8 ms·

It's not good. It's better than awful. What a horrible way to decide how to structure society. Landlords are parasites that expect their tenants to pay >100% of

It's not good. It's better than awful. What a horrible way to decide how to structure society. Landlords are parasites that expect their tenants to pay >100% of their mortgage costs every month or they'll be heartlessly ejected into the street.

computerphage 5y ago
I mean, as opposed to other businesses where owners expect customers to pay <100% of the costs of the product?
- thrav 5y ago
  There’s a bit of a difference here, in that the landlord is also coming out the other side with an appreciating asset, not pure costs and the consumer coming out of the transaction with the asset.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    So it is services generally that you have a problem with?
    - wallacoloo 5y ago
      > the landlord is also coming out the other side with an appreciating asset This isn’t true of services in general. Are you reading the comment you’re responding to, or are you just being belligerent?
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        The restaurant isn't disassembled when you leave, when you eat a meal at a establishment you pay for the upkeep of a building that will grow in value over time and yet receive no upside. If you take an Uber, you pay the auto loan of the person driving you. I guess a pure service like housecleaning doesn't leave behind a productive asset, although the business itself is one.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        Obviously you get a hard product when you get a meal. You get someone's labour when you ride and Uber and consume gas and car. When you rent, you basically are buying someone else a house. You don't get any service in many cases, as the landlord can contract our 100% of maintenance and repair and still make massive amounts of money.
        willcipriano 5y ago
        When you eat at a restaurant you are in the very same way also buying them a restaurant. That food will only satiate you for a few hours and eventually you will have to eat again, having nothing to show for the service. In the same way you can rent a house from someone, have shelter from the elements for a time and once that business has concluded have nothing to show for it. I don't' advise eating out too much or renting long term if you can avoid it. I also don't advise living in a major city. You can more easily take the first two pieces of advice if you take the third first.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        No, you're absolutely not buying them a restaurant. They are fundamentally making money because they provide labour in exchange for it. A landlord is not providing labour. They are acting as a middle-man between you and the bank. They provide no service to society. A restaurant is, as they provide cooked food. One is a zero-sum game, the other is actually producing something. Your advice is frankly shit on the societal level. There is no way for everyone to avoid long-term rentals unless we do things you are opposed to. Equally it's impossible for everyone to avoid living in big cities, the entire economy would collapse. It's senseless to punish people for doing things that are necessary for our common prosperity and interests, such as living in major cities.
        MichaelZuo 5y ago
        ‘ A landlord is not providing labour.’ All built structures undergo entropic decay so maintenance would count as labour being done in both cases, the apartment and the restaurant using the textbook definition. These costs would be packaged into the rent and the price of meals.
  - humaniania 5y ago
    The landlord gets 100% of the appreciation as well as 100% of the equity being built by the mortgage payments while the tenants are forced to pay for everything except the initial investment. It's extremely unfair and hurts the most vulnerable people in society.
    - soheil 5y ago
