- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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I recently learned that my dad used to be a landlord. Problem was, he has a sense of morals, ethics, and empathy. Tennants would be unable to pay rent for one reason or another, but he wouldn’t evict them because he understood that sometimes shits hard. Eventually, he had to sell all his properties to a less scrupulous landlord.
I feel conflicted with the knowledge that I could have had a better childhood if my dad was a worse person.
He could have been the type of parent to charge their children rent once they turn 16.
My landlord is the only homeowner that I can safely look down upon and tell to “get a job”.
Remember to tip your landlord (down a staircase)
Y’all need Georgism.
I’m more into Gregism.
LMFAO this is so real lol, landlords have their own circlejerk claiming that market prices increased lmfao
(also if someone could help me out, when I upvote a post on Lemmy, it doesn’t show my upvote or downvote or anything even after trying and reloading several times. I’m writing that on this post because it’s happening on this one as well)
Every time I see these posts: The happiest countries in the world are consistently: The Nordic countries are often considered happy due to high levels of social trust, strong welfare systems, and low income inequality, which contribute to a sense of security and well-being among their citizens. Additionally, their effective governance and access to quality public services play a significant role in enhancing overall life satisfaction. These governments are working for the people, not oligarchs.
Hella expensive property though. For my Baltic ass anyway
International investment firms and boomers have been hoarding apartments. Some smaller cities and their ourskirts can be surprisingly cheap.
As usual, people who have lived in major cities their entire lives will say “that’s not good enough” for them.
Not all my life, nor even that major a city (just under 100k population), but that’s where the jobs are. If I were to move to Sweden it would probably be Göteborg to work at Volvo, or Stockholm to work at some tech company. As a foreigner I don’t know the language or the tech job scene enough to pull off some small town.
I was actually born in a much smaller town, bored as hell as a teenager, my peers’ (obviously not everyone, but a lot of kids) daytime activities included booze, drugs and crime. Pretty much everyone escaped after high school, many after middle school. That’s not the kind of environment I prefer living in. The ~100k population range is decent, there’s places to go, things to do, it’s walkable (since we’re in Europe, not US), but if you want to drive out of the city, it’s 10 minutes to the city limit and then you’re gone.
Now if there’s a decent tech scene in like Jönkoping or Lund or somewhere, I’d be delighted to hear about that. But for the most part, those aren’t places you hear about, nor do they pop out much in job search sites. I’m not picky either, I don’t need to work at some big megacorp, a promising startup with an interesting product would be better even.
I’m not looking to move in the next few years anyway, but Sweden is a country I’m interested in, as is Norway.
My mother was deserted by our father in the 60s. She had 4 children. She found a rental house. Our landlords became like family. She struggled, but always paid the rent, and our house was always well looked after. As an adult, I suspect the couple that owned the property never raised the rent. I don’t know that for sure as I didn’t have the opportunity to ask my Mom before she died. I will say that all 4 children were educated and are leading productive lives. Thank you to the kindness and humanity of that couple that were our landlords ❤️. You made such a difference in my Mother’s, and her 4 children’s lives.
Is landlord a “job” where you live?
I think every single person I know who owns a house/flat and rents to someone has of course a regular job where he works at. Wouldn’t be financially viable in any form otherwise (and it shouldn’t be).
Depends a lot honestly - in my experience, there’s two types of landlords.
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The person that inherited/bought an apartment, but doesn’t want/can’t live in it right now (because it’s really remote, for example). They often buy these as “retirement homes”, so something they can live in when they no longer work. While they don’t live in it, they rent it to other people. The reason for that often is because their job requires physical presence and renting an apartment near their job is just cheaper if you factor in rent from the bought property.
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Large corporations that buy up houses left and right, make a few minor changes that classify as “modernizations” and then jacking up the rent by 33%. Those can go fuck themselves.
