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> but you will be homeless if your landlord continually loses money. Or you will find yourself continually cycling through landlords as each one eventually giv

> but you will be homeless if your landlord continually loses money. Or you will find yourself continually cycling through landlords as each one eventually gives up and sells to the next sucker. Assuming the next sucker comes along. The landlord might be stuck with the property. Real estate has been an easy sell of late, but that hasn’t been true historically. > and increase your rent To which you can say, "no thanks". Sure, they can kick you out[1], but with no rental income their losses will be even higher. What landlord worried about profitability wants to reduce profitability even further? The landlord is beholden to what the renter is willing to pay. The renter couldn't care less about the expenses involved in running a rental property. That doesn't factor into how much they are willing to pay at all. [1] If your jurisdiction has liberal enough laws. Where I live it is essentially impossible to evict tenants. Even in egregious cases, like the tenant who stopped paying rent, there is currently a year+ backlog in the government signing off on the eviction.

unshavedyak 4y ago
I dunno, these seem like exceptions that prove the rule to me. Seems a time consuming game to seek out landlords who are losing money so that i can save money in the long run. Especially if i don't want to live in a place that behaves like it is also losing money. Ie where repairs and basic needs aren't met because the landlord is upside down and is seeking to sell asap. Anything is possible, but it seems quite improbable to a, what appears to be, very profitable venture for many corporations. A probable explanation to so many potentially owned homes being offered as rentals, too. For the significant majority of tenants i cannot imagine they're "winning" over their landlord.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > what appears to be, very profitable venture for many corporations. It no doubt can be quite profitable where the tenants are willing to pay more than your costs. There are unquestionably markets where that is the case. I'm not sure it holds universally, though. Not everyone is a landlord in San Francisco renting out to software developers with the capability to pay almost anything to be there and a competitiveness to be willing to do so. Do you really think the landlord in a dwindling town is profitable? As the town dwindles costs rise, and at the same time what incentive is there for the renters to pay more? It is not like there is a lineup behind them champing at the bit to rent the place when they leave.
  - unshavedyak 4y ago
    > Do you really think the landlord in a dwindling town is profitable? As the town dwindles costs rise, and at the same time what incentive is there for the renters to pay more? It is not like there is a lineup behind them champing at the bit to rent the place when they leave. Yes, anywhere that renting continues to exist. If it wasn't profitable on average it would be sold asap. Again, there's always the chance you're buying from a chain of incompetent landlords who all can't do math and continually fail to turn a profit, i just don't seem that as the likely long term outcome. Let alone trying to rely on you making out better than your landlord. On average a simple and easy rule of thumb is that your landlord is paying what you'd pay, plus profit. Economies of scale/politics (lower taxes/etc) are the only time i see where on average both parties can profit. Oh and of course, as someone else pointed out, if you're in an amazingly rent controlled place for a variety of reasons you're probably making out like a bandit. My coworker's mother lived in a place in Seattle that, for some reason, was paying like $600/m (half my rent at the time!) in downtown Seattle. Comparable apartments were going for $1,800+ iirc. A bit of golden handcuffs, because she couldn't afford to move anywhere given how cheap the rent was, hah.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      > If it wasn't profitable on average it would be sold asap. To who? If it can't be profitable, why would anyone else want to buy it? Maybe you'll get lucky and find another sucker, but then you're just pushing the same problem onto the next guy. Outside of that, about all you can do is disappear as if you never existed and let the fate of the property land where it may. But as humans tend to be strongly loss averse, more likely you'll keep plugging along in hopes that one day things will turn around.
      - unshavedyak 4y ago
        > To who? If it can't be profitable, why would anyone else want to buy it? Maybe you'll get lucky and find another sucker, but then you're just pushing the same problem onto the next guy. Someone will almost assuredly buy it at a low enough rate. It's either that or actively lose money each month. Tbh i'm still confused by your argument. Are you saying that you believe people will, month after month, take a loss for years so that someone can live more cheaply in a house than it would take that same person to own the home themselves? Economies of scale is the only way this plays out in the long term in any stable way. No?

unshavedyak 4y ago

I dunno, these seem like exceptions that prove the rule to me. Seems a time consuming game to seek out landlords who are losing money so that i can save money in the long run. Especially if i don't want to live in a place that behaves like it is also losing money. Ie where repairs and basic needs aren't met because the landlord is upside down and is seeking to sell asap. Anything is possible, but it seems quite improbable to a, what appears to be, very profitable venture for many corporations. A probable explanation to so many potentially owned homes being offered as rentals, too. For the significant majority of tenants i cannot imagine they're "winning" over their landlord.

randomdata 4y ago
> what appears to be, very profitable venture for many corporations. It no doubt can be quite profitable where the tenants are willing to pay more than your costs. There are unquestionably markets where that is the case. I'm not sure it holds universally, though. Not everyone is a landlord in San Francisco renting out to software developers with the capability to pay almost anything to be there and a competitiveness to be willing to do so. Do you really think the landlord in a dwindling town is profitable? As the town dwindles costs rise, and at the same time what incentive is there for the renters to pay more? It is not like there is a lineup behind them champing at the bit to rent the place when they leave.
- unshavedyak 4y ago
  > Do you really think the landlord in a dwindling town is profitable? As the town dwindles costs rise, and at the same time what incentive is there for the renters to pay more? It is not like there is a lineup behind them champing at the bit to rent the place when they leave. Yes, anywhere that renting continues to exist. If it wasn't profitable on average it would be sold asap. Again, there's always the chance you're buying from a chain of incompetent landlords who all can't do math and continually fail to turn a profit, i just don't seem that as the likely long term outcome. Let alone trying to rely on you making out better than your landlord. On average a simple and easy rule of thumb is that your landlord is paying what you'd pay, plus profit. Economies of scale/politics (lower taxes/etc) are the only time i see where on average both parties can profit. Oh and of course, as someone else pointed out, if you're in an amazingly rent controlled place for a variety of reasons you're probably making out like a bandit. My coworker's mother lived in a place in Seattle that, for some reason, was paying like $600/m (half my rent at the time!) in downtown Seattle. Comparable apartments were going for $1,800+ iirc. A bit of golden handcuffs, because she couldn't afford to move anywhere given how cheap the rent was, hah.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    > If it wasn't profitable on average it would be sold asap. To who? If it can't be profitable, why would anyone else want to buy it? Maybe you'll get lucky and find another sucker, but then you're just pushing the same problem onto the next guy. Outside of that, about all you can do is disappear as if you never existed and let the fate of the property land where it may. But as humans tend to be strongly loss averse, more likely you'll keep plugging along in hopes that one day things will turn around.
    - unshavedyak 4y ago
      > To who? If it can't be profitable, why would anyone else want to buy it? Maybe you'll get lucky and find another sucker, but then you're just pushing the same problem onto the next guy. Someone will almost assuredly buy it at a low enough rate. It's either that or actively lose money each month. Tbh i'm still confused by your argument. Are you saying that you believe people will, month after month, take a loss for years so that someone can live more cheaply in a house than it would take that same person to own the home themselves? Economies of scale is the only way this plays out in the long term in any stable way. No?