      So any company that increases its valuation as a result of more customers or more revenue is also extremely unfair?
    - xyzelement 5y ago
      Sorry but this is an ignorant take of someone who I presume does not own property. I would have thought similar until we bought a house. Some costs that a renter never thinks about: property taxes, home insurance, flood insurance, leaky roofs, flooded basements, mold remediation, HVAC system replacements, the list goes on. If you think a landlord buys a house and never has to put another dollar in, you are on crack. If you are a landlord you face plenty of other risks - time between tennants, you incur all the expenses and none of the revenue. Ditto if your renter stops paying and it takes you months or years to evict them. Or your tennant does damage to your property that their security deposit doesn't come close to covering. On top of all that, there are real risks of asset decline. Just because that hasn't happened recently in most places doesn't mean it won't happen. I can name 5 plausible scenarios under which my house ends up never being worth what I paid for it. It seems to me that you and others claiming that being a landlord is free money just have zero idea of what it actually takes.
      - humaniania 5y ago
        All of those things and more are paid for by the rent since it keeps going up 5% every year while the mortgage payment stays the same.
    - sagichmal 5y ago
      I don't understand how anyone can view this as unfair. It's as basic as basic economics gets. It is obviously the case that downstream consumers of goods and services pay more than upstream suppliers. The initial investment is an enormous risk for the landlord, not something to just shrug off. I guess if you view housing as somehow exempt from market dynamics, then this view holds water. I'm sympathetic to that view, honestly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
javajosh 5y ago
That's only the "happy path" (for the landlord) story. I had a coworker who enterprisingly rented his old apartment to someone, who ended up squatting and forcing him into an expensive and drawn-out litigation. The tenant absolutely abused him and the California law which favors tenants quite strongly. He was a young guy in his 20's, not rich, and that woman really hurt him. And of course there are other risks too; can you imagine being an entity that owns lots of commercial for-lease real-estate right now?! They must be scrambling to stop the bleeding, since Covid has sent demand into the earth. My point is that being a landlord is not without risk, and it's not always an "I do nothing and make money by leveraging your fear of homelessness" situation (although, granted, this is the ideal state landlord's seek, which is itself kinda gross).
- rogy 5y ago
  good? landlording isn’t and shouldn’t be pitched as a risk free investment strategy. I’m glad some landlords have finally realised this.
- Beldin 5y ago
  > since Covid has sent demand into the earth. This needs more context. Around here, it's nigh impossible to get a place. Social housing has waiting lists for over a decade, private renting is more expensive than a mortgage, and buying a house requires you to overbid. There are (plenty) stories of folks overbidding 50k€ and still not getting the house. If you can afford to buy a house, buy it, divide into subunits, charge 80% of mortgage to each of the 5 subunits. Anyway, that's what tge housing market looks like here. So I'm guessing your experience is from elsewhere.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Perhaps you missed the word "commercial" - which means renting to businesses, rather than individuals. Covid has increased WFH a lot and many small businesses are going virtual, and even larger businesses are scaling back their physical offices. This has the net effect of driving down demand for office space.
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
It’s all awesome until the roof needs to be redone or the cellar is flooded.