This omnious “landlord” that owns like 10 properties and only lives off of the rent is rare. I know a single person that does that, he inherited a company from his dad, sold it like 30 minutes after he became owner, built 3 houses with 4 apartments each and is now chillin. And I don’t even feel like that’s a “bad” thing, because he has literally built those houses - they would not even exist without him.
You just don’t know those people. Also they don’t all brag about it. I just learned my BIL ownes 5 rentals now and is looking at more. He also has a good day job, but he wants to transition into pandlordong full time. I know many many people like this in So cal as a construction worker.
Where I live the majority of apartment rentals are owned by large corporations whose sole job is property management, including “renovicting” low income people and letting older buildings go to waste while hiking rent prices. These people are scumbags.
Previously I lived in one building that was actually just owned by one person who had purchased several buildings, and while he hadn’t built the apartments, at least he was also the sole caretaker so he was putting in the work.
That is also my experience and I can see from your username that you’re from a german speaking country as well.
I am wondering if this is somehow very different in, for example, the US.
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There are some people who own a bunch of properties and their job is maintaining them and dealing with the paperwork. And then there are some people who passively collect income and have a management company do that with no real connection to the place…
They are basically investors in the housing market when their money makes its own money without their direct involvement.
One landlord: “How will I pay my bills?”
Their multitude of tenants and their families: “How will WE pay our bills?!”
Landlord: “(dead serious) That’s not my problem!”
Always remember that “the market” is just a signal to the landlord that they could get more if the property were on the market today. It’s still their choice to squeeze you to take advantage of that. “It’s the market” is code for “because I can”.
Also they know that people don’t want to move every year or two, so they can absolutely raise the rent above market level without you wanting to leave yet. This has the effect of pushing the market higher. The switching cost is very high, so it’s in their favour that way too.
A landlord I knew about through a friend said they never raised the rent as long as their property is being paid off, because they would rather have it occupied and being paid than the tenants leave and the place sit empty.
Not to say that’s a good landlord by any means, but there is a choice. The market isn’t a mandate.
they would rather have it occupied and being paid than the tenants leave and the place sit empty.|
Small-time landlords (maybe what’s going on here) are also more sensitive to disruptions in cash-flow. That is, a tenant that can’t pay rent or is just tearing up the place. So it’s more desirable to retain a tenant that can keep paying, even if they’re not worth top-dollar to you.
I also just threw up in my mouth a bit while typing that out.
Once you get up to corporate scale however, I’m guessing that you just have a certain percentage of bad tenants no matter what you do. So part of your overhead is processing evictions and refurbishing units for new renters. As a result, it is less risky to squeeze everyone a little harder.
Peter Parker: “you’ll get your rent when you fix the damn DOOR!”
I know some landlords that acknowledge it is their problem, tenants dying or failing to pay means more paperwork and needing to find a new tenant, but they don’t really offer good solutions.
“How will I pay my bills”
(Democratic) Socialism, UBI, and fair wages.
it’s insane how deep propaganda has drilled into the heads of people where you have to specify the socialism is democratic
There are many kinds of socialism, democratic socialism being one of them
To be fair, there are a lot of tankies advocating for the non-democratic type.
They don’t think they are. They defend the democratic veneer of Soviet-style systems and the funny thing is they’re more right about that than it is to call your Stalin types absolute dictators.
New to lemmy?
I mean, you can go one further and establish public utilities that ration resources per capita instead of charging a vig on top of the production cost.
Why do I need UBI and wages if I can just claim a vacant apartment and be guaranteed power/telecom, of which their are millions nationally?
We could divert the tens of billions (converted to energy/man hours) we’re throwing away on AI subsidies and everyone can live a comfortable middle class life free of charge.
Why do I need UBI and wages if I can just claim a vacant apartment and be guaranteed power/telecom, of which their are millions nationally?
Because almost all of those homes are vacant for a reason. They are in disrepair, or under renovations, or actively looking for someone to occupy them, etc. Of course, there are some places in rural Kansas which are just vacant - but then, these are already dirt cheap. Iirc, there are some towns which will give you the house for free if you live there for X number of years.
