4 ms·

Landlords come across more predatory to me. Take up all the land and make people send their money into a black hole their whole lives instead of getting to own.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tjr225 7y ago
Agreed. I know some family friend land lords who not only do this but prefer cash rent payments so as to avoid(in this case, illegally) taxation. Sucking the air out of a community and then putting nothing back into it. It's really shameful.
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  A case for why landlords can be good for community: They landlords paid for the house they rent out. So they either literally built it, adding a new house to a community, or they bought it from someone who built it (or from someone who bought from someone who built it etc.) - the transaction of buying/selling compensates someone for the effort of building the house in the first place. If there were no landlords, the houses would be bought only by people who intend to live in them (let's ignore speculators for a moment), which would make the market less liquid, discouraging people from buying new houses and hence adding to the community. Not to mention the obvious fact that, without landlords, there would be no houses for rent, which would decrease worker mobility and hence make the community worse off economically.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    And I'll ask the allegedly stupid question. Why is a less liquid market in illiquid good is bad? (Other than not being as easy to make money in.)
    - nicky0 7y ago
      It’s bad because if you want to buy or sell something, for “genuine” reason, an illiquid market may mean you are unable to do so.
  - KozmoNau7 7y ago
    >" If there were no landlords, the houses would be bought only by people who intend to live in them" That would be a good thing. Housing would be cheaper, because people wouldn't be priced out of the market by rent seekers with large capital. Housing should not be an investment object, it should be for living in. Most western countries have a large surplus of housing, but a lot of people can't afford to live there. The landlords and speculators would rather have houses stand empty than reduce their profits. All the while, there are homeless people on the streets. Letting perfectly good housing stand empty solely for the sake of profits is morally reprehensible.
    - jakecopp 7y ago
      Then why not just add a tax for vacant houses and get the best of both? Landlords with access to capital increasing supply, and less speculation on empty houses. (In Australia) removing negative gearing, mandatory parking minimums and foreign investment would go a long way too! Though I hear Prop 13 and strange taxation in San Fran is one of the issues.
      - KozmoNau7 7y ago
        Adding a vacant house tax would be one way of discouraging that rent-seeking behavior. Or in more general terms, a land value tax would be nearly ideal. The root problem is that landlordism is exploitative. We don't need landlords to increase the supply of housing, that can be done much better through housing cooperatives and publicly funded housing, where the element of greed is minimized. Landlords are rent seekers, extracting excessive profits from a basic human need. And there really isn't a need for increasing the housing supply in any western country that I know of. The issue is not one of supply, the issue is that a lot of the people who work in the cities are priced out of being able to live in those cities. That is not a problem you can solve by simply increasing supply, because landlords obviously want the best return on their investments, so they build expensive housing, which attracts only those with enough wealth to buy in at that price level. As a result, when left to their own devices, landlords will not build housing that is inexpensive to live in (small apartments without parking and so on), unless they are forced to do so though regulations.
rtpg 7y ago
there isn't enough land to not build at least multi-story appartments. Appartment coops might be the way forward, but "I, by myself, own the piece of land under my feet" will naturally generate the same problems as landlords do in big cities. At the very least shared ownership should become more common
- zdragnar 7y ago
  I wish there were decent coops in the city near me. I looked into three, and they were all places that you couldn't pay me to live; one was nearly condemned the year after I looked into it. The other had hallways with only 1 out of 3 lights actually working, and smelled of urine and ramen. It's a neat idea, but I'm guessing there is a certain culture that makes apartment coops work, and that definitely doesn't exist near me.
rezgi 7y ago
Owning isn't free either. Instead of paying your landlord rent, you pay rent to the city (property taxes), the bank (mortgage), repairmen, and to opportunity cost (these x00,000$ would yield interest/dividends if invested and not tied up in your house) In some places, it's also much cheaper to rent that own after factoring all this in.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  I would like to see those mythical places one day.
  - robohoe 7y ago
    Yeah in the sticks or areas nobody wants to live in. Joking aside, Midwest tends to be cheaper. Chicagoland area is far cheaper than SF or NYC and yet has a lot of good paying jobs.
  - jermaustin1 7y ago
    In Manhattan, it is generally MUCH cheaper to rent than buy (at least in the short to mid term. $3000 in rent would get you the same as a $5k/mo mortgage.
  - ornornor 7y ago
    Any place with an overheated real estate market. Toronto is one, you could rent a condo worth 600-700k for 2k a month when the mortgage alone before local taxes etc would be over 3k.
- eru 7y ago
  The opportunity cost of the capital is really important. However, many jurisdiction give tax advantage to owner occupied property. Eg you have to pay all kinds of taxes on the return from a million dollars in the stock market, compared to the housing services you consume from your own million dollar house. (That's in most countries. In eg Singapore we don't have capital gains tax. So it's a bit more even.)
beagle3 7y ago
Renting is cheaper in many places if you factor everything, unless you (a) know you are not going to move for >n years, with n often in the range 5..10, and (b) are betting on real estate appreciation. Granted, (a) and (b) are true for many people, especially as they get older - but all factored, renting is often superior.
wpietri 7y ago
There are other options than suburban-style home ownership and exploitative landlords. Co-housing, co-op housing, and nonprofit-run housing are all ways people are tackling this problem. I'd love to see more of that. And personally, "getting to own" is not something that makes sense to me. For me it would be "having to own". I would never want to pay an absurd amount of money (including huge commissions and one-time costs) so that I was tied down in one spot. Let alone wanting to become an unpaid amateur maintenance guy (and unpaid amateur general contractor when it gets harder). It makes as much sense to me as owning a farm so I can get food. I'd rather pay for housing as a service and leave it to experts to manage. Of course, that does leave me at a bit of a financial advantage, because in the US we subsidize home purchases (with a larger subsidy for more expensive homes!). But then I'm also not vulnerable to things like the surprise $40k cost for foundation repairs some nearby friends of mine got hit with, so I can live with it.
LeoTinnitus 7y ago
Landlords wouldn't be as predatory if land wasn't overvalued. Remember when the homestead act existed? How do you compete against free land that you can do whatever you want to and live at any kind of lifestyle without having to worry about zoning laws? Nobody to tell you that you can't live in a trailer or a shipping container because your neighbor wants their value of their land to be higher. The US government has fostered a culture of entitled NIMBY assholes and wont stop until it collapses.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tjr225 7y ago