computerphage 5y ago

I mean, as opposed to other businesses where owners expect customers to pay <100% of the costs of the product?

thrav 5y ago
There’s a bit of a difference here, in that the landlord is also coming out the other side with an appreciating asset, not pure costs and the consumer coming out of the transaction with the asset.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  So it is services generally that you have a problem with?
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    > the landlord is also coming out the other side with an appreciating asset This isn’t true of services in general. Are you reading the comment you’re responding to, or are you just being belligerent?
    - willcipriano 5y ago
      The restaurant isn't disassembled when you leave, when you eat a meal at a establishment you pay for the upkeep of a building that will grow in value over time and yet receive no upside. If you take an Uber, you pay the auto loan of the person driving you. I guess a pure service like housecleaning doesn't leave behind a productive asset, although the business itself is one.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Obviously you get a hard product when you get a meal. You get someone's labour when you ride and Uber and consume gas and car. When you rent, you basically are buying someone else a house. You don't get any service in many cases, as the landlord can contract our 100% of maintenance and repair and still make massive amounts of money.
        willcipriano 5y ago
        When you eat at a restaurant you are in the very same way also buying them a restaurant. That food will only satiate you for a few hours and eventually you will have to eat again, having nothing to show for the service. In the same way you can rent a house from someone, have shelter from the elements for a time and once that business has concluded have nothing to show for it. I don't' advise eating out too much or renting long term if you can avoid it. I also don't advise living in a major city. You can more easily take the first two pieces of advice if you take the third first.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        No, you're absolutely not buying them a restaurant. They are fundamentally making money because they provide labour in exchange for it. A landlord is not providing labour. They are acting as a middle-man between you and the bank. They provide no service to society. A restaurant is, as they provide cooked food. One is a zero-sum game, the other is actually producing something. Your advice is frankly shit on the societal level. There is no way for everyone to avoid long-term rentals unless we do things you are opposed to. Equally it's impossible for everyone to avoid living in big cities, the entire economy would collapse. It's senseless to punish people for doing things that are necessary for our common prosperity and interests, such as living in major cities.
        MichaelZuo 5y ago
        ‘ A landlord is not providing labour.’ All built structures undergo entropic decay so maintenance would count as labour being done in both cases, the apartment and the restaurant using the textbook definition. These costs would be packaged into the rent and the price of meals.
- humaniania 5y ago
  The landlord gets 100% of the appreciation as well as 100% of the equity being built by the mortgage payments while the tenants are forced to pay for everything except the initial investment. It's extremely unfair and hurts the most vulnerable people in society.
  - soheil 5y ago
    So any company that increases its valuation as a result of more customers or more revenue is also extremely unfair?
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    Sorry but this is an ignorant take of someone who I presume does not own property. I would have thought similar until we bought a house. Some costs that a renter never thinks about: property taxes, home insurance, flood insurance, leaky roofs, flooded basements, mold remediation, HVAC system replacements, the list goes on. If you think a landlord buys a house and never has to put another dollar in, you are on crack. If you are a landlord you face plenty of other risks - time between tennants, you incur all the expenses and none of the revenue. Ditto if your renter stops paying and it takes you months or years to evict them. Or your tennant does damage to your property that their security deposit doesn't come close to covering. On top of all that, there are real risks of asset decline. Just because that hasn't happened recently in most places doesn't mean it won't happen. I can name 5 plausible scenarios under which my house ends up never being worth what I paid for it. It seems to me that you and others claiming that being a landlord is free money just have zero idea of what it actually takes.
    - humaniania 5y ago
      All of those things and more are paid for by the rent since it keeps going up 5% every year while the mortgage payment stays the same.
  - sagichmal 5y ago
    I don't understand how anyone can view this as unfair. It's as basic as basic economics gets. It is obviously the case that downstream consumers of goods and services pay more than upstream suppliers. The initial investment is an enormous risk for the landlord, not something to just shrug off. I guess if you view housing as somehow exempt from market dynamics, then this view holds water. I'm sympathetic to that view, honestly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

javajosh 5y ago

That's only the "happy path" (for the landlord) story. I had a coworker who enterprisingly rented his old apartment to someone, who ended up squatting and forcing him into an expensive and drawn-out litigation. The tenant absolutely abused him and the California law which favors tenants quite strongly. He was a young guy in his 20's, not rich, and that woman really hurt him. And of course there are other risks too; can you imagine being an entity that owns lots of commercial for-lease real-estate right now?! They must be scrambling to stop the bleeding, since Covid has sent demand into the earth. My point is that being a landlord is not without risk, and it's not always an "I do nothing and make money by leveraging your fear of homelessness" situation (although, granted, this is the ideal state landlord's seek, which is itself kinda gross).

rogy 5y ago
good? landlording isn’t and shouldn’t be pitched as a risk free investment strategy. I’m glad some landlords have finally realised this.
Beldin 5y ago
> since Covid has sent demand into the earth. This needs more context. Around here, it's nigh impossible to get a place. Social housing has waiting lists for over a decade, private renting is more expensive than a mortgage, and buying a house requires you to overbid. There are (plenty) stories of folks overbidding 50k€ and still not getting the house. If you can afford to buy a house, buy it, divide into subunits, charge 80% of mortgage to each of the 5 subunits. Anyway, that's what tge housing market looks like here. So I'm guessing your experience is from elsewhere.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Perhaps you missed the word "commercial" - which means renting to businesses, rather than individuals. Covid has increased WFH a lot and many small businesses are going virtual, and even larger businesses are scaling back their physical offices. This has the net effect of driving down demand for office space.

rad_gruchalski 5y ago

It’s all awesome until the roof needs to be redone or the cellar is flooded.