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?
No raindrop thinks itself responsible for the flood.
I’ve never heard this phrase before and I love it.
Quit exhaling! We have a climate crisis!
The answer you receive will vary based on which political ideology you ask.
I will answer from the perspective of an anarchist.
Your Aunt and her Husband are not committing the greatest of evils, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re a part of a bigger problem, one that they themselves would not even perceive, and in fact would have strong personal incentives not to grant legitimacy were it explained to them.
Anarchists, or libertarian socialists, are generally against the concept of private property in all forms. This is not to be confused with personal property, which are things you personally own and use, such as the house you live in, your car, your tools.
Private property is something you own to extract profit from simply by the act of owning it, and necessarily at the deprivation and exploitation of someone else.
By owning those townhomes that they themselves do not live in, they are able to exploit the absolute basic human requirement for shelter in an artificially restricted market, and thus acquire surplus value in a deal of unequal leverage.
You could argue they are justified due to offering below market rates, taking on the financial risk of owning and maintaining the property, and fronting the capital to own the investment.
But the issue is: their choice to become landlords is what in fact creates the conditions for which they can then offer solutions in order to claim moral justification.
For if we consider if landlordism were completely abolished, and people were only allowed to own homes they personally use, it would result in an insane amount of housing stock to flood the market, causing housing prices to plummet. This would in turn allow millions of lower income people to be able to afford a home and pay it off quickly, allowing them to actually build wealth for the first time instead of most of it going to pay off rent (remember, your aunt charging below market is the exception, not the norm).
Most humans would much rather pay off a small mortgage on a non-inflated home themselves, instead of paying off someone else’s artifically inflated mortgage and then some.
But that’s all assuming we have a housing market still. In an ideal Anarchist society, housing would be a human right, and every human would have access to basic shelter and necessities of life, like was enacted for a short time in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War.
So anarchists want Basic from the Expanse pretty much?
Basic in the world of the Expanse provided people with a very basic apartment with a bed, table and a TV along with three nutritionally complete (not delicious) meals per day for free.
If you wanted anything more, you had to work or enlist.
Yeah, that sounds about right. I only read the first few chapters of the expanse, but I believe the world is still capitalist overall, yes? if so, that would make it more in line with perhaps the end goal of a social democrat, where there’s a super strong welfare and social safety net, but still capital and big businesses.
The assumption from Anarchists is achieving that Social Democrat ideal is impossible under capitalism, as it would remove almost all of the leverage corporations have to exploit their workers, leaving little profit left for them, and thus inciting them to revolt, like they almost did during The Business Plot in response to FDR’s new deal finally giving the working class some room to breathe.
I think the backstory is so that there aren’t enough jobs for everyone due to automation, so they offer people who don’t want much the option of Basic (income), with the option to get more if they get a job or start a business.
I only watched the TV show so I don’t know the backstory, but if that’s the case it isn’t very true to life. Such strong social safety nets in a capitalist society could only ever be instated as a result of intense pressure from a mass social movement, and even then is unlikely to last. Automation will only increase productivity - which the capitalists will simply absorb in their pursuit of infinite growth - and never make it so that people can work less.
For those unable or unwilling to find employment, there is Basic Assistance, the United Nations’ global welfare program. Over half of the Earth’s populace relies on it for survival. Without jobs, these people have no money, so Basic provides shared accommodations in government housing complexes, meagre food in the form of Gray-tasting textured protein and enriched rice, minimal medical care in government clinics, and even recycled paper clothing, dispensed from automated kiosks with a thumbprint. All of these services are provided free of charge, but those on Basic are subject to mandatory contraception and cannot legally have children, apart from the regular “baby lottery” allowing for a small number of births each year
From the Expanse wiki.
Earth has a population of over 30 Billion with a B when the series starts.
(remember, your aunt charging below market is the exception, not the norm)
Isn’t this definitionally true? The norm, by definition, is the market rate.
Yes, and charging below that would be a deviation from the norm.
It’s all.
Buying a house as an “investment” is what we call “scalping” in other businesses. Not to mention the fact that this type of buying worsens housing prices and increases homelessness for personal gain, even on a small scale.
