4 ms·

Corporations shouldn't be allowed to own residential properties. Period.

malfist 10mo ago
For every complex and difficult problem, there is a simple, easy and wrong solution. If corporations can't own residential properties, how would anyone rent a house? How would home builders build model homes? How would Trusts manage real estate? This is a complex and nuanced problem.
- ssl-3 10mo ago
  From individuals? Anecdotally: I've rented 5 different single-family houses in my life. All of them were rented from individuals. Only 1 out of the 5 had a landlord that owned some other stuff that they also rented out. For the remaining 4 out of 5, the landlord only had that singular property to rent: They lived wherever they lived, and they also had an extra house for whatever reason that they rented to me.
  - malfist 10mo ago
    I'd be willing to bet the majority of those "individuals" were incorporated as an LLC to limit liability, thus making them corporations.
    - ssl-3 10mo ago
      I knew these individuals (no scare quotes required) personally before I rented from them. But sure: If you want to bet that you're right about a very specific situation that you have no specific knowledge of, then don't let me stand in your way. A fool and his money are soon to part.
      - BeetleB 10mo ago
        I think you're misreading his intent. It may not be the case for those you rented from, but over the last 15-20 years, the standard practice for them has increasingly become "Form an LLC". In most cities, when you rent a detached house from a corporation, it's really one individual behind it. These people are likely not the minority.
        ssl-3 10mo ago
        > those "individuals" The context is my anecdotal experience. Within that context, their intent was spelled very precisely.
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    So no apartments? I would much rather do business with another business than deal with individual hobby landlords
    - ssl-3 10mo ago
      I've had apartments, too. Both corpo-owned and owned by some dude who had some apartments. The corpo ones were the worst. They invented illegal terms ("Sorry, sir. You may have signed your 1-year lease agreement on the fifth day of the month, but our policy is to close leases only on the last day of the month. You still owe us for the rest of this [13th!] month whether you've moved out or not"), were wildly successful at making all of the security deposit disappear, and were miserable at keeping their word on necessary repairs. They were shit. The ones that were run by some dude who owned some apartments were very different. I paid my rent on time. If I had a problem, I called the singular responsible person directly and he (being the kind of person who likes to have timely payments in their bank account) would answer the phone himself. There were never any surprises relating to money, and I never had an issue that lasted for more than 24 hours.
      - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
        And the one person operated apartments are usually undercapitalized and doesn’t have a professional maintenance staff. The ones I have stayed at have on site office personnel. These were both in the north suburbs of Atlanta - one was mid upper end at the time and the other was in one of the more affluent neighborhoods
        ssl-3 10mo ago
        Huh? I have no reason to care about staffing or capitalization. Those aren't my concerns. Those concepts are beyond my purvey as a tenant. I care only about timeliness. My entire relationship any landlord is that of paying money, and receiving housing and services relating to that housing. When the aircon dies and it takes weeks of pestering for the corpo entity to address it, that's a problem for me that changes the way I view the world in a negative way. When the aircon dies and it's fixed the next afternoon by the action of some dude who owns some apartments, then I don't really have anything to complain about at all. There was a problem and it was in the past almost as soon as it was discovered.
  - carlosjobim 10mo ago
    Why is it better to rent from individuals? They have the same profit motives as corporations.
    - ssl-3 10mo ago
      Why is it better to buy local instead of from Amazon? I mean: The local place has the same profit motives, so they're basically the same thing -- right?
      - carlosjobim 10mo ago
        You tell me! Local merchants just warehouse products they didn't manufacture and don't know anything about, and they give you much worse customer service and are more expensive than Amazon. It's not very common that local merchants give a damn about the people in their community.
        ssl-3 10mo ago