So let’s say anyone can request a residence for free from the government if they would like. What happens? Well, first of all, all vacant housing stock immediately disappears in almost all places because - all things being equal - most people would prefer to live alone, rather than living with their family (when they are an adult) or with roommates. And the government can’t force people to live with someone they don’t like - that’s a political non-starter - so if someone ends up residing in a 5 bedroom house, they can just keep rejecting potential roommates the government sends their way. If your goal was to end homelessness, this market trend will immediately stymie your goal - you will still need to build more housing, which will take more time, and people will still be homeless.
Meanwhile, it becomes agonizingly difficult to move anywhere. Want to move to a new city? Well, you’ll be on a years-long waiting list to find a place to live. If it is a city that a lot of people want to live in, then the waiting list will just perpetually keep getting longer. Want to move out of your parents house? You’ll need to find a friend who already has a place, or get on a years-long waiting list.
What if you have special needs, like you are wheelchair bound? Now you need to wait even longer for a place which is wheelchair accessible. Sure, the government might prioritize such cases - but what about cases that don’t neatly fit in a box? Suppose you have a best friend who needs help looking after their child. You want to help out, but you live on the other side of the city, an hour away. So you can never help your friend as much as you want because of the commute, and their child will be grown by the time you could get a place closer to them.
Markets are good because they force people to make choices that balance their desires against everyone elses, which creates a highly efficient mechanism for rationing scarce resources like housing. So people can live alone if they want, or find roommates to save money if they want. They can spend more to live in a hip neighborhood if they want, or spend less to live in a cheaper neighborhood. They can decide how much they value not walking up stairs every day, and choose to pay more for an apartment with an elevator or on the ground floor.
Really, you pull a “what about wheelchairs” then turn around and talk about how people should pay more if they value not taking the stairs?
AI subsidies?
Yes but yokels in the flyover states will say no, so you’re not allowed to do this.
You give the yokels far too little credit. Quite a few of them are convinced it is the liberals who want to means test away their quality of life and expose them to the predation of foreign markets.
And they’re often right. DLC liberals were perfectly fine with Midwestern deindustrialized, education privatization, military expansion, and corrosive financialization. The problem is that they’re boxed in, with nowhere to go. Conservatives ensconced them in a media monopoly, screaming a partial truth - that liberal business interests have fully compromised their wing of government. That’s made selling “we’re all you’ve got” an incredibly powerful message on the right. Even as the Congressional paymasters tip both parties generously.
But think of the market!
Landlords are parasites.
They’re the foundation of society, I say!
property is theft
Now you are under arrest, oh baby
Private property yes, personal property no
The way i distinguish:
property in that you have a piece of paper saying something is yours and you can prevent people from using that thing or extract value from it, while not using it yourself. That’s theft.
But possession, ie. having things that you use, a house you live in etc. that’s not theft unless other circumstances that lead to the possession are theft.
cars have paper attached to them, should people be forced to use cars to keep them?
So do houses!
summer home time?
We’re on the same page then.
It’s all about terminology. I like the concept of usofruct where your right to own something is bound to either use it directly or collect its fruits (in a literal or figurative sense). So a landlord wouldn’t own a house but the people living there would. This has it’s roots in Roman law where ownership had three aspects: usus, fructus and abusus (misuse, destroy, …)
That’s exactly what the comment you are replying to said.
So you can never leave your house because as soon as you do you stop extracting value from it yet are preventing others from doing so themselves. So no one should be allowed homes or anything personal. As you can’t always be using something your entire life.
You’re making up a rule that isn’t a part of the definition of personal property.
Your home is still the place you live at even if you’re not currently in it. You address doesn’t change the moment you step out of your house does it? You use it by it being your place of residence, and that happens at all times.