Agreed. I know some family friend land lords who not only do this but prefer cash rent payments so as to avoid(in this case, illegally) taxation. Sucking the air out of a community and then putting nothing back into it. It's really shameful.

burntoutfire 7y ago
A case for why landlords can be good for community: They landlords paid for the house they rent out. So they either literally built it, adding a new house to a community, or they bought it from someone who built it (or from someone who bought from someone who built it etc.) - the transaction of buying/selling compensates someone for the effort of building the house in the first place. If there were no landlords, the houses would be bought only by people who intend to live in them (let's ignore speculators for a moment), which would make the market less liquid, discouraging people from buying new houses and hence adding to the community. Not to mention the obvious fact that, without landlords, there would be no houses for rent, which would decrease worker mobility and hence make the community worse off economically.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  And I'll ask the allegedly stupid question. Why is a less liquid market in illiquid good is bad? (Other than not being as easy to make money in.)
  - nicky0 7y ago
    It’s bad because if you want to buy or sell something, for “genuine” reason, an illiquid market may mean you are unable to do so.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  >" If there were no landlords, the houses would be bought only by people who intend to live in them" That would be a good thing. Housing would be cheaper, because people wouldn't be priced out of the market by rent seekers with large capital. Housing should not be an investment object, it should be for living in. Most western countries have a large surplus of housing, but a lot of people can't afford to live there. The landlords and speculators would rather have houses stand empty than reduce their profits. All the while, there are homeless people on the streets. Letting perfectly good housing stand empty solely for the sake of profits is morally reprehensible.
  - jakecopp 7y ago
    Then why not just add a tax for vacant houses and get the best of both? Landlords with access to capital increasing supply, and less speculation on empty houses. (In Australia) removing negative gearing, mandatory parking minimums and foreign investment would go a long way too! Though I hear Prop 13 and strange taxation in San Fran is one of the issues.
    - KozmoNau7 7y ago
      Adding a vacant house tax would be one way of discouraging that rent-seeking behavior. Or in more general terms, a land value tax would be nearly ideal. The root problem is that landlordism is exploitative. We don't need landlords to increase the supply of housing, that can be done much better through housing cooperatives and publicly funded housing, where the element of greed is minimized. Landlords are rent seekers, extracting excessive profits from a basic human need. And there really isn't a need for increasing the housing supply in any western country that I know of. The issue is not one of supply, the issue is that a lot of the people who work in the cities are priced out of being able to live in those cities. That is not a problem you can solve by simply increasing supply, because landlords obviously want the best return on their investments, so they build expensive housing, which attracts only those with enough wealth to buy in at that price level. As a result, when left to their own devices, landlords will not build housing that is inexpensive to live in (small apartments without parking and so on), unless they are forced to do so though regulations.

