing. Rental markets are quite seperate to the actual housing market and people who own 3 houses, drive up the cost of buying a house. There is a good chance they can’t afford to rent, yes, but only because of people like him buying housing they dint need to make a profit, they can afford the rent, so they would also He able to afford the mortgage for it if given the chance.
How the heck did you find not one but two 200k houses for 30k? Or are you saying you bought them for 30k and now they’re worth 200k? Either way holy balls I wish I could do either of those lol
Sorry, I didn’t explain that well. The down payment was 30k each. But basically that’s all I’ve had to spend on the houses.
The house pays for itself, that’s the beauty of having to rent out houses. ROI might vary, but long term, you are secured as long as the property is properly maintained and is attractive to renters.
Edit : reading a lot of comments on this thread, it’s obvious that majority have no idea how house and lot transactions go, and how little real life experience they have on it. They are just hopping on the bandwagon on landlord hate.
“Anybody that disagrees with my unethical actions simply lacks life experience” - some landlord apologist chud.
I assumed they meant they were just worth $30k when they bought them. That is a pipe dream that probably won’t happen again in any of our lifetimes.
This shows one of the most common things landlords tell themselves to justify it.
But I run the houses at a bare minimum profit
You tell yourself this, to make you feel better, but you don’t acknowledge that almost all the money your tenants pay you is profit, since they are paying for the mortgage. Even if you rented at 0 immediate profit, for the entire time until you paid off the houses, you would have actually made 1.2million in profit, since you now own 2 houses at 600k each.
And those families, instead of paying a mortgage and ending with hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity, that they could refinance, or use to buy a better house or leave as inheritance for their kids, now have nothing, as all that money has gone to you.
There is no such thing as an ethical landlord. Even the “”“good”“” ones are still exploring people’s basic need for shelter to make them rich.
If you really wanted to be a “good” landlord offer those families the chance to buy the house with the 15 years of down payments they already made to you to start it off. But as you said they’re an “income plan” for your kids I don’t think you would do that.
I mean, I get what you’re saying. And perhaps if my financial situation was better I could consider the option to offer the houses to the tenants. But as you suspect I will not trade my children’s financial security just to be charitable. The rent I charge is 30%-40% below market value. I suspect if you were in my position you wouldn’t be so inclined to give away your wealth either.
I was in your position, when my grandparents died I inherited a house, that people encouraged me to rent out. Instead I sold it and invested the money (specifically into a green energy fund.) As that way I still have my financial security, without being a landlord.
I realize you aren’t going to agree, but these two situations aren’t the same thing.
Why not?
Because to start with, I invested and risked my own money a much less bubbled deal estate market with a significant amount of my available capital. You invested someone else’s money. I took all the risk, and you want me to give away all the profits from that risk. Even your “green” investments take advantage of workers, buy off shore parts, cost people their jobs. Why don’t you donate all your profits to those people. Your entire argument is so steeped in hypocrisy that it’s hard to even know if you’re not just a troll.
Maybe it’s different with people who own apartment buildings or whatever
Yes. My landlord is literally a corporation.
Doesn’t matter either way. My landlord is an asshole who never fixes anything he says he will (even things he’s legally supposed to.) Can’t use the law against him because he’s allowed to raise the rent any time he wants with a few simple changes to our lease.
I’ve never had a good landlord. Most of them are greedy trash.
This is the whole “not all cops are bad a guy I know is a cop and he’s nice” argument just for landlords.
Or you could phrase it about slave owners “my freind owns slaves, but he just owns the one and he treats them really well!”
Landlording is inherently immoral and explotative, not matter hoe “”“ethical”“” the landlord is.
Idk I feel like there’s also something to be said to have the freedom to just buy another house after saving a bit. It sounds so easy, but most families would have to sell their house in order to upsize.
Never moved but my mom was in credit unions and the trade in of the house was pretty common. In all fairness, there were many “multiple apartment complex owners” at that same CU, they were notably colder and exclusively about numbers (i.e. throwing a fit and sending another appraiser to their barely functional building to get a dozen k).
Ours put our rent up 25% so just because I was upset I paid this month’s rent a week late and they were complaining they needed the money to pay their montgage… Bitch please I don’t wanna hear about your financial problems
They need your money to pay their mortgage. Looks like you are paying for their house. I guess it’s one thing if that house is entirely occupied by you, but I’ve had this very same situation where I’m renting their basement yet paying $1300 (which was actually more than their mortgage)
It’s so fucking disgusting and insulting to not only not be able to afford your own home because of all this b.s, but to also be paying for someone else’s home…
Yeh I support LGBT…
Landlords
GOP
Billionaires
The Police
😎
I run a small senior living complex in a rural town. We have the cheapest rent in town. We scrape by, trying to make improvements here and there. They are maintained though. We seriously charge hundreds of dollars less than the next closest complex in the area. We refused to raise our rent in the past 4 years dispite rising taxes and utility bills. Most our tenants are widows/widowers living off a fixed income. We are either too nice or bad business owners because that “fix my AC” One always stings and reaches into my personal budget. And by “personal budget” I mean I eat ramen for a couple weeks.