The only exception I can give is people who rent out part of their own home, as this situation actually creates available housing.
Exactly. Housing is finite and other people live here too.
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Buying a house as an “investment” is what we call “scalping” in other businesses.
Actually, it’s called capitalism. Buying anything and selling it at a profit increases prices. Strange… but true.
Owning property isn’t a job
No, but it requires work and time and money for maintenance, insurance, and taxes.
It’s almost like… it’s… a… job. How strange.
Every house that is owned for an investment contributes to the high price of housing. People shouldn’t own homes if they’re not going to make them a home. It’s unethical in my view to hoard real estate.
This is a genuine question: what’s the difference do you think between investments in general and real estate investments? I mean, technically investing of any kind is hoarding. It may not have such direct impact on basic needs, but it surely does overall.
When landlords “invest” in the housing market, they are not making the system of providing housing for people better or more efficient. They are buying up a limited supply of properties that exist in desirable areas and then charging people for the right to use them plus a nice profit for themselves. This reduces the supply for a necessary good and drives up prices, making it profitable for landlords, and a massive, efficiency draining, example of rent-seeking for the system as a whole since the landlord’s basically don’t work and instead take a cut of what everyone else makes doing useful work.
If you invest in some predatory companies you might be investing in companies that do that, or might do some other predatory practice, but you can also just be putting money into a business so that it has more money to grow its operations, or invest in some new efficiency that makes them run better, and that then both returns a profit back to both of you and helps improve the system as a whole.
Think about it this way, when you retire, you are going to need money to sustain you for a long time after you stop being able to work, so while you’re working, you need to save that money up. That money can just sit in your bank account doing nothing for anyone, or you can invest it in a business that lets them use those resources now and lets you get your retirement money back 30 years from now when you need it (though in reality that’s spread across hundreds of companies to reduce risk). That’s how investment can be a net benefit to society and make for a better use of resources, characteristics not present with landlords and housing investments.
Note that I am playing devil’s advocate here in order to tease out some of the nuances in people’s thinking because I believe it’s important for us all to understand the details and I’m not convinced many have thought it through. Hence the knee-jerk reaction to downvote
They are buying up a limited supply of properties that exist in desirable areas and then charging people for the right to use them plus a nice profit for themselves. This reduces the supply for a necessary good and drives up prices…
This describes any financial transaction in a capitalist system.
but you can also just be putting money into a business so that it has more money to grow its operations
And how is this different from buying a product like a house and renting it out? Would any such distinction apply to, say, renting out a car or renting out your services? And “renting” a product isn’t really different from services or a cycle of buying low and selling high for anything other than the terms of the contract.
or you can invest it in a business that lets them use those resources now and lets you get your retirement money back 30 years from now when you need it
So like investing in real estate. For years that was considered kind of the gold standard of “safe” investments and generally providing a net annual return of about 5%.
That’s how investment can be a net benefit to society
I’m not convinced any investment can be a “net benefit” to society in a capitalist system. But proponents of renting out property argue it provides a “net benefit” by providing a needed service (housing) to those that aren’t themselves in a position to buy. It is inherently usurious, just like everything capitalist.
So for me, bottom-line, the only valid argument to support making a distinction between real estate “investment” and other kinds of “investment” is to say that housing is a basic human right. And if you are going to go there, why not make other things human rights like happiness, a life free from financial stress, a life of fulfillment. From my perspective that leads to the inescapable conclusion that capitalism is inherently inhumane and thus any kind of investing is immoral.
This describes any financial transaction in a capitalist system.
No it does not. If I pay you to build a water desalinating machine then suddenly we’ll have an abundance of fresh water. We’ve increased the available supply of drinking water overall.
Similarly building more housing is not as morally bankrupt as buying up existing housing and renting it back out at a profit. If you actually build more housing, you are providing a service; if you only get paid for the hours you work, you only make a reasonable amount of money, and you do a good job, you might actually be net benefit to society as a whole, as you are increasing the available supply of housing for people.
On the other hand when you live in a city where there is a limited supply of housing and you buy that up and rent it back to people at a profit so that you don’t have to work, you are simply draining the system of resources.
