4 ms·

>you're in the least productive and most predatory sector of our economy (the landlord) I never really understand this. Let's say I own a 4 unit building on a

by alert0 5y ago

>you're in the least productive and most predatory sector of our economy (the landlord) I never really understand this. Let's say I own a 4 unit building on a decent sized lot in a big city. I make housing available to 3 other families in a place they could not afford to own. What is your alternative? I should tear down the apartments and opt to live in a single family home? How does that help anyone?

silicon2401 5y ago
You shouldn't be allowed to own property, nor should anyone else. We should all own nothing and like it. We should all live in uniform boxes so that nobody can have something nice unless there's enough for everyone to have some. That's the kind of thing that, if people don't already believe it, they'll believe it soon enough based on recent trends.
nlitened 5y ago
Sell it at a loss to somebody who does better risk assessment of their leveraged investments?
- alert0 5y ago
  The comment is about landlords being predatory, not about an underwater investment.
pasabagi 5y ago
1. I own a 4 unit building on a decent sized lot in a big city. 2. I make housing available to 3 other families This is the point - the second sentence does not actually follow from the first. The person who built the building, either the actual builders or the investors, make it available. At this point, it is a normal service-provision kind of relationship you see across the economy. Except, with landlords, it isn't that they provide the building. It's that they provide the land. The land is parcelled out in a manner which, at best could be compared to if we just gave rights to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to whichever radio stations started pumping waves into it first. Of course, in reality, land ownership is usually rooted in much more brutal and sordid stories in America. So you essentially end up with a class of people who take no risks, provide no service, and add no value, employ nobody, and often literally do nothing.
- alert0 5y ago
  >The person who built the building, either the actual builders or the investors, make it available. The person who owns the land makes it available by deciding to rent to people. The person who owns the land can decide to tear it down or not rent to people. >take no risks Real estate is not a risk free investment. It would be much more popular than bonds (when interest rates aren't near zero) if it was. >provide no service Maintaining the property in a habitable condition is a service. Maintenance expenses are why a large number of people choose to rent instead of buy when staying somewhere short term. >add no value Making housing available in desirable locations for less than the cost of a SFH is adding value. It can reduce people's commute or put them in neighborhoods they want to live in. If that land was instead covered in SFHs (which seems to be the implied ideal for the "landlords should not exist" crowd) the number of people who could live there would be significantly reduced. >employ nobody Landscapers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, property managers, cleaners, inspectors. In the case of new construction, a lot more people. >often literally do nothing Ha. I wish.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    > The person who owns the land makes it available by deciding to rent to people. No, the state makes it possible for the landlord to charge money for the land, by preventing squatting. The land is already available. It is the ownership that renders it unavailable. As for the factual side of your argument (maintenance expenses as a motivator, etc), I can't comment. It's starkly different from my experience. I imagine it's actually starkly different from yours - you're just using it to rationalise the inequity. Obviously, there can be incidental work in the maintenance of a monopoly. If somebody tomorrow gave me exclusive right to the fishing in the north sea, then I rented that out to fishing companies, there would be work involved. But fundamentally, renting out exclusive rights is not primarily about exchanging services for money. When you own land, you have just such an exclusive right, and it is just as predicated on the willingness of the state to back it, and is therefore an entirely political decision whether or not this is actually a good idea. In the case of California, the state with a crazy unemployment problem, and sky-high property values, it's unarguable that the current system is not working. So questions of what is and is not a legitimate or useful monopoly over resources (land, in this case) should be totally on the table.
joecot 5y ago
My alternative would be to establish a land trust to manage the apartment building. Then you can provide housing for 3 other families without also making a profit off of them. Here's an example of a Land Trust: https://www.sawmillclt.org/ https://www.sawmillclt.org/ The argument is often as you say, that Land Lords add value by giving housing where people couldn't otherwise afford to live. And this is undercut by two points: 1. The landlord isn't the essential part there. If the point is to provide housing without having to buy, that's easily done with land trusts and co-ops. The only downside is that there isn't a Landlord to make a profit, but it's better for society as a whole. 2. If landlords didn't buy up properties for the purposes of turning around and renting them, the property values would be lower because there wouldn't be as much demand on the market. Then a decent portion of the people you're talking about not being able to afford to live there ... would be able to afford to live there.
- alert0 5y ago
  I appreciate the reply, I hadn't seen these before and I'll do some more research on them. My initial reaction is how does this address the issue of developing more units in dense urban environments? For example, if we convert all multi family dwellings in LA to CLTs. Housing is more affordable and no residents are being displaced. Now more people want to move to LA. Who builds housing for them? They would be required for compete over an extremely limited number of SFHs. Unless the CLTs had a provision that every Nth year, they would be torn down and redeveloped for greater density, this sounds like it would cause a city to completely stagnate. That Nth year clause would really go against the non-displacement goal. It could be sustainable if a city had zero growth, but for desirable metro areas that are mostly developed, that is not the case. Market rents cause healthy turn over. There are other ways to address affordability, such as addressing wage growth, removing density restrictions, or expanding Section 8. Non-profit landlords would just further distort the system by not addressing systemic needs that require capital.
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  > with land trusts and co-ops The hardest part with this - as with many other similarly noble undertakings - is to find a person who's willing to do all the job of setting things up and then step aside. As we empirically see, there are not many people like that, otherwise this country would be full of land trusts.

