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!
But this is my regulated breathing minute!
Don’t take it personally, but landlordism is fundamentally parasitism. It’s a matter of fact that private property, whether it’s a townhouse or a factory, enables its owners to extract value from working people. If people personally resent landlords like your aunt, it’s probably not so much because that’s where the theory guides them as it is that almost everyone has had a bad experience with a landlord or knows someone who did. Landlords have earned a bad reputation.
For most of my life I was not interested in owning a home. Owning meant I couldn’t pick up and move or travel when I got the urge, which I did several times. One time while in a foreign country for a stay of undetermined length, I was able to contact an old landlord and secure a place to stay when I learned my return date. How would I have had a place to stay if landlords did not exist?
That’s nice that you found a place to stay after traveling the world, that you found some personal benefit from a system that leaves more than half a million people without proper housing (at least in the US). What does that have to do with anything that I wrote?
Presumably because he/she is a person who wants to live somewhere without the hassle of having to own a house and that is impossible without landlords. And they are not the only one like that.
So your idea that all of it is parasitism has met someone, arguably you mean to help, who likes landlords. Because despite what some people think, a lot don’t want to sign on the immense debt for a house nor maintain it. Landlords provide a service in that case and why is it your right to deny renters and landlords that service?
That doesn’t mean there aren’t parasitic landlords because there very much are. But a blanket statement that it’s all bad seems foolish. Perhaps nuance is very much lost on people nowadays.
“Land contract”.
A land contract starts out similar to a rental agreement. You make fixed monthly payments. If you stay in the home for 3 years, it automatically converts to a private mortgage, and the first three years of “rent” becomes your down payment. If you leave before a year, you forfeit your “security deposit”, just like renting. If you leave before 3 years, you gain no equity; again, just like renting.
If you ever do decide to settle down in one spot, you’re already well on your way to ownership.
I would solve the rental problem by creating a massive, punitively high tax rate on all residential properties, and issuing an equivalent tax exemption to owner-occupants. A land contract is recorded with the county, much like a deed or a lien, and the buyer/tenant would be considered the “owner” for tax purposes.
“Landlords provide housing like scalpers provide concert tickets.”
https://lifehacker.com/why-everyone-hates-landlords-now-1849100799
That said, I do think there need to be ways to rent housing rather than buy it, since many people need that flexibility. Looks like the answer to that might be community land trusts?
Or public housing
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.
But 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.
Buy 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.
(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.
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?
The community should have ownership of whatever rentals are necessary and it should be not for profit.
How is “the community” defined and how is this ownership managed?
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
Those definitely weren’t mistakes.
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.
Not everybody who doesn’t want to buy is low income. I’m too lazy / risk averse to maintain everything myself, so I happily pay my landlord a reasonable premium to bear the risk of shit burning down (or breaking in less dramatic ways) for me. I also like that I would be able to pack up and move without worrying about selling my old place. I might change my mind later on, but right now I’m good.
Why should governments subsidize the lifestyle choice I’m consciously making?
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
Yes.
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.
Owning property isn’t a job
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.
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.
It’s shades of gray. A company that rents out millions of houses is millions times worse than your aunt. Your aunt is still contributing to unaffordable housing and keeping 2-3 families from permanent housing. How bad she is is up for debate and I for one don’t care to debate that. Being upset about people like your aunt is pointless when we should be insanely angry about corporate mass homeownership.
Ideologies tend to sort people into a limited number of overly simplistic categories. This makes theorising easier but applying it to reality much harder.
Very few people could live in a capitalist system and remain pure. e.g. My pension fund is invested in the stock market so I very partially own thousands of companies. I’ve also purchased a small amount of shares in selected companies, a situation I had more agency in creating. Sometimes I subcontract work to other contractors who function as my temporary employees. And so on.
Is there an ethical way to try and ensure that I will have food, shelter and medical care as I age? In the US we can’t depend on the government safety net. Everyone isn’t as able in their 60’s and 70’s as they were in their 30’s and 40’s, so assuming that I’ll be able to work and make a reasonable income the rest of my life is wildly optimistic. Anyone working at a job for 30+ years shouldn’t be stressed about survival but that’s not reality. Putting money in a savings account at a credit union is good but I don’t think that will move the needle. Any decent pension or retirement plan is gonna put money in the stock market. Even with passive investing in index funds, you’re on of the stock holders that fucks like that UHC CEO was trying to appease. Given the state of the economy in the US today, buying and renting a duplex, triplex or small apartment building might be less evil than owning random stocks.
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 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.
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"
I lost my original comment I was typing as my device died so I’ll keep it short. Your aunt extracts money from people on the basis of owning private property (private property is property that is owned by an individual for non-personal use). She doesn’t earn the money through her own labour, she gets it by owning an asset that she herself has no use for and someone else needs and charges that person for using it. This is a parasitic relationship. Now to answer your question about if she is a bad person because of it, I would say not necessarily. The fact that landlords exist is a bad thing. We live in a system however where investment in private property (something inherently parasitic) is often the only way to retire. Every working Australian is required by law to invest a portion of their pay into an investment fund. This too is parasitic. That doesn’t however make every working Australian a bad person, they are just working within the system and doing what is required of them to live. Another thing to keep in mind is that for every house that is owned as an investment property, the price to buy a house goes up. By being a landlord, you make it harder for others to own a home.
