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Who is posting these articles? Landlords? Rent is the most exploitative arrangement in the economy. There is a landed class, an aspiring class, and a class that
by tehjoker 7y ago
Who is posting these articles? Landlords? Rent is the most exploitative arrangement in the economy. There is a landed class, an aspiring class, and a class that is purely exploited. Everyone needs a place to live and it should be provided for free or at cost. The market is destructive and benefits the few at the expense of the many.
- clay_the_ripper 7y agoWould you care to explain? I’m a renter and I find it be a great arrangement. I have no interest in owning the property that I reside in. I can move anytime I want, I don’t have to fix anything and I can park my money in things that return far more than a house.
- ahelwer 7y agoRenting works well for highly-paid professionals who aren't committed to living in the area for the long haul and have plenty of money left over after paying their landlord. That's a very niche subset of people who rent. The more common scenario is people spend 1/2 to 2/3 of their take-home pay on rent to avoid a hellish commute, living with roommates in a poorly-managed building where the owners drag their feet fixing anything. These people don't have money to "park" in things that return far more than a house.
- uwuhn 7y ago>an aspiring class That's you and me. It doesn't necessarily mean aspiring to own one day. It just means that we're capable of accumulating wealth while renting.
- quaquaqua1 7y agoWhen land is provided for free or at cost, at a certain point some users engage in anti-social behavior that makes life hell for the other users. This is something that the current system claims to fix by making the price so high that only "civilized" people are able to rent. But rich people can be anti-social too, it's just rarer. The real issue is that land within commutable distance to good jobs is scarce.
- ahelwer 7y agoAgree. Landlords take a huge cut of the wealth flowing through large cities like SF. They are purely parasitic. Real housing reform looks like Berlin, where the people are trying to get a referendum to expropriate housing from big landlords[0]. Treating housing as an investment is completely at odds with the ideal of housing being affordable. [0] https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/04/11/a-referendum-to-expropriate-apartments-from-big-landlords-in-berlin https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/04/11/a-referendum-to-...
- baby 7y agoRents in France are actually fairly reasonable due to rent control. Prices to buy are high and it doesn’t really make real estate an attractive investment.
- baby 7y agototally agree, the biggest benefactors of removing rent control are landlords.