rtpg 7y ago

there isn't enough land to not build at least multi-story appartments. Appartment coops might be the way forward, but "I, by myself, own the piece of land under my feet" will naturally generate the same problems as landlords do in big cities. At the very least shared ownership should become more common

zdragnar 7y ago
I wish there were decent coops in the city near me. I looked into three, and they were all places that you couldn't pay me to live; one was nearly condemned the year after I looked into it. The other had hallways with only 1 out of 3 lights actually working, and smelled of urine and ramen. It's a neat idea, but I'm guessing there is a certain culture that makes apartment coops work, and that definitely doesn't exist near me.

rezgi 7y ago

Owning isn't free either. Instead of paying your landlord rent, you pay rent to the city (property taxes), the bank (mortgage), repairmen, and to opportunity cost (these x00,000$ would yield interest/dividends if invested and not tied up in your house) In some places, it's also much cheaper to rent that own after factoring all this in.

me_me_me 7y ago
I would like to see those mythical places one day.
- robohoe 7y ago
  Yeah in the sticks or areas nobody wants to live in. Joking aside, Midwest tends to be cheaper. Chicagoland area is far cheaper than SF or NYC and yet has a lot of good paying jobs.
- jermaustin1 7y ago
  In Manhattan, it is generally MUCH cheaper to rent than buy (at least in the short to mid term. $3000 in rent would get you the same as a $5k/mo mortgage.
- ornornor 7y ago
  Any place with an overheated real estate market. Toronto is one, you could rent a condo worth 600-700k for 2k a month when the mortgage alone before local taxes etc would be over 3k.
eru 7y ago
The opportunity cost of the capital is really important. However, many jurisdiction give tax advantage to owner occupied property. Eg you have to pay all kinds of taxes on the return from a million dollars in the stock market, compared to the housing services you consume from your own million dollar house. (That's in most countries. In eg Singapore we don't have capital gains tax. So it's a bit more even.)

beagle3 7y ago

Renting is cheaper in many places if you factor everything, unless you (a) know you are not going to move for >n years, with n often in the range 5..10, and (b) are betting on real estate appreciation. Granted, (a) and (b) are true for many people, especially as they get older - but all factored, renting is often superior.

wpietri 7y ago

There are other options than suburban-style home ownership and exploitative landlords. Co-housing, co-op housing, and nonprofit-run housing are all ways people are tackling this problem. I'd love to see more of that. And personally, "getting to own" is not something that makes sense to me. For me it would be "having to own". I would never want to pay an absurd amount of money (including huge commissions and one-time costs) so that I was tied down in one spot. Let alone wanting to become an unpaid amateur maintenance guy (and unpaid amateur general contractor when it gets harder). It makes as much sense to me as owning a farm so I can get food. I'd rather pay for housing as a service and leave it to experts to manage. Of course, that does leave me at a bit of a financial advantage, because in the US we subsidize home purchases (with a larger subsidy for more expensive homes!). But then I'm also not vulnerable to things like the surprise $40k cost for foundation repairs some nearby friends of mine got hit with, so I can live with it.

LeoTinnitus 7y ago

Landlords wouldn't be as predatory if land wasn't overvalued. Remember when the homestead act existed? How do you compete against free land that you can do whatever you want to and live at any kind of lifestyle without having to worry about zoning laws? Nobody to tell you that you can't live in a trailer or a shipping container because your neighbor wants their value of their land to be higher. The US government has fostered a culture of entitled NIMBY assholes and wont stop until it collapses.