There is a reason that economists literally use the term ‘rent-seeking’ to describe behaviour that is personally profitable while draining the efficiency of the system as a whole, and not all types of businesses (and thus investment in them) are considered to be rent-seeking.
Oh yes it does.
We’ve increased the available supply of drinking water overall.
And then you charge up the wazoo for a basic human right.
On the other hand when you live in a city where there is a limited supply of housing and you buy that up and rent it back to people at a profit so that you don’t have to work, you are simply draining the system of resources.
Ah. It would appear you believe that somehow buying a property and renting it out does not require financial risk and effort like any other product or service. Renting out housing, despite frequent appearances, requires maintenance and expenses in order to reap a profit. What you are describing would more accurately describe investments in stocks or bonds which do not require anything but capital on your part.
" economists literally use the term ‘rent-seeking’ to describe behaviour"
Except those same economists argue that renting out housing is productive. And that’s not in fact the origin of the term. The classic example, according to the wikipedia is charging money for boats to pass a section of river. The term does not refer to housing, which requires a reciprocal exchange - you build or buy the house and maintain it and in exchange you are paid for it’s use.
To repeat because I have to: I’m not arguing this is good. I’m arguing that a distinction between types of capital investment cannot be made. You can say landlords are universally bad but other types of capitalists are good, universally or otherwise. It’s the same damned thing.
Edit: I sometimes wonder if people think houses are like rivers because they haven’t owned one. They are a huge pain in the ass and require a lot of expense and effort.
No, not all investment is the same. look up the difference between rent and profit.
Ok, so do you have a 401k? Any kind of retirement savings? A bank account that earns interest?
If so, how is that different, or at least acceptable for you than any investment?
You might think I’m trying to be sneaky here or trap you in some way. I’m genuinely not - just trying to understand your perspective and thinking about how folks such as yourself might choose to function given our inability to effect wholesale change in our capitalist system.
Edit: For you downvoting sheep out there, see my comment above for context on why I ask these questions.
I don’t think a bunch of people pitching in to fund a company is in and of itself a bad thing, but there are several considerations that are extensions of that that stray into unethical territory. foremost is the matter of fiduciary responsibility. When a company is publicly traded they have a legal responsibility to put money in the investor’s pockets, and that shapes the behavior of that company in ways that can be very harmful. Intent shapes action, and the imperative to provide profits to investors changes whatever intention that company may have had when it was founded. It means if the company has a choice between fulfilling that imperative or doing something to reduce harm to the world around them they will always make the decision that fulfills the intention. Where if your intention is just to be the best at something, or to provide a service, you would make a different set of decisions. The biggest example that’s particularly central in public consciousness right now is the health industry. Health insurance companies have the ability to ensure that their customers are well taken care of and that healthcare is accessible, but providing healthcare isn’t the point. Providing profit to their shareholders is the point, so in every situation where the profit, and the doing the right thing, conflict they will always choose the former because that’s the whole reason they’re doing it in the first place. Even if the CEO wanted to lead the company in a more ethical direction they couldn’t do so without courting legal action, if the investors believe their decisions aren’t maximizing profits. Multiply this by time and companies gradually become worse, even if they started out great. Enshitification isn’t just for the internet. Often this leads to unethical ends, as in the health insurance example where it causes thousands of deaths each year. A lot of it depends on whether the demand for something is fixed or elastic. Say you wanted to purchase a lot of something as an investment, if that thing is FunCo Pop figurines and you’re hoarding them banking that they’ll increase in value due to scarcity could be sold later at a markup. People can take or leave FunCo Pops, They can choose not to spend their money on your marked up collectibles. Hoarding them would be a dick move, but not necessarily unethical. If the thing you’re buying up is water the landscape changes. People need water, every single person needs water. That demand is not elastic, people have to have it or they literally die. If you hoarded that resource so that you could sell it at a higher price, and that prices some people out of being able to access water, it’s more than unethical. It’s straight up wicked. Your intention isn’t to provide water. It’s to maximise your profits, and thus your decisions will always be guided by those priorities. It’s nuanced. But not very difficult to understand. The world could change for the better, but the profit margins are too slim to make it a worthwhile goal for a savvy capitalist.