        I keep getting these hail-corporate responses here. It's a wee bit strange to me. Let me tell you about the bodega man. I'd walk over there to his shop if I wanted to buy something -- a soda, some beer, a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk or some pasta sauce or whatever. It was a good bit of healthy exercise, and it was as local as it could get. He didn't keep a ton of inventory (it was not a big shop), but he'd stock whatever his customers wanted to buy. I used to smoke cigarettes. One day when I stopped into the bodega, the bodega man asked me why he kept seeing me walk past his place to the big corpo gas station next door. "They carry my brand of smokes, and you don't," I said. He asked me what I smoked. I produced a pack from my pocket and showed it to him. He said he wasn't sure if he could get them from his distributor but that he would try. He then asked me what I paid for them next door, and I didn't really remember so I guessed -- and I guessed low. "I think they're about six bucks." A few days later, I was back at the bodega to buy whatever it was and he was proud to show me that he'd made a spot for my cigarettes and got some in stock. They were marked at $7.42 (I remember that part very precisely). He asked if I wanted some, and I'm thinking to myself "Sure, dude. Fine. I'll buy your expensive cigarettes that you got in for me." The bodega man rang them up at $6.00. I paid the man, and said "Thank you!" They were $6.00 for me from then on, which made it the cheapest place in town (remember, I guessed low). His employees charged me $6.00 without any prompting on my part, too. They were only stocked because I wanted them, and they were sold to me at a price that I was very happy to pay. If anyone random wanted them, I'm sure that the price was $7.42. Or at least, this all lasted until one day, when the bodega man suddenly fell over dead while coaching his team at a kids' softball game. IIRC, it was a brain aneurysm. The bodega didn't open back up the next day or ever again. The last time I went by there -- years ago, now -- the windows that I could see past the plywood had been shattered. Sometimes I wonder about the Bud Light-emblazoned Weber charcoal grill that his beer distributor placed there as a part of a promo display. It was still in there when he died. I had asked him about that one day, just because I was curious: "Hey, so: What happens to stuff like that when the promotion is over and the next display shows up?" And he thought for a moment, and said "I'll tell you what: When the promotion is over, you can have it. It's your grill." I wish I could have made any parts of these stories up, but it's instead just kind of sad to recall. --- Anyway, enough stories of the bodega man. I now have questions for you. How many specialty items has Amazon kept in stock just because you, individually, wanted to buy them? How many items have you successfully (even if accidentally) negotiated an ongoing price with Amazon on? How many softball teams has your Amazon guy coached in your town? How many minty new Weber grills has Amazon offered to give you before they fell over dead? If your Amazon guy fell over dead tomorrow, would you even notice? (I only lived near that bodega for a few months. Want me to tell you some stories about the next bodega man?)
- danesparza 10mo ago
  "how would anyone rent a house?" From a private owner "How would home builders build model homes?" - This is a great point. I should have said "after the home is built" "How would Trusts manage real estate" - for residential real-estate, they wouldn't. An individual would. But I just want to point out that I never said that corporations shouldn't own real estate. I said they shouldn't own residential real estate. It's only as complex an nuanced as we make it. For most of history, individual people owned real estate. Only recently did we manage to screw that up. We can unscrew it.
  - JuniperMesos 10mo ago
    > For most of history, individual people owned real estate. Only recently did we manage to screw that up. We can unscrew it. Corporate ownership of real estate is ancient - read about the land rents (and in-kind labor rents) that early Christian monasteries were entitled to in late Roman/early-middle-ages Europe, or how Buddhist monasteries have been funded from local levees for thousands of years. Or how the British crown as a corporate entity currently vested in Charles III still owns substantial chunks of British real estate. History is long and for most of it it was not the case that ordinary middle class people even existed, let alone owned houses.
- bcrosby95 10mo ago
  > For every complex and difficult problem, there is a simple, easy and wrong solution. Sure, but realize that also applies to the current status quo. Also, you cannot create the 'right' solution to a complex, nuanced social problem. You can only slowly shift the problem over time, one 'wrong' solution at a time.
  - malfist 10mo ago
    Agree, but this simple solution isn't going to shift towards the right solution over time, and could very easily make housing shortage worse (especially as it would forbid home builders from making model homes, or keeping an inventory)
ProllyInfamous 10mo ago
I am currently suing a former residential LLC in small claims court. Going on three years, now... Justice is not blind. Both sides make this so difficult. And expen$ive!
JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> Corporations shouldn't be allowed to own residential properties. Period Congratulations, you just ensured zero new housing creation in our cities. (Co-ops are corporations.)
javascriptfan69 10mo ago
Sorry, but this is just a bad idea. It's classic populist slop. The biggest driver in housing prices is under supply. The main source of under supply is individual home owners who consistently vote against good zoning to protect their economic interests. Corporations do not have the votes to strangle supply like individuals do.