Anyway, I actually feel like this meme. Other than my tenants are usually happy. Occasionally we get someone who is just never happy no matter what you do. I know all the other complexes are owned by one company essentially creating a monopoly and they have exploited this town. We get calls from people crying because they will be homeless.
It’s the model of housing as a business that is the problem, no matter how benevolent an operator may try to be. The market is designed to eliminate you as competition and reward the exploitative monopolistic company.
More importantly is whether or not you are or would ever act as a firewall against competing (or at this point any) housing development.
Like if a subsidized public housing for seniors opened up next door to your complex offering rates at or below your own: would you support it given this persistent at risk population?
We would support it. We only have 24 units, we field at least 50 calls a day. We would be fine. We have turned down an offer from the company that owns the other complexes. The offer was 3 times what we paid 10 years ago and had a few more zeros on the end of what we still owe. But these tenants have become family. Also from a business owner perspective I would rather have this steady income than the BS of a quick payday then having to reinvest somewhere else and work are butts off to get that sustainable without turning into a scumbag landlord. Landlording is easy if you charge exorbitant prices and pay people to do everything. We do all the work ourselves to keep the cost down. Meanwhile I work another full time job. So does my wife and we have two kids. I don’t have time to get another property to this point of sustainability.
For every one good landlord like you there’s 1mil slumlords that don’t think you even need AC, or think that black mould isnt a health hazard.
Bless you.
Tenants deserve to live in house conditions that the landlords themselves would be willing to live in.
Not all heros wear capes
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I’m a landlord. I’m priced WELL below the market because my tenant is state patrol and is a great guy and a good family. I haven’t raised his rent ever. I will raise it when my HOA goes up next year, but that’s only to help cover my fees. If keep the rent so I can pick the right renters that is compatible with me. I rather have a good renter than a few bucks more a month.
I think the real test is if you give their deposit back. I’ve never gotten my deposit back without a fight, even after cleaning the apartment top-to-bottom. That’s why I always take photos before leaving.
Shit my place was in better condition when I left than the way it was when moved in and they still wouldn’t give the deposit back.
Free market doesn’t work quite so well when it’s a required item like housing or medical.
I cleaned the nasty ass yellow chain-smoker patina from the previous tenant off of my walls that were actually white.
This happened to me once. They sent a guy to check my place out, he said “Looks good, you’ll get your security deposit back.” Then months went by. Well unfortunately for them my BIL is a real estate lawyer and he was happy to draw up a packet of documents I could take to small claims court. I had to serve them about 3 times, each time the cost of serving them got tacked on. They didn’t show so I won by default so now the real work begang, collecting. They FINALLY paid it but I said, “You need to add the cost of serving you to it.” so they drew up a new check. Yup, a pain in the ass.
This is the way!
My previous landlord was like this. Lived there 4 years, rent never went up. We left the place like we found it (which was pristine).
Just bc you are a great landlord doesn’t mean anyone should be able to hold such power over anyone. Not to mention ownership of land is a human concept we can live without.
Not to mention ownership of land is a human concept we can live without.
How would you do it differently?
‘Abolish ownership’ is a pretty simple talking point, how would you make it work in a legal sense?
Who determines what is your responsibility vs the neighbor vs the city? How do you establish legal boundaries for purposes of theft, vandalism, or trespassing?
Laws might seem cold (because they are) or inhumane (because they are) but they are also the thing that keeps society organized. And that makes them one of the most important human inventions. Rights are the result of laws.
If you’re concerned about land prices, or people being ‘priced out’ of things, there are important alternate solutions to that kind of problem. Things like social services, improving education, breaking up super corporations, promoting healthy neighborhood design and small business, etc.
I think one main argument of people that take the ‘abolish ownership’ seriously don’t mean the concept of owning things you need and use, but the concept of claiming ownership of property that you DON’T use and use that as a way of enacting power over others. So I would say it wouldn’t be throwing people out of their homes but that owning property you are not using your self would not be legal. You could grab land or an empty house and it would be yours as long as you need it. Of cause this will not get rid of all the problems and conflict that already exists in some form now, but it doesn’t have to be total chaos and lawlessness.
I don’t have power over my tenants. They have as much power as I do. They can leave and I can also ask him to leave.
They have zero obligation to stay at my place.
I have a space to rent and they need a place to live. It’s a business transaction that both parties benefit from.
So how do you handle it when there are more people than space available? How do you cover the cost of maintenance? What would prevent someone from taking your house without ownership rights?
You’re a bum. How dare you. You take money for nothing. You should let him live there for free. No one should own anything. I hate tipping. Fuck cars. I think that about covers it. :)
You forgot to tell him to use Linux.
Yeah, Fedora.
Gimme gimme gimme!
A company selling something I don’t like should be illegal.
You’ll get your rent when you fix this damn door!
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