So tl;dr investment can be for good or can be for ill. I’d argue any investment ends up prioritizing profit over any ethical concerns no matter what they say. As you say, in essence: Profit motive does that. Venture capital demands it.
A society is only good as it’s incentives. Because there will always be a segment of the population that will only act when incentivized. How they act is determined by what is incentivized and what is not. We’re a society with a long list of really bad incentives. I agree with you that investment always prioritizes profit over ethical concern because we live under capitalism and that is what is expected and incentivized. The sad thing about capitalists is that they often argue against social programs because they think that people will always game the system, and it’s true. But there is a name for those people, and that name is capitalist. When they say things like “capitalism is just human nature” and that it’s natural to compete and try to gain the upper hand in all situations, they tell on themselves. It’s not human nature, it’s their nature, and they project themselves onto everyone else. I don’t think that capitalists will ever truly go away, that’s why we can’t seem to have nice things. Any society we create will have some capitalists in it. Some people are just competitive. And capitalism is a way of keeping score. It’s not true of all people, but it’s true of some. Enough to cause trouble. Any advanced society we may one day have will need a sort of pressure valve for capitalists that will allow them to feel like they’re gaining the upper hand over their fellow man. Without a way to indulge those impulses they will always undermine any collectivist society they find themselves in. They’re just something that needs to be managed. Investment can be innocuous, or it can be evil, it is almost never good. In the rare case that good does come from investment it is short lived because capitalism is corrosive. The intent to win at capitalism will always determine the decisions capitalists make, so over time everything good they create will ultimately turn to shit.
… there will always be a segment of the population that will only act when incentivized
I’d argue that this is true of all the population but with the stipulation that “incentives” do not need to be monetary. I completely agree that capitalism is not human nature and feel that we’ve essentially brain-washed people to believe that money and material possessions are the reward when in fact it’s all the other things in life that actually matter. I believe that this thinking, which had lots of good reasons for existing during times of scarcity and paucity of resources, can be undone eventually. I think in a post-scarcity world (I’d argue we’re there) where it is normal for people to live fulfilled lives in significant comfort free from financial and work stress those few people who can’t shake the need to competitively accumulate will be rare indeed.
Until then we have a huge problem: we have too much highly efficient prosperity for capitalist models to make any sense at all.
Yes, I’m thinking of fully automated luxury communism.
And thank you for your thoughtful comment. I enjoyed reading and thinking about your perspective.
Yes. You shouldn’t be allowed to have a second house to rent out. The problem is limited supply in a given area, and if everyone buys a second, third, fourth house (or townhouse) then there is no supply left for people that want to actually buy to live in that house. Frankly I think it’s unethical. There are plenty of other ways to invest your money.
I also don’t think this position is limited to leftists, although yes the leftists here have a very dramatic take. I think anyone that thinks about this should see the problem.
Who is allowed to rent to the people who don’t want to buy?
Should the city own property just for that and run it as a non-profit?
Yes. The ability to have a place to live should be a basic human right and therefore be affordable.
If that means the government* subsidises it for the low income families (as in owns them and rents them at below market value), so be it.
We used to have “council houses” in the UK for exactly this purpose, but in the 70s, Thatcher came up with a “right to buy” (at a decent discount) and then made two mistakes - there were no restrictions after buying to stop you selling to anyone else, and there was no building of replacement stock after they were sold. So the result 50 years later is that there are nowhere near enough council houses any more, and a lot of the old ones are privately owned and being rented out at market rates, which are (depending on the area) very expensive.
*local or national, I don’t really care which
Yes, that’s ideal. In Germany (where there is a culture much more oriented towards renting than owning) there are a lot of state run landlords and they are great to rent from, reasonable rents, reasonable to deal with (in the local context), etc. And of course they have good laws to protect tenants to back it up. Not necessarily a perfect system but definitely one the rest of the world can learn from. Unfortunately things are still heading in the wrong direction there too right now.
That’s not true in any big city. While the laws keep the landlord madness limited, real estate and rent prices are out of control because of speculation, and there are tons of horror stories to go around - and by experience, I would say they are even more common with individual landlords than with large companies, at least large companies don’t usually do anything obviously illegal and have less venues to make their tenants homeless.