For every complex and difficult problem, there is a simple, easy and wrong solution. If corporations can't own residential properties, how would anyone rent a house? How would home builders build model homes? How would Trusts manage real estate? This is a complex and nuanced problem.

ssl-3 10mo ago
From individuals? Anecdotally: I've rented 5 different single-family houses in my life. All of them were rented from individuals. Only 1 out of the 5 had a landlord that owned some other stuff that they also rented out. For the remaining 4 out of 5, the landlord only had that singular property to rent: They lived wherever they lived, and they also had an extra house for whatever reason that they rented to me.
- malfist 10mo ago
  I'd be willing to bet the majority of those "individuals" were incorporated as an LLC to limit liability, thus making them corporations.
  - ssl-3 10mo ago
    I knew these individuals (no scare quotes required) personally before I rented from them. But sure: If you want to bet that you're right about a very specific situation that you have no specific knowledge of, then don't let me stand in your way. A fool and his money are soon to part.
    - BeetleB 10mo ago
      I think you're misreading his intent. It may not be the case for those you rented from, but over the last 15-20 years, the standard practice for them has increasingly become "Form an LLC". In most cities, when you rent a detached house from a corporation, it's really one individual behind it. These people are likely not the minority.
      - ssl-3 10mo ago
        > those "individuals" The context is my anecdotal experience. Within that context, their intent was spelled very precisely.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  So no apartments? I would much rather do business with another business than deal with individual hobby landlords
  - ssl-3 10mo ago
    I've had apartments, too. Both corpo-owned and owned by some dude who had some apartments. The corpo ones were the worst. They invented illegal terms ("Sorry, sir. You may have signed your 1-year lease agreement on the fifth day of the month, but our policy is to close leases only on the last day of the month. You still owe us for the rest of this [13th!] month whether you've moved out or not"), were wildly successful at making all of the security deposit disappear, and were miserable at keeping their word on necessary repairs. They were shit. The ones that were run by some dude who owned some apartments were very different. I paid my rent on time. If I had a problem, I called the singular responsible person directly and he (being the kind of person who likes to have timely payments in their bank account) would answer the phone himself. There were never any surprises relating to money, and I never had an issue that lasted for more than 24 hours.
    - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
      And the one person operated apartments are usually undercapitalized and doesn’t have a professional maintenance staff. The ones I have stayed at have on site office personnel. These were both in the north suburbs of Atlanta - one was mid upper end at the time and the other was in one of the more affluent neighborhoods
      - ssl-3 10mo ago
        Huh? I have no reason to care about staffing or capitalization. Those aren't my concerns. Those concepts are beyond my purvey as a tenant. I care only about timeliness. My entire relationship any landlord is that of paying money, and receiving housing and services relating to that housing. When the aircon dies and it takes weeks of pestering for the corpo entity to address it, that's a problem for me that changes the way I view the world in a negative way. When the aircon dies and it's fixed the next afternoon by the action of some dude who owns some apartments, then I don't really have anything to complain about at all. There was a problem and it was in the past almost as soon as it was discovered.
- carlosjobim 10mo ago
  Why is it better to rent from individuals? They have the same profit motives as corporations.
  - ssl-3 10mo ago
    Why is it better to buy local instead of from Amazon? I mean: The local place has the same profit motives, so they're basically the same thing -- right?
    - carlosjobim 10mo ago
      You tell me! Local merchants just warehouse products they didn't manufacture and don't know anything about, and they give you much worse customer service and are more expensive than Amazon. It's not very common that local merchants give a damn about the people in their community.
      - ssl-3 10mo ago
