this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
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You can't be a good anything and be a landlord. At least if we use the moral meaning of "good".
You could only ask for as much rent as you need to cover the expenses for whatever you're renting out.
Okay, but why do we need the landlord then? We'd just need a custodian.
I mean... yeah, pretty much. I don't want to deal with maintenance or the legal stuff, so I'd be willing to pay someone to deal with all of that. Not the outrageous rates that rent usually goes for, typically.
Because you can't afford to buy a property? So you need someone else to do it for you and then pay them a service fee for living in their property.
There's a lot of smaller victories to win before we can have the big victory of outlawing landlords, so we should fight those first imo.
I am not a landlord. Yet.
When i do buy a 2nd property I do intend to rent it out at a reasonable price - and I have no guilt over doing so because all of our country's private property is being bought up by foreign "investors" driving up the cost of ownership and rents while leaving properties unoccupied. It's disgusting and I'll fight it directly when I can afford to.
I'm not completely against the concept of renting. But imo the property should be owned either by the inhabitant of it, or the state. And then the state employs a custodian in charge of repairs and administration (you know, the only useful aspects of a landlord), while renting it out for a low price. And in order to keep prices a s low as possible, maintenance is supplemented by a tax.
The problem with private landlords of one or two extra properties, while they're often not morally bankrupt, is that they tend to be wholly inept at the custodian part. Plus, if properties are all owned in small numbers rather than organized on the large scale, that's just very inefficient.
That does sound like it would be of benefit but I'm not sure how realistic it is to set up a system like this and it work for everyone - would the government just start buying property off people? Would that crash or balloon the market? How do you ensure that families aren't priced out of moving home either by higher property prices (from the government buying up everything) or from a catastrophic crash caused by no one wanting to buy property as investments?
Also how would the government provide attractive housing options across the economic spectrum across the whole of the country? Sounds like a monstrously large government department would need to be formed, which amongst other things would be very inefficient and goes against the objectives of the government. Take for example state health care- there is only one tier of care, and if you want anything better you pay for it privately. If we had the same for housing but didn't have the private option then in all liklihood the government would be thrown out and the next one would be the one who promises private housing. Because like it or not, the middle class doesn't want to live like the working class.
As I said, there a lot of battles to win and I think this anti-landlord stuff is just short sighted because there is no realistic solution that could be implemented today even if a country was willing - which it isn't. Instead we should focus on fighting the smaller fights that would lead us towards the utopia: rent control, taxation, foreign "investors", empty dwellings, single-family properties etc....all of these things could be vastly improved today for the benefit of everyone except those leaching on society.
You could still have different prices, albeit lower ones. Renting then becomes part of a resources allocation game. If you want a bigger/more luxurious home, you pay more and have less for other things. If a fancy house isn't so important to you, you can get a cheaper one and have more money left for vacations, fine dining, cinema, etc.
As for the efficiency, that government department could take lessons from big property owners and organize like them, only with state subsidies and without profit goals. That way, the middle class, by virtue of having more money, could still afford better housing. Also, I don't want the middle class to live like the working class, I want the working class to live like the middle class. Also also, there's no "middle class", only parts of the working class that got lucky. But they're fundamentally still beholden to their employers' whims.
Incremental change withing the current system is good and important, but we nonetheless have to discuss the big break that has to occur at some point, and what comes after. Incremental change can only take us so far.
The issue with that is that you're still making money on a human right. That property is gonna gain value and eventually you'll be able to sell it for more than you bought it for, all on the back of the tenants. Unless you're planning to give the tenants the house when they pay the value of it but at that point there's no reason for you the own it to begin with.
I'm confused. Are you saying people shouldn't have to pay for housing? For food? For electricity?
They're providing/enabling the human right. Why do you describe it as if they were making money off of necessity without trade and giving?
I'm saying landlords are parasites and there's no way to excuse what they do as a good thing or necessary.
Yes. I would say people shouldn't have to pay for the basic necessities required to live. Why should anyone live with the threat of homelessness and starvation?
Because it takes time and resources and create and maintain housing... who will pay for it, and why is it the landlord's fault instead of whoever isn't taking that responsibility (government???).
That's a good goal, but leaves open how it can be implemented.
"they're providing/enabling..."
WOAH there, pardner.
They don't PROVIDE anything.
They hoard a finite resource for financial gain. Full stop.
They do though? They provide a place to live that you can move into way faster than you can if you were buying it. They cover the maintenance costs, and some even provide properties that are fully furnished.
I agree that they hoard properties for financial gain but they do provide something.
Is every landlord the same? Are they all big companies out for profit? Or what?
You are literally saying that your human rights should be privately owned by somebody else. If that's the case, why even bother with human rights?
You gotta separate the concept of a right from fulfilling them.
You can have a human right. But that alone does not answer how it is fulfilled.
The right is not owned. It can't be.
Says who?
If a human right only exists on paper it's not a right - it's a buzzterm for political racketeers to throw around. Fulfilling a "bill of rights" is the core part of the (so-called) "social contract" between the liberal state and it's subjects - if it's merely "fulfilling" those by pretending they exist, the existence of the liberal state - and liberalism itself - becomes irrelevant and unjustifiable to the subjects.
A right is a right. It doesn't just disappear.
Fantasizing about rights doesn't make them real - or even relevant.
Yes.
My landlord didn't pay for nor make the land my place is on. Nor the place I reside on. Yet he jacks up the rent every march as soon as he can, as much as he legally can.
My landlord doesn't clean the lots, doesn't clean the public bathrooms, doesn't do anything but come on by to complain about the lots he doesn't improve.
How he is providing anything but less money in my family's bank account, and an headache to everyone he complains to?
I think you could be a good Dalek and a landlord
A good parasite?
That's an odd spelling of "capitalist".
I thought that was the normal spelling of “capitalist.” 😉
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