Yes, I’m talking about the state owned companies versus both private companies and individual landlords, rents with the state owned ones are like 20% or more lower than the others and they are usually more responsive to fixing problems, don’t play too many games
But I totally agree rents are way out of control the last few years
For houses? Essentially no one, houses should not be for rent. Apartments in my mind are fine to rent because you can build a fuckton of apartments on a small amount of land. But there can still be a problem if there aren’t enough apartments available to buy.
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.
People who don’t want to buy a home at that location would still need a place to live. Someone needs to rent it to them. Until someone comes along to create government housing or whatever, this is the best we can offer as an individual.
On the topic of transferring equity, how much is reasonable equity? Why not rent at cost instead of charging more and giving it back in a different form?
People who don’t want to buy a home at that location would still need a place to live. Someone needs to rent it to them.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. No one needs to rent anything to anyone, if resources are distributed fairly.
On the topic of transferring equity, how much is reasonable equity? Why not rent at cost instead of charging more and giving it back in a different form?
If a renter pays the same amount of money as the landlord pays towards their mortgage, and the renter has paid rent for as long as the landlord has paid the mortgage, the renter should have as much equity in the property as the landlord does.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. No one needs to rent anything to anyone, if resources are distributed fairly.
But resources aren’t being distributed fairly.
If a renter pays the same amount of money as the landlord pays towards their mortgage, and the renter has paid rent for as long as the landlord has paid the mortgage, the renter should have as much equity in the property as the landlord does.
That’s a rather arbitrary rule. You would still need a bunch of stipulations on top of that to make sure it’s fair to the renter.
Assuming you do have all the right rules in place, what makes this setup more desirable than simply renting at cost?
Just so we’re on the same page, we’re still talking about OP’s question, right? My definition of parasitic requires being a net negative to the “host”. The threshold between parasitic and non-parasitic is at net neutral for both parties, and we’re discussing where that line is.
But resources aren’t being distributed fairly.
Right, because the system is broken.
That’s a rather arbitrary rule.
It’s basically co-ownership, which is already an established way to buy and own a property.
Assuming you do have all the right rules in place, what makes this setup more desirable than simply renting at cost?
At the end of your lease, if you choose not to renew, you still have equity in a property which is worth something, rather than ending up with nothing in the current system.
Just so we’re on the same page, we’re still talking about OP’s question, right?
The relationship between a landlord (parasite) and a renter (host) is absolutely a net negative for the renter*, because at the termination of the relationship, the landlord ends up with much more than they started with (equity in a property + profit from rent) and the renter ends up with less than they started with (lost money in rent payments).
Right, because the system is broken.
Exactly. So what’s not to understand? A broken system means problems exist, and you can do things to compensate for those problems. Things that provide value to others. Now, we can go into what it means to “need” something and whether we ever actually “need” anything, but that’s a whole other discussion and not the one we’re here to have. In this context, “someone needs to do X” means that doing X provides value to someone else.
It’s basically co-ownership, which is already an established way to buy and own a property.
Co-ownership refers to the ownership structure, doesn’t it? I’m talking about the threshold you proposed for the landlord-tenant relationship to not be parasitic.
the landlord ends up with more than they started with (equity in a property + profit from rent) and the renter ends up with less than they started with (lost money in rent payments).
And I’m saying it doesn’t have to be that way. Do we at least agree that if the landlords sets the rent at $1/month, then the transaction will be to the benefit of the tenant? And if you set it to market rates, then it benefits the landlord. There exists some middle ground between $1/month and market rates where it’s a net neutral.
Do we at least agree that if the landlords sets the rent at $1/month, then the transaction will be to the benefit of the tenant?
No. A tenant never gains anything once the terms of the lease expire. The property owner is the only one that gains, as long as the price of rent is a positive number.
once the terms of the lease expire
I feel like this is the main point of contention. No, you’re left with no new physical assets after spending that $1. But why is that a problem? Not everything is about physical possessions. If you purchase a meal and eat it, you’re left with nothing at the end of the meal. If you pay someone to move an old couch out of your home, then you’re left with nothing after they’re done. If you pay a taxi to drive you home, you’ve again gained nothing physical at the end of the transaction. But in all these cases, you’ve gained something, or else you wouldn’t spend your money there.
