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>"Did they become silly rich? Or did they quit because it is a major problem to actually make it very profitable versus other uses of capital and time? I'm a de

>"Did they become silly rich? Or did they quit because it is a major problem to actually make it very profitable versus other uses of capital and time? I'm a decently saavy investor (in many things), and have watched multiple friends start up rental properties, only to stop once it became clear that tenants destroy things, costs to maintain properties are volatile and astronomical, the work required is significant, and so on." I'm sorry but this flies in the face of my experience. Most landlords I have met buy properties and then outsource their administration to property management companies. I have never seen or spoken to my last three landlords, none of whom lived anywhere near the same city as the property. Landlordism is parasitic in the literal sense of the word. Landlords get rent and capital appreciation for doing nothing but possessing an ownership title. The propertyless pay the propertied a premium to live. In light of both those observations, I would say any enrichment in this case is "silly", and that landlords don't tend to do much - or any - work. >"If it were so profitable, then tons of capital currently being spent on other uses (tech, medical, finance) would instead go into buying up more housing." This is a non sequitur. If X is profitable and the market knows X is profitable then it should, in theory, be attracting exactly the amount of capital it merits already. In the UK, where I live, the rental sector has exploded, jumping from 2.8 million households in 2007 to 4.5 million in 2017. [1] [1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/ukprivaterentedsector/2018 https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/arti...

ChrisLomont 4y ago
And there was a housing crash in there and decent growth in population over that time. Next, instead of picking a window wrapping the biggest housing bust in a century, pick various decades and see how normal volatility behaves - and you might find this variability not uncommon. In fact, from your own source, Figure 1 - the percent of rented properties is, well, nearly constant over the entire window (31% rented in 2007, 37% rented in 2017). And somewhere in there mortgage laws got significantly tighter - no need for pesky investors to be the cause of less mortgages. So go figure, right? Lots of reasons and complexity in there.
- Emma_Goldman 4y ago
  >"And there was a housing crash in there and decent growth in population over that time." There was a slight slump in rentals after the financial crisis, not before. So if anything it would depress the subsequent growth. In England the population grew over that period from about 51 million to 55 million. That's a 7% increase. Privately rented households, as per the link I posted above, rose by 63%. Hardly compelling. >"In fact, from your own source, Figure 1 - the percent of rented properties is, well, nearly constant over the entire window (31% rented in 2007, 37% rented in 2017). And somewhere in there mortgage laws got significantly tighter - no need for pesky investors to be the cause of less mortgages." Figure 1 shows private rentals increase from 13% in 2007 to 20% in 2017. Social rentals, which you are bizarrely conflating with private rentals, refers to social housing, and is exactly what I think should take the place of landlords. So its decline reinforces my point.
  - ChrisLomont 4y ago
    >There was a slight slump in rentals after the financial crisis, not before And a significant decline in mortgages over that time, likely due to mortgage law changes as a result of the crash. Making it slightly harder to get a mortgage would, over time, move people from mortgages to rentals, which is exactly what the data shows, right? UK added Basel capital rules, the affordability test, and changed capital ceilings in banks, among other changes. Academic papers list these as being major drives in declines in UK mortgage rates. Those people rent instead. All with no need for speculators to drive the market up - the laws changed. >Social rentals, which you are bizarrely conflating with private rentals Ah, so now we're only taking a subset of renters. Good idea.
commandlinefan 4y ago
> any enrichment in this case is "silly", and that landlords don't tend to do much - or any - work Hm - the same could be said about your 401(k), but you probably expect to live off of it at some point in your life, right? At worst, buying and renting properties is a (risky) investment.
- MarcelOlsz 4y ago
  Nobody pays me for the privilege of living inside of my 401k though.
  - djbebs 4y ago
    If your 401kholds stocks or bonds, they probably do.
  - ChrisLomont 4y ago
    Where do you think some of your 401k returns come from?
    - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
      Not from rental income...?
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> Most landlords I have met buy properties and then outsource their administration to property management companies. Who do not actually pay for any repairs or upgrades to the property (that is the landlord's responsibility, and who in addition take an extra 5-20% of the rental upfront. Yes, it "outsources" actually dealing with the rental property and renters, but has no impact on the costs other than making them higher.
kamaal 4y ago
>>Most landlords I have met buy properties and then outsource their administration to property management companies. And the cost of buying a property and outsourcing its maintenance is 0 right? The landlord magically pulls a home out of thin air and some group of people maintain for them for free? >>Landlordism is parasitic in the literal sense of the word. Landlords get rent and capital appreciation for doing nothing but possessing an ownership title. The propertyless pay the propertied a premium to live. This applies to any investment, including things like 401K, pensions, getting an education, or even taking care of one's health. Why should anybody in an economy be better off than the other part of the population by being disciplined, making routine and early investments? Good news is you can plan and start working to go over to the winning side by taking action on it today. Or you can call others 'parasites' for making smart decisions you don't make. Calling others names might mask your own failure, and downplay their achievements, but is unlikely to change anything for your or for them.
- BirdieNZ 4y ago
  > The landlord magically pulls a home out of thin air and some group of people maintain for them for free? The building-lord should receive some return for their investment, as they have created value and added to it through maintenance. The land-lord receives return for doing no work, no addition of value, and only through extracting the excess economic rent from their tenants. Unfortunately, conversations around property investment and land taxes and so on tend to derail because the land-lord and building-lord are often the same person. The response to "the landlord is a leech on society" is "no, he built a house and maintains it!", but in reality it is "the land-lord is a leech on society, the building-lord is a contributor to society".
  - kamaal 4y ago
    Yeah, land, like college seats, and gym memberships come in limited quantities. There is no infinite supply of land, college seats, or gym memberships. So whoever acquires a hold on a resource of this nature stands to benefit a better return on investment. Also note the limited nature of time in these things, you are basically in a race condition. Note these extend to things like 401k, or a retirement savings scheme in the same way. You feel like you are salty that you couldn't get a hold on such a resource in time.