by alert0 5y ago

silicon2401 5y ago

You shouldn't be allowed to own property, nor should anyone else. We should all own nothing and like it. We should all live in uniform boxes so that nobody can have something nice unless there's enough for everyone to have some. That's the kind of thing that, if people don't already believe it, they'll believe it soon enough based on recent trends.

nlitened 5y ago

Sell it at a loss to somebody who does better risk assessment of their leveraged investments?

alert0 5y ago
The comment is about landlords being predatory, not about an underwater investment.

pasabagi 5y ago

1. I own a 4 unit building on a decent sized lot in a big city. 2. I make housing available to 3 other families This is the point - the second sentence does not actually follow from the first. The person who built the building, either the actual builders or the investors, make it available. At this point, it is a normal service-provision kind of relationship you see across the economy. Except, with landlords, it isn't that they provide the building. It's that they provide the land. The land is parcelled out in a manner which, at best could be compared to if we just gave rights to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to whichever radio stations started pumping waves into it first. Of course, in reality, land ownership is usually rooted in much more brutal and sordid stories in America. So you essentially end up with a class of people who take no risks, provide no service, and add no value, employ nobody, and often literally do nothing.

alert0 5y ago
>The person who built the building, either the actual builders or the investors, make it available. The person who owns the land makes it available by deciding to rent to people. The person who owns the land can decide to tear it down or not rent to people. >take no risks Real estate is not a risk free investment. It would be much more popular than bonds (when interest rates aren't near zero) if it was. >provide no service Maintaining the property in a habitable condition is a service. Maintenance expenses are why a large number of people choose to rent instead of buy when staying somewhere short term. >add no value Making housing available in desirable locations for less than the cost of a SFH is adding value. It can reduce people's commute or put them in neighborhoods they want to live in. If that land was instead covered in SFHs (which seems to be the implied ideal for the "landlords should not exist" crowd) the number of people who could live there would be significantly reduced. >employ nobody Landscapers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, property managers, cleaners, inspectors. In the case of new construction, a lot more people. >often literally do nothing Ha. I wish.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  > The person who owns the land makes it available by deciding to rent to people. No, the state makes it possible for the landlord to charge money for the land, by preventing squatting. The land is already available. It is the ownership that renders it unavailable. As for the factual side of your argument (maintenance expenses as a motivator, etc), I can't comment. It's starkly different from my experience. I imagine it's actually starkly different from yours - you're just using it to rationalise the inequity. Obviously, there can be incidental work in the maintenance of a monopoly. If somebody tomorrow gave me exclusive right to the fishing in the north sea, then I rented that out to fishing companies, there would be work involved. But fundamentally, renting out exclusive rights is not primarily about exchanging services for money. When you own land, you have just such an exclusive right, and it is just as predicated on the willingness of the state to back it, and is therefore an entirely political decision whether or not this is actually a good idea. In the case of California, the state with a crazy unemployment problem, and sky-high property values, it's unarguable that the current system is not working. So questions of what is and is not a legitimate or useful monopoly over resources (land, in this case) should be totally on the table.

joecot 5y ago

My alternative would be to establish a land trust to manage the apartment building. Then you can provide housing for 3 other families without also making a profit off of them. Here's an example of a Land Trust: https://www.sawmillclt.org/ https://www.sawmillclt.org/ The argument is often as you say, that Land Lords add value by giving housing where people couldn't otherwise afford to live. And this is undercut by two points: 1. The landlord isn't the essential part there. If the point is to provide housing without having to buy, that's easily done with land trusts and co-ops. The only downside is that there isn't a Landlord to make a profit, but it's better for society as a whole. 2. If landlords didn't buy up properties for the purposes of turning around and renting them, the property values would be lower because there wouldn't be as much demand on the market. Then a decent portion of the people you're talking about not being able to afford to live there ... would be able to afford to live there.

alert0 5y ago
I appreciate the reply, I hadn't seen these before and I'll do some more research on them. My initial reaction is how does this address the issue of developing more units in dense urban environments? For example, if we convert all multi family dwellings in LA to CLTs. Housing is more affordable and no residents are being displaced. Now more people want to move to LA. Who builds housing for them? They would be required for compete over an extremely limited number of SFHs. Unless the CLTs had a provision that every Nth year, they would be torn down and redeveloped for greater density, this sounds like it would cause a city to completely stagnate. That Nth year clause would really go against the non-displacement goal. It could be sustainable if a city had zero growth, but for desirable metro areas that are mostly developed, that is not the case. Market rents cause healthy turn over. There are other ways to address affordability, such as addressing wage growth, removing density restrictions, or expanding Section 8. Non-profit landlords would just further distort the system by not addressing systemic needs that require capital.
AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
> with land trusts and co-ops The hardest part with this - as with many other similarly noble undertakings - is to find a person who's willing to do all the job of setting things up and then step aside. As we empirically see, there are not many people like that, otherwise this country would be full of land trusts.