When you pay a landlord for shelter, you’ve exchanged some sum of money so that you’re protected from the elements and live to see the next day. Similar to buying a meal and eating it.
It’s not nice to call people leeches, esp. if you really don’t know anything about them.
You are incorrect. The service is providing someone a home if they don’t want to own their own or if they don’t have the financial means to do so
No landlords hoard property. The property is used by people.
No landlords hoard property.
Fine, landlords hoard property ownership.
The property is used by people.
As long as the landlord permits it, and as long as the landlord gets their premium.
Landlords profit off of permitting people access to shelter, a basic right that any human should be entitled to. It’s literally modern day feudalism.
Renters hoard property rentership.
No, landlords earn money by providing a service. Properties don’t maintain themselves.
Taking away the opportunity of home ownership is not a service.
That’s not what rental property owners do. They provide housing, not take it away.
Builders provide housing. Landlords are nothing more than a middle man.
Builders build housing. Then they sell it. Rental property owners provide housing.
What is a person who made good (or lucky) decisions and made enough money to be comfortable in the present but not so much to retire supposed to do with their money?
Give it to you instead?
Sure, billionaires and X00 millionaires don’t need to exist, but so far as I can tell “leftists” are a .ml / tankie crab bucket. Fuck me for having more money than you but not enough to take the homeless off the street as is my obligation. Please tell me how to keep leftist virtue so I can have ~30 upvotes to retire on.
I don’t understand. You think the only two things one can do with excess money is buy real estate, or give that excess to me? I’m flattered to be sure, but there’s a whole lot of other options out there
She should kick out her tenants and then rotate living between all 3 properties, thereby no longer being a leech.
i don’t know how anyone could survive without at least three properties. it’s a life necessity
I agree, there are lots of options. I’m asking you for the leftist allowable top list.
If I put it in the stock market and make money for nothing, I’m a parasite. If I buy a vacation house and rent it the other 2/3 of a year I’m not using it, I’m a parasite. If I save it and suddenly accrue more than some magic limit, then someone is on the street and I don’t liquidate to them I’m a Taylor Swift parasite.
So I’m asking you: What am I allowed to do with extra money above and beyond what I need to survive the winter, pay for my healthcare, and house myself and my family? 🤔
I’ll let you know after the next leftist meeting lmao.
Real talk though, save it, donate it, or spend it. Burn it for all I care. Just don’t buy real estate you don’t plan on living in.
Do you agree with my spending assessments? I don’t think it’s quite so cut and dry as you’re laying out
I appreciate that there is not an annual meeting of all leftists, and I honestly consider myself a lefty except for this weird fetishisation of how money can be spent by middle class people. It’s nonsense.
I think your spending assessments are exaggerated for effect, but ultimately sort of the embodiment of “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism”, a leftist slogan that, while maybe oversimplified, I mostly agree with.
I’m not fetishizing anything though. I’m just saying it’s unethical to profit off of your ability to deny access to a basic human need.
I wasn’t exaggerating anything except the bank account limit.
There are plenty of locations where owning an extra residence is not denying a basic human need, and more to the point there is a level of “wealth” that is basically the whole run of 6 figures to 7 figures where you probably can’t retire, you can cover college for kids, and you’re on board with most leftist concepts. On that train yeah it does sometimes make sense to buy property. I hope one day to afford something like that. But I refuse to see a place that is mostly safe to park money while the next president lights stuff in fire to put me on the same level as rental companies buying every property on the market.
We arent a homogenous group, but ill tell you my personal opinion.
I trust you when you say your aunt is not bad, but what she is doing is bad (and i am sure she is unaware of it). Those 3 to 5 houses she bought are 3 to 5 houses that families cant buy. A few bad side effects:
- It lowers the housing stock in the area, so artifucial scarcity brings the prices up artificially.
- It seperates families from their communities. When your children grow up and have famailies ofbtheir own, they cant afford to stay in the community and are forced to leave
- The families that do stay and are forced to rent arent building any equity for their children. In effect, it stunts upward mobility.
