4 ms·

Good. Private landlords shouldn't exist.

socialismisok 4y ago
With the exception of people who are landlords for the purposes of mutual aid. We rented a room out for a bit, but only charged "what you could pay" with a hard upper cap of "what it costs is to maintain the unit". We have people live with us for free, for in kind services, or paying whatever they could afford and still be saving money.
- poisonarena 4y ago
  this one exception is pretty nice, but not realistic or common
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    It's realistic, but not common. We did it, and we did it because we read about someone else doing it.
InCityDreams 4y ago
I've lived in shared; government subsidised; private association, and private-landlord housing. Currently have mortgaged home. As someone who has never had a problem in the private sector, quite the opposite, why shouldn't private landlords exist? (Personally, my beef is with private utility companies, but even so....).
jnwatson 4y ago
I don't understand this at all. There are certainly plenty of problems in the housing market, but the existence of landlords isn't one of them. Even if you ignore the substantial amount of work it takes to actually maintain a property, find and deal with tenants, the basic tenets of capitalism still apply: somebody has to allocate capital in a speculative manner to predict future needs. It is very easy for a landlord to lose their shirt in even conservative investments. Landlords justify their rate of return due to the financial risk and the cost of capital. My parents lost a lot of money buying and renting property. You can lose money due to tenants destroying property, you can lose money due to insufficient occupancy, and you can lose money by the value of the house going down.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  Some folks (myself among them) view the idea that because someone started wealthy they should be able to get more wealthy simply because they can leverage their existing wealth to be a negative thing. Sure, there are cases where small landlords are beneficial in providing liquidity. But the big corporate firms being able to leverage their existing assets to buy more units seems antithetical to the goal of "we should eliminate homelessness" to me.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    And probably many of them here work in startups... That is lottery tickets to that exact thing.
  - JamesianP 4y ago
    Financial leveraging is risk. You can lose your principal. Investors pay for building new homes too. Speculators do need to get burned periodically to correct bubbles though. Especially now. Making money because you bought sooner than someone else could (practically enshrined in the California constitution) is not really adding value so on average should not pay off any better than inflation.
    - magicalist 4y ago
      As your second paragraph is saying, "risk" isn't inherently valuable. That's also what the GP is saying, you just might disagree on the situations it applies to.
      - JamesianP 4y ago
        Yes in that the situations they refer to account for all investment of any kind being "a bad thing", while I criticize certain govt policies. But other than that, same page yes.
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  The market doesn't really work as intended. Rent goes up. That should cause more players to enter the market and more homes to be available. Doesn't happen. The market is so distorted with regulation on building that homes become out of reach of normal people. Losing money in a market isn't a sign that the market is working properly. Though even if you were to let capitalism take it's course the natural settling point for the price of a house might be such that a large percentage of people are homeless. That's not good for society.
AntiRemoteWork 4y ago
[dead]
newaccount2021 4y ago

With the exception of people who are landlords for the purposes of mutual aid. We rented a room out for a bit, but only charged "what you could pay" with a hard upper cap of "what it costs is to maintain the unit". We have people live with us for free, for in kind services, or paying whatever they could afford and still be saving money.

poisonarena 4y ago
this one exception is pretty nice, but not realistic or common
- socialismisok 4y ago
  It's realistic, but not common. We did it, and we did it because we read about someone else doing it.

InCityDreams 4y ago

I've lived in shared; government subsidised; private association, and private-landlord housing. Currently have mortgaged home. As someone who has never had a problem in the private sector, quite the opposite, why shouldn't private landlords exist? (Personally, my beef is with private utility companies, but even so....).

jnwatson 4y ago

I don't understand this at all. There are certainly plenty of problems in the housing market, but the existence of landlords isn't one of them. Even if you ignore the substantial amount of work it takes to actually maintain a property, find and deal with tenants, the basic tenets of capitalism still apply: somebody has to allocate capital in a speculative manner to predict future needs. It is very easy for a landlord to lose their shirt in even conservative investments. Landlords justify their rate of return due to the financial risk and the cost of capital. My parents lost a lot of money buying and renting property. You can lose money due to tenants destroying property, you can lose money due to insufficient occupancy, and you can lose money by the value of the house going down.

socialismisok 4y ago
Some folks (myself among them) view the idea that because someone started wealthy they should be able to get more wealthy simply because they can leverage their existing wealth to be a negative thing. Sure, there are cases where small landlords are beneficial in providing liquidity. But the big corporate firms being able to leverage their existing assets to buy more units seems antithetical to the goal of "we should eliminate homelessness" to me.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And probably many of them here work in startups... That is lottery tickets to that exact thing.
- JamesianP 4y ago
  Financial leveraging is risk. You can lose your principal. Investors pay for building new homes too. Speculators do need to get burned periodically to correct bubbles though. Especially now. Making money because you bought sooner than someone else could (practically enshrined in the California constitution) is not really adding value so on average should not pay off any better than inflation.
  - magicalist 4y ago
    As your second paragraph is saying, "risk" isn't inherently valuable. That's also what the GP is saying, you just might disagree on the situations it applies to.
    - JamesianP 4y ago
      Yes in that the situations they refer to account for all investment of any kind being "a bad thing", while I criticize certain govt policies. But other than that, same page yes.
forgotusername6 4y ago
The market doesn't really work as intended. Rent goes up. That should cause more players to enter the market and more homes to be available. Doesn't happen. The market is so distorted with regulation on building that homes become out of reach of normal people. Losing money in a market isn't a sign that the market is working properly. Though even if you were to let capitalism take it's course the natural settling point for the price of a house might be such that a large percentage of people are homeless. That's not good for society.

AntiRemoteWork 4y ago

[dead]

newaccount2021 4y ago