• killingspark@feddit.org
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        12 days ago

        I swear my uncle is a good landlord. Keeps prices low, I swear he doesn’t rip off his renters. He would never do that.

        If there were as many good landlords as I have heard this story we wouldn’t have any problems Kyle, sit the fuck back down.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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          12 days ago

          Assuming this comment isn’t ironic: there is no such thing as a good landlord. Landlords are parasitic middlemen who live by leeching off the value created by workers. They contribute no value whatsoever.

          This is admitted even in mainstream economics, its termed rent-seeking.

          • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            there is no such thing as a good landlord.

            Okay, I’ll bite. I just bought a 4-bed/3-bath (actually 4 bathrooms, but bathroom math made it “3-bath”) because we are a family of four in an expensive tourist spot and wanted a guest bedroom for family and visitors. It just so happened one bed and a 3/4 bathroom is in an attached 1-bedroom apartment with its own kitchen and living room.

            So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately. So the choice is be a landlord, or don’t offer housing (I suppose I could make it an AirBnB and make even more money, but this area is already fucked for housing for that reason).

            So if there is no such thing as a good landlord, what would you recommend in a situation like this? Let someone live there for free? Then they’d be costing me money. Don’t rent it out? AirBnB?

            • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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              12 days ago

              So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately.

              If you don’t need that space, then you might as well sell it and let another family make use of it instead.

              Yours is not a unique situation; a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out, and they have a lot of extra rooms and space they no longer need. Its the right decision anyway, as you’re now free to be more mobile, and get rid of all the years of accumulated junk.

              • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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                12 days ago

                a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out,

                And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn’t moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially “downsizing” to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?

                Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young’uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren’t in a position to buy a house and wouldn’t want to.

                This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.” Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.

                • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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                  12 days ago

                  This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.”

                  Not the same at all, as lawyers do work to get paid.

                  Landlords rent-seek by charging access to important and scarce property that they themselves don’t use. They extract value through ownership alone, and add no labor value of their own to the process, that the tenants as owners couldn’t do for themselves.

                  If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?

                  What gives you the right to these people’s paychecks? If you’re not using it, then sell it, and don’t rent-seek.

                  There is nothing defensible about being a landlord. Its not exactly the same as owning slaves or owning capital, but all three are based on absentee ownership and extracting value from working people.

              • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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                12 days ago

                Sure you can argue they dont need that space, but a lot of kids return after college. If I had kids I’d only downsize once they are well established. It’s about ensuring the security of your family and ensuring they have a place to come back to.

                Is it better to let that sit space vacant for 4+ years though?

              • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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                11 days ago

                So you’re saying that person should sell their house because one of the rooms is unoccupied? What if their oldest loses their job and can’t find a new one, but has to move back, and then can’t because they downsized to a smaller house?

                I’m not so sure that is a great solution.

                • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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                  11 days ago

                  What if their oldest loses their job and can’t find a new one, but has to move back, and then can’t because they downsized to a smaller house?

                  What if their oldest loses their job and now for no fault of their own the renter is suddenly forced to find a new place to live to accommodate the landlords son? But they’ve been spending their money on rent so they don’t have enough savings to find a decent place?

          • mspencer712@programming.dev
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            12 days ago

            Suppose a person owns an apartment building. What’s the process they should follow to behave as a good person should?

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              12 days ago

              This has nothing to do with being a “good” person.

              That said.

              They could create a housing cooperative where all the tenants are owner-members and share the property collectively. If they live in the building too they can also be an equal owner-member. If they live somewhere else, they have to give up ownership.

            • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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              12 days ago

              No ones acquires an entire apartment building in the first place with the purpose of living in it. They do it to become rent-seeking parasites.

              But to your hypothetical, they could create a co-op as @queermunist@lemmy.ml mentioned.

              • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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                12 days ago

                Not an apartment complex, but a building makes sense.

                I’m not saying it’s just, but there are some loans that allow you to buy a quadplex but you have to live there. You are free to rent out the remaining units.

              • jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works
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                10 days ago

                wrong, run down apartments occasionally are cheaper than bulk climate controlled storage units while being completely usable for that purpose

        • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          I don’t think I could rip off anyone if I decided to rent my place when I move. Hoping to keep it for my kid, but I’d basically charge the bare minimum, would even show the tenant what I pay as the owner so they’d understand. I wouldn’t use it as a profit source, but because land is scarce and I just happen to have spent years owning this.