There are people who do want to rent, and people whoneed to rent, but that should happen in priperly dense apartment building designed specifically for that. When houses meant for families are snatched up to profit off of, it is parasitic.
I get it, they are just trying to survive. They are playing the game that exists. Thats why i personally dont belive that most landlords like you are describing are bad people. I think the ultinate issue is that out elected officials do nothing about it. It should be illegal, or have tax implications that discourage the practice.
There are people who do want to rent, and people whoneed to rent, but that should happen in priperly dense apartment building designed specifically for that.
Who are you to say what people should or shouldn’t rent. Should all renters be piled on top of each other in over packed buildings with 600 square feet to themselves? Why can’t I rent a 2000 square foot town home for my family so that they are safe while I save up to buy my own home?
And say I rent a townhome for 10 years, then buy my own townhome, then 10 years later I rent it out to someone else while I buy something bigger? What’s wrong with that.
I think what we all have a problem with is housing affordability and a lack of systematic focus by the government on eliminating poverty.
The issue isn’t some small time landlord with 5 condos, it’s the investment groups with 5000 condos which artificially juice the rents year after year.
It’s insulting to say that all of the poor people who cannot afford to buy a home should have to live in densely packed buildings.
I dont think the apartments should be small, ive lived in apartments for most of my life. Msxing out square footage is also a shitty developer tactic, but thats another story
I would argue that nobody should own a home they don’t actually live in. All renting out does is increase the housing cost overall because nobody would ever operate at a loss or to break even. This is the issue people have with say, Blackrock who buys hundreds of homes at a time and rents them out.
Your family aren’t bad people but the business they decided to take up is inherently bad by design. If the law changed tomorrow saying all multi homes must sell to non homeowners, everyone would watch prices drop and be able to afford it.
Using homes as an investment is at its basics, exploiting a need by interpreting it as a want or practical goods. Homes are for living in. The housing industry views homes like commodities as if people have a wide choice and selection when it’s really “Omg we can afford this one that popped up randomly, we have 12 hours to decide if we want to pay 50k more to beat others away” and then lose anyway after bidding to Blackrock who pays 100k over asking.
Homeowners also treat their home as an investment. Which also makes housing more expensive and inaccessible. Moving away from renting is not the solution, we need a more comprehensive change in the system.
The context here is quite different; in other words, you got an apples vs oranges issue here. A single home owner does not expect to profit from that investment; the increase in value is more of an insurance than anything (mortgages are taken out to cover emergencies, or the increase in value provides the means to move to a new home, etc). So, again, the context is extremely different.
Besides, if the expected inflation in value were the issue, shouldn’t I expect increased wages to make up the difference? I.e. no, that would not contribute to making the housing market too expensive for the average person to find accessible.
A single home owner does not expect to profit from that investment
What are you talking about? People definitely buy homes as an investment so that they can sell it and retire.
increase in value provides the means to move to a new home
What is this, if not profiting off an investment?
What are you talking about? People definitely buy homes as an investment so that they can sell it and retire.
That’s insurance. The “profit” goal is not to rent seek or enrich themselves. And in this market it’s a risky gamble, anyways.
If the so called profit is intended to be entirely consumed to take care of moving or retiring, it’s insurance to allow you to move or retire; it’s not profit you add to your income. It’s not even properly described as “profit” since it’s, by definition, unrealized gains.
These are not circumstances where you “cash out” and buy something fancy, or even pay your day to day bills. Context matters.
Landlordism is parasitic. The point of Leftism isn’t to attack individuals, but structures, and replace them with better ones. Trying to morally justify singular landlords ignores the key of the Leftist critique and simplifies it to sloganeering.
Thank you! Nicely put. The problem isn’t people like your aunt, its massive shareholder-controlled investemet machines that own thousands or even millions of homes. Your aunt probably knows eafh renter by name - there can exist a personal relationship. There’s two things limiting your aunt becoming a money-hungry antisocial ghoul:
- raising the rent is a relatively large amount of work for relatively small of a reward. If she raises rent she has to write these 4-5 renters a letter explaining why she has to increase it. Those renters might disagree, have objections, ask for reasons and proofs (like the central heating bill or maintanance costs etc). If she raises the rent by lets say 2% it’s 2% of not that much money (with her single digit number if houses).