ChrisLomont 4y ago

And there was a housing crash in there and decent growth in population over that time. Next, instead of picking a window wrapping the biggest housing bust in a century, pick various decades and see how normal volatility behaves - and you might find this variability not uncommon. In fact, from your own source, Figure 1 - the percent of rented properties is, well, nearly constant over the entire window (31% rented in 2007, 37% rented in 2017). And somewhere in there mortgage laws got significantly tighter - no need for pesky investors to be the cause of less mortgages. So go figure, right? Lots of reasons and complexity in there.

Emma_Goldman 4y ago
>"And there was a housing crash in there and decent growth in population over that time." There was a slight slump in rentals after the financial crisis, not before. So if anything it would depress the subsequent growth. In England the population grew over that period from about 51 million to 55 million. That's a 7% increase. Privately rented households, as per the link I posted above, rose by 63%. Hardly compelling. >"In fact, from your own source, Figure 1 - the percent of rented properties is, well, nearly constant over the entire window (31% rented in 2007, 37% rented in 2017). And somewhere in there mortgage laws got significantly tighter - no need for pesky investors to be the cause of less mortgages." Figure 1 shows private rentals increase from 13% in 2007 to 20% in 2017. Social rentals, which you are bizarrely conflating with private rentals, refers to social housing, and is exactly what I think should take the place of landlords. So its decline reinforces my point.
- ChrisLomont 4y ago
  >There was a slight slump in rentals after the financial crisis, not before And a significant decline in mortgages over that time, likely due to mortgage law changes as a result of the crash. Making it slightly harder to get a mortgage would, over time, move people from mortgages to rentals, which is exactly what the data shows, right? UK added Basel capital rules, the affordability test, and changed capital ceilings in banks, among other changes. Academic papers list these as being major drives in declines in UK mortgage rates. Those people rent instead. All with no need for speculators to drive the market up - the laws changed. >Social rentals, which you are bizarrely conflating with private rentals Ah, so now we're only taking a subset of renters. Good idea.

commandlinefan 4y ago

> any enrichment in this case is "silly", and that landlords don't tend to do much - or any - work Hm - the same could be said about your 401(k), but you probably expect to live off of it at some point in your life, right? At worst, buying and renting properties is a (risky) investment.

MarcelOlsz 4y ago
Nobody pays me for the privilege of living inside of my 401k though.
- djbebs 4y ago
  If your 401kholds stocks or bonds, they probably do.
- ChrisLomont 4y ago
  Where do you think some of your 401k returns come from?
  - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
    Not from rental income...?

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

> Most landlords I have met buy properties and then outsource their administration to property management companies. Who do not actually pay for any repairs or upgrades to the property (that is the landlord's responsibility, and who in addition take an extra 5-20% of the rental upfront. Yes, it "outsources" actually dealing with the rental property and renters, but has no impact on the costs other than making them higher.

kamaal 4y ago

>>Most landlords I have met buy properties and then outsource their administration to property management companies. And the cost of buying a property and outsourcing its maintenance is 0 right? The landlord magically pulls a home out of thin air and some group of people maintain for them for free? >>Landlordism is parasitic in the literal sense of the word. Landlords get rent and capital appreciation for doing nothing but possessing an ownership title. The propertyless pay the propertied a premium to live. This applies to any investment, including things like 401K, pensions, getting an education, or even taking care of one's health. Why should anybody in an economy be better off than the other part of the population by being disciplined, making routine and early investments? Good news is you can plan and start working to go over to the winning side by taking action on it today. Or you can call others 'parasites' for making smart decisions you don't make. Calling others names might mask your own failure, and downplay their achievements, but is unlikely to change anything for your or for them.

BirdieNZ 4y ago
> The landlord magically pulls a home out of thin air and some group of people maintain for them for free? The building-lord should receive some return for their investment, as they have created value and added to it through maintenance. The land-lord receives return for doing no work, no addition of value, and only through extracting the excess economic rent from their tenants. Unfortunately, conversations around property investment and land taxes and so on tend to derail because the land-lord and building-lord are often the same person. The response to "the landlord is a leech on society" is "no, he built a house and maintains it!", but in reality it is "the land-lord is a leech on society, the building-lord is a contributor to society".
- kamaal 4y ago
  Yeah, land, like college seats, and gym memberships come in limited quantities. There is no infinite supply of land, college seats, or gym memberships. So whoever acquires a hold on a resource of this nature stands to benefit a better return on investment. Also note the limited nature of time in these things, you are basically in a race condition. Note these extend to things like 401k, or a retirement savings scheme in the same way. You feel like you are salty that you couldn't get a hold on such a resource in time.