          But even then it may not be worth, sell it to a new owner and move on. I’m not greedy by any means, just want to be comfortable.

          • killingspark@feddit.org
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            12 days ago

            It would still be someone else paying you to keep your properties value up while receiving nothing of value for their money. You wouldn’t be on the same level as an intentionally evil landlord. Just be aware that you would still be siphoning money from a worker into your pocket.

            • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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              12 days ago

              I posted elsewhere in this thread, some people want to rent. There is a market for legit renters without ripping them off. If it costs $2800 for my mortgage/hoa/utilities and I only charge $2800, I don’t see an issue. Any issues are coming out of my pocket at that price.

              I don’t even know if I want to rent to someone, that’s a whole other set of headaches. I’d probably offer it to my kid, then move on. It’s not an income to me, but property is hard to come by, I would have to think about it. I’ve already paid into it, banks got their share, I went through a lot of trouble to get it, so it’s not like giving away tickets to a concert I couldn’t make.

              Also I wouldn’t be “siphoning” anything, I’m renting what I own, just like toro car rentals. No one is making them do it. But my location is very great, near public transit, near two very recently built town centers, trails, lakes, etc. it’s not like they’re paying for a tent. Can move here for a year or so and find out it’s exactly what they want or what they hate.

              • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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                12 days ago

                I don’t even know if I want to rent to someone, that’s a whole other set of headaches.

                I live with my elderly parents, taking care of them until they move into a nursing home or worse (although I’m not sure death is actually worse than a nursing home). In the meantime, I bought myself a small house nearby that I’m renovating and I plan to move there after I close out my parents’ house. I’m genuinely terrified of renting it out after having put so much time and effort into it. A lot of people rent in this neighborhood and I’ve seen firsthand what some tenants do to places.

                But if I do rent it out, I’m a shitty scumlord? I’m a better person if I don’t rent it?

                • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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                  12 days ago

                  But if I do rent it out, I’m a shitty scumlord? I’m a better person if I don’t rent it?

                  this is my issue too. clearly the collective “landlord” that people are talking about are people that hoard homes and rent them out as an income. thats a bit much. but someone who just rents a single property, maybe in the city nearby where they used to live before they moved to a quieter area, i don’t see as an issue. a condo in a city could be a great place for a person to rent while they decide if that city is for them, or until their career takes them elsewhere. i don’t see renting as a problem

                  the problem in my opinion is these properties being bought up by corporations who follow no real set of laws and gouge renters in shitty apartments, coorborate with other apt buildings and price fix the area. that is a problem to me. renting from an older person or family who very possibly lived in the home you’re going to rent, so fucking what. do it or don’t, but don’t lump them in with corporation owned apt complexes and actual slumlords.

            • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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              11 days ago

              It would still be someone else paying you to keep your properties value up while receiving nothing of value for their money.

              Is not living on the street not really something of value? I feel that is something of value, isn’t it?

              I dunno, I don’t have any interest in becoming a landlord but I commonly see people considering them as the most evil people in the world no matter what and it does confuse me a little bit. People always say landlords are always evil, but there are tenants who are weeks or months late on their rent, they destroy the place, etc, it doesn’t seem like such a dream job to me.

              • killingspark@feddit.org
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                11 days ago

                Is not living on the street not really something of value? I feel that is something of value, isn’t it?

                Just compare it to buying property where you continously pay off your credit. You get something in return, ownership of a property. Just because you are too poor to afford that, thus being forced ot pay rent, you receive significantly less for the money you spend on housing. Also, and this might be a weird stance for americans, I don’t think anyone should be facing the choice of being able to pay rent and ending homeless on the street.

                I dunno, I don’t have any interest in becoming a landlord but I commonly see people considering them as the most evil people in the world no matter what and it does confuse me a little bit.

                They commonly siphon off income from workers to keep their properties value up. This is just pararsitic behaviour.

                People always say landlords are always evil, but there are tenants who are weeks or months late on their rent, they destroy the place, etc, it doesn’t seem like such a dream job to me.

                So bad tenants are an excuse to be an evil parasite towards every tenant there is? Also, being a landlord isn’t just a job. It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.

                • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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                  11 days ago

                  Just compare it to buying property where you continously pay off your credit. You get something in return, ownership of a property. Just because you are too poor to afford that, thus being forced ot pay rent, you receive significantly less for the money you spend on housing. Also, and this might be a weird stance for americans, I don’t think anyone should be facing the choice of being able to pay rent and ending homeless on the street.

                  So you’re saying that poor people should just… not live anywhere and instead should live on the street? I’m not sure I get your point, because if that is your point, it’s not a very good one.

                  They commonly siphon off income from workers to keep their properties value up. This is just pararsitic behaviour.

                  Sure they’re all evil parasites, whatever you say, I don’t think a large corporation renting out multiple buildings jumping at the chance to raise rent and/or evict someone who is even slightly late on rent is the same as an older man renting out a spare room in his house ever since his oldest moved out?

                  So bad tenants are an excuse to be an evil parasite towards every tenant there is? Also, being a landlord isn’t just a job. It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.

                  So bad tenants being excused from any culpability means that all landlords are automatically evil no matter what?

                  It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.

                  It is providing a place to stay for people who can’t otherwise afford one…? Or should those people just live on the street?

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          I had a friend who was a landlady, but as an anarchist she more or less rented her building at cost so as to not need to sell it while she was taking care of her parents

    • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      My parents own multiple rental properties and completely straight face told me it’s a charity cause they rent to people who can’t afford homes.

      Meanwhile I’m engaging with my mutual aid group every week handing out about 400 meals, and survival gear for people who can’t afford anything.

      Glad their fucking charity has turned enough profit to pay off the rentals, their main home, and their vacation spot though. /s

    • Commiunism@beehaw.org
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      12 days ago

      They kinda are necessary, given how they’re the byproduct of capitalism’s private property model and its commodification.

      You could technically remove them by having the state manage all the housing, but that’s overly idealistic given how that’d go against the ruling class interests which would cause heavy lobbying by big landowners. It would also make the state a monopoly landowner which would have its own implications.

      In other words, they’re necessary not because they’re useful, but because of how dogshit the system is.

    • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      People not understanding the actual cost of owning and maintaining a house is my only argument for landlords. Or if you maintain it yourself it’s a knowledge and time requirement.

      Not saying landlords did a great job maintaining the rentals I’ve lived in. But there was definitely a point in my life where renting made more sense than owning a house.

      We really need more control on rent prices so only high density housing is rentable. Or something, I don’t have answers for why my shitty house is worth 70% more than it was 5 years ago.

      • Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 days ago

        My housing coop charges 38% market rate rent, maintains the common area, has a property manager, and provides units fridge/stove/furnace/AC, on 46 three bedroom townhouses.

        So either landlords are wildly inefficient with their expenses, or they are taking a crazy margin over their operating expenses.

        • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          Right, I’m not arguing that landlords are good. They seem to be a symptom of a system set up to encourage their shitty behavior.

          I do wonder if a housing co-op is protected by law in some way. Or more likely it relies on a few people having good intentions who are running it. A housing co-op with no intent of profiting, ever, would be a good system imo.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        There are companies that would do the maintenance for you, so I think if that was your concern, you could roll the dice with those while still actually owning the house.

        But I will say if you aren’t going to be somewhere more than 2 years anyway (university or a work assignment), renting could make sense.

  • Chivera@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    And then they raise rent. For what? They haven’t upgraded anything. They haven’t added any of that value to the property. Every year the house gets older. Cars lose value every year even if you maintain it perfectly.

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 days ago

      And then they try to fuck you over when you leave the place by pinning all the costs of normal dilapidation on you. Fortunately where I live the law forbids it but it doesn’t stop them from trying every time.

    • 🍉 Albert 🍉@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Good tenants make the neighborhood more desirable. So the rent being raised is a way to punish good Tennant, and steal their hard earn benefit from their existential labour.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      12 days ago

      If there were only a set number of cars available and creating more was prohibitively expensive, cars would appreciate in value as well.

      And to be clear, I’m not talking about the house; building more of those is expensive, but doable. It’s building more land that’s the tricky part

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 days ago

        When I did a vacation in Sri Lanka our guide told us some cars appreciated in price because the government increased (I believe it was that) import taxes.

        Edit: Appreciation due to car scarcity

          • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            11 days ago

            (This was way after covid).
            If I remember it correctly, the government is heavily restricting import of foreign brands.
            Our