        I keep getting these hail-corporate responses here. It's a wee bit strange to me. Let me tell you about the bodega man. I'd walk over there to his shop if I wanted to buy something -- a soda, some beer, a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk or some pasta sauce or whatever. It was a good bit of healthy exercise, and it was as local as it could get. He didn't keep a ton of inventory (it was not a big shop), but he'd stock whatever his customers wanted to buy. I used to smoke cigarettes. One day when I stopped into the bodega, the bodega man asked me why he kept seeing me walk past his place to the big corpo gas station next door. "They carry my brand of smokes, and you don't," I said. He asked me what I smoked. I produced a pack from my pocket and showed it to him. He said he wasn't sure if he could get them from his distributor but that he would try. He then asked me what I paid for them next door, and I didn't really remember so I guessed -- and I guessed low. "I think they're about six bucks." A few days later, I was back at the bodega to buy whatever it was and he was proud to show me that he'd made a spot for my cigarettes and got some in stock. They were marked at $7.42 (I remember that part very precisely). He asked if I wanted some, and I'm thinking to myself "Sure, dude. Fine. I'll buy your expensive cigarettes that you got in for me." The bodega man rang them up at $6.00. I paid the man, and said "Thank you!" They were $6.00 for me from then on, which made it the cheapest place in town (remember, I guessed low). His employees charged me $6.00 without any prompting on my part, too. They were only stocked because I wanted them, and they were sold to me at a price that I was very happy to pay. If anyone random wanted them, I'm sure that the price was $7.42. Or at least, this all lasted until one day, when the bodega man suddenly fell over dead while coaching his team at a kids' softball game. IIRC, it was a brain aneurysm. The bodega didn't open back up the next day or ever again. The last time I went by there -- years ago, now -- the windows that I could see past the plywood had been shattered. Sometimes I wonder about the Bud Light-emblazoned Weber charcoal grill that his beer distributor placed there as a part of a promo display. It was still in there when he died. I had asked him about that one day, just because I was curious: "Hey, so: What happens to stuff like that when the promotion is over and the next display shows up?" And he thought for a moment, and said "I'll tell you what: When the promotion is over, you can have it. It's your grill." I wish I could have made any parts of these stories up, but it's instead just kind of sad to recall. --- Anyway, enough stories of the bodega man. I now have questions for you. How many specialty items has Amazon kept in stock just because you, individually, wanted to buy them? How many items have you successfully (even if accidentally) negotiated an ongoing price with Amazon on? How many softball teams has your Amazon guy coached in your town? How many minty new Weber grills has Amazon offered to give you before they fell over dead? If your Amazon guy fell over dead tomorrow, would you even notice? (I only lived near that bodega for a few months. Want me to tell you some stories about the next bodega man?)
danesparza 10mo ago
"how would anyone rent a house?" From a private owner "How would home builders build model homes?" - This is a great point. I should have said "after the home is built" "How would Trusts manage real estate" - for residential real-estate, they wouldn't. An individual would. But I just want to point out that I never said that corporations shouldn't own real estate. I said they shouldn't own residential real estate. It's only as complex an nuanced as we make it. For most of history, individual people owned real estate. Only recently did we manage to screw that up. We can unscrew it.
- JuniperMesos 10mo ago
  > For most of history, individual people owned real estate. Only recently did we manage to screw that up. We can unscrew it. Corporate ownership of real estate is ancient - read about the land rents (and in-kind labor rents) that early Christian monasteries were entitled to in late Roman/early-middle-ages Europe, or how Buddhist monasteries have been funded from local levees for thousands of years. Or how the British crown as a corporate entity currently vested in Charles III still owns substantial chunks of British real estate. History is long and for most of it it was not the case that ordinary middle class people even existed, let alone owned houses.
bcrosby95 10mo ago
> For every complex and difficult problem, there is a simple, easy and wrong solution. Sure, but realize that also applies to the current status quo. Also, you cannot create the 'right' solution to a complex, nuanced social problem. You can only slowly shift the problem over time, one 'wrong' solution at a time.
- malfist 10mo ago
  Agree, but this simple solution isn't going to shift towards the right solution over time, and could very easily make housing shortage worse (especially as it would forbid home builders from making model homes, or keeping an inventory)

ProllyInfamous 10mo ago

I am currently suing a former residential LLC in small claims court. Going on three years, now... Justice is not blind. Both sides make this so difficult. And expen$ive!

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago

> Corporations shouldn't be allowed to own residential properties. Period Congratulations, you just ensured zero new housing creation in our cities. (Co-ops are corporations.)

javascriptfan69 10mo ago

Sorry, but this is just a bad idea. It's classic populist slop. The biggest driver in housing prices is under supply. The main source of under supply is individual home owners who consistently vote against good zoning to protect their economic interests. Corporations do not have the votes to strangle supply like individuals do.