I’d say the only ethical way to be a residential landlord is if you are renting out the only house you own because you aren’t in a position to use it as a house - say you’ve brought a house, but had to move somewhere for a few years for work and intend to move back at some point.
The moment you own 2 houses, you are profiting from a system that only works because of inelastic demand - you could have put your money into the stock market and made it do something productive, but instead you are collecting rent, making it harder for others to meet their own basic needs, and profiting from a speculative bubble
What about families that need a place but don’t want to buy? Like if I’m getting a job in a new area and needed to move but know I’ll be leaving in 1-5 years. I wouldn’t want to deal with the paperwork. I wouldn’t be mad to rent a house.
Ideally houses that aren’t used by anyone would be cared for collectively, and would be free for anyone to use for as much time as they need it.
That assumes that housing is a human right, and that adequate housing exists with a small surplus in most societies (and considering there are more empty homes than there are homeless in the US right now, that would be a feasible thing to achieve were capitalism not creating intense conflicts of interests).
Real question, do we have a surplus if we take out community housing options like apartments? Would everyone be able to have their own house?
Dense community housing would still be optimal for cities and towns, especially if housing was a human right, as it’s much more efficient and uses less resources. They would still exist as cooperative housing, where each tenant owns a share of the complex. Those already exist today quite successfully, they’re just not the norm as it doesn’t generate profit for a landlord or realestate investor.
Individual houses would likely still exist in the countryside, though I think it would be pethaps unreasonable to expect communal maintainence if they are remote, in which case it would likely just be up to the individual using it.
What’s the difference between profiting from stocks or profiting from rent? Either way, I’m increasing my spending power
People need a place to live, they don’t need stocks to live. By owning more properties than you need you are contributing to a scarcity and inflated pricing for a basic necessity.
Your stocks do not deprive anyone else of an essential human need, while owning and renting out a house you do not personally use artificially deprives another of buying that house, which further raises housing prices, making an essential human need, an investment vehicle.
Using a different analogy, if you lived in an area with scarce water resources, but happened to purchase land with a particularly abundant spring, you could then profit handsomely by selling that water to the thirsty at an extremely high rate, exploiting the human need for water, and depriving those who cannot afford it in exchange for your own enrichment.
If you buy stocks, you’re essentially just hoping to find someone who is willing to pay more for the same thing. If you own property and rent it out, you’re providing a service to someone who needs it. In the latter case, you’re creating value.
As noted above, this isn’t completely true. You can also buy stocks for dividends.
Putting money in the stock market isn’t making it do something productive. It’s not like your average person is able to participate in IPOs and fund some new venture. If I buy shares of company, the company already got the money years ago; I’m just speculating that someone else will want to buy my shares for more in the future. And then if I buy stock in Shell Oil or United Healthcare, that’s pretty evil. But I also don’t have the time and skills to actively manage a portfolio to meet some bare minimum ethical standards.
I’m just speculating that someone else will want to buy
No, not entirely. Lots of companies pay dividends. Buy stock in those, and you’re speculating that they’ll continue to be profitable enough to pay dividends.
don’t have the time and skills
I’m not sure I can agree on this point, either. The time, maybe. The skill? If you’re skilled enough to use Lemmy, you’re skilled enough to set up a brokerage account and click “buy” on whichever companies meet your criteria. It’s not actually any more complicated than online banking IMO.
I mean, the technical buying and selling is easy but knowing what to buy and sell and how to time it isn’t obvious. Automatically buying low cost index funds is super easy and generally yields the best outcome for most consumer investors. Managing a balanced portfolio of B corps and the like without taking on too much risk and ending up broke is not trivial.
Also, dividends don’t change the fact that buying stock isn’t investing in a business. Buying stocks is giving the previous owner of the stock some money and maintaining or increasing the value of the stock which impacts executive compensation.
If you make a profit for allowing another person shelter (particularly if you don’t need that space for yourself and/or your own family), then you are a parasite.
A bit of a hyperbole, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s say there is a house and no one can afford it but me. If I don’t buy it and rent it, no one can live in it. What would be the right thing to do?
Reduce the price of the house
The market determines the price. If no one can afford it the price is too high.
I take umbrage with the hypothetical itself. Do you believe that buying the property and renting it out is the only possible solution here?
The “right thing” would be to not have a situation like that in the first place where only one person (or one small group of people) can afford to own the roof over their head.
But, obviously, an option you’re neglecting here, is letting people live in the property without paying rent. Nobody is forcing you to make a profit off people’s basic needs for survival.
If you didnt buy it in this scenario, then market pressure eventually pushes the proce down until someone is willing (and able) to buy it.