I didn’t make anything up. There was no time component specified by which ownership is kept or lost. I would hazard a bet many of you strongly support squatters rights which are directly related to this yet not accounted for by the stated definitions. This is one of the prime cruxes of the private property argument is the ability for some to own property they don’t occupy all the time.
There was no time component specified by which ownership is kept or lost
Nor did I say there was.
This is one of the prime cruxes of the private property argument is the ability for some to own property they don’t occupy all the time.
The time has nothing to do with this.
This is so obvious I don’t understand why it needs highlighting. Nobody here is suggesting you cannot have stuff.
Because you have to literally force people on social media to look up what a phrase means. And if you link to Wikipedia, they will act as if they already knew, or tell you how Wikipedia is leftist drivel.
/u/[email protected] is doing so.
A while ago my wife and I were debating on renting our home out and buying a different one. Just to break even on the house expenses it wasn’t worth it.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t understand how landlords make a lot of money unless they don’t fix the house ever.
Mine doesn’t fix the house ever. And if she does, it’s always with the cheapest bidder.
There’s a couple of ways to make bank. First is to start out rich enough to skip the loan and buy for cash. This is what companies like Blackrock do.
Another is to look out for things like tax auctions to get a big discount. Also you could be friends with a lender and get sweetheart rates on the mortgages.
Also, needless to say, it helps to never do any maintenance and to choose tenants that are unlikely to be able to fight back against you.
I think the idea is that even if you only break even after mortgage and expenses, you gain equity in the house and eventually own the house which you then have at your disposal. You can continue to rent it out without the expense of the mortgage, or sell it and cash in.
The landlord I know that makes a shit ton of money inherited the homes from their parents.
Yeah this is it, the ones who aren’t paying a mortgage on the house they’re renting out. That or corporate landlords.
you make money if you don’t have a mortgage.
I was able to refinance my home at 2.8% during COVID. Now I’m paying less than $2k for a 2200 sqft home. I’ve got neighbors who are paying $4-6k for equivalent housing.
My mom, who bought her home in the 90s, has the mortgage fully paid off and only owes real estate taxes (around $12k annually) on a 5000 sqft property.
A lot of landlords simply inherited their homes or had enough credit to buy cheap units during the dips.
They also do a shit job of maintenance. But it can’t be overstated how much of this property is either owned on extremely low interest credit or fully paid off.
My landlord makes 48k a year off where I’m living. I can easily see how he’s making money.
Get a real job idiot.
Sell your properties, retire to the Caymans
I don’t get why u just blame landlords.
You know what other countries are doing? Building multilevel longterm concrete compact apartment complexes.What does US do? Nothing.
I’m telling you, those places are full of depression, conflict, traffic, ample(read: no) parking and those with all kinds of life struggles. People (the ones I know) need some space to maintain a healthy style of living. I can hear the lady yawning through the walls at my place. I yearn for a home with no shared walls sooooooo badly lol.
We dont need compact apartment complexes, we have plenty of houses being hoarded by companies and landlords so they arent on the market and the few that are can have artificially high prices. There are “Cash for your house now!” signs everywhere where I live plus they keep mailing us too, and those are usually either landlords or house-flippers.
I haven’t seen any hoarded houses in my area. I think someone is doing disingenuous propaganda.
Sometimes houses are empty for couple of years because foreclosure and bank has to wait for liens to clear. My neighbor’s place was held for 2 years, due to stupid system.
It’s easy to not see something you don’t look for.
No but seriously. Houses foreclose all the time, they go back to the banks. So bank then has to wait legally required time. And then the bank has to do all the repairs and resell shit.
While all that happens - yeah it’s on the books as owned by a corporation, but it probably doesn’t warrant loosing your mind about it.
So I dunno which stats people are talking about when they refer to companies holding houses? I think it’s a lot of boloney.
U know what the issue is - government is not building cheap affordable long term housing. Like apartment complexes. There are no programs in place.
It’s a multi faceted problem. There needs to be gov program to start building apt complexes . This will reduce demand on houses and drive prices down simultaneously