- she is raising the rent on people she knows. She is taking money away from people she even may like - have a personal relationship with.
So increasing rent is a lot of hassle and her renters might like her less after that - which might be a factor.
Now lets think of the hugr real estate company. They have thousands of renters and maybe hundreds of employees. They have lawyers employed. If they raise rent by 2% they have to send thousands of letters. But these letters are sent by people whose job it is to do so. Tyey can calculate in advance that from their renters X% will just accept the nrew rent, Y% will require some manouvering, Z% might move out and so on. They can estimate the cost of raising rent pretty well based on experience and compare to the profits they make. And with thousands of apartmants 2% is a lot of profit. The employees have no relationship to the thousands of renters. Renters are just numbers anyway. Everything is much more efficient. Also: Shareholders. They demand profits and dont’t care how. They care even less aboht the renters. They demand more profit and will just say “make it happen”. If thr ceo doesn’t raise profits - with whatever means necessary - the shareholders will replace the ceo.
The soltion IMHO would be some progressive tax That makes it basically unprofitable to have more than 10 apartments. And to prevent legal entities owning other legal entities owning apartments in order to circumvent this. If there exists (and can reasonable exist) a personal relationship between landlord and renter everything is alright in my opinion. People usually are not animals to eaxh other if they know eaxh other personal.
Landlords being parasites isn’t even a leftist sentiment, it’s common sense. Here’s Adam Smith:
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”
They are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind"
it is not possible to have a property as an investment, without screwing someone else over. So yeah, her too.
The landlord charges enough in monthly rent to cover mortgage, house maintenance, and provide profit. So the argument about it being a service to tenants is BS as the tenant could afford this on their own.
Landlords rely on the credit system for denial and cost of entry into property ownership to exploit tenants.
I your Aunt and Uncle are probably lovely people. They’re trying to survive in the same system we’re all stuck in.
Ask yourself this, who is paying the mortgage on those properties? If the renters can afford the rent, they can afford the mortgage and then some. Your aunt and uncle, and all landlords, are collecting a premium on housing, what do they actually provide? If they’re trying to save for retirement, by renting homes, who’s actually paying for their retirement? Will those people be about to afford to retire if they’re spending so much on rent? They’ll end up with nothing when they leave. Your aunt and uncle will still have 3 to 5 extra properties.
They own suburban townhomes, in some cases you find a renter who’d rather not own a home. In most cases, the market has progressed to a point where home ownership is impossible because people are hoarding homes and withholding access for rent.
It’s an unethical system. Your aunt and uncle are small line landlords and a symptom of a larger problem. They’re participating in an unethical system to gain an advantage, and it’s hard to blame them for that. That doesn’t make it ethical, or good.
Jefferson said he “participated in a broken system that he hated.” In reference to slavery. He actively tried to reform that system and was rebuffed. He’s still seen as a slave holding landed gentry today, and it remains a black spot on his (admittedly spotty) legacy. How are the people who owned 3 to 5 slaves different from those who owned 50? How are they compared to those who could afford and benefit to own slaves, and still advocated for abolition?
Owning your place to live should be a right. Anyone who holds more housing stock than they personally need and who will only let it out if there’s profit on their investment (because if it’s an investment, then there is an expectation that the line must always go up, which is also very inflationary), tightens the market and makes it harder for other people to become a home owner.
The big difference between renting and paying of a mortgage, is that by paying off the mortgage, the home owner has build up equity and secured a financially more secure future. But if someone is too poor to get a mortgage to afford the inflated house prices (inflated because other people treat it like an investment), then in the current system they pay rent to pay off the mortgage/debt of their landlord and after the renter has paid off their landlord’s mortgage, they’ll still be poor and without any equity themselves.
It’s a very antisocial system. And with landlords building up more and more equity on the backs of people who are unable to build up equity themselves, there’s a good reason why landlords are often said to be parasitic.
As a guy who rented out one house for a very fair price i can tell you I’m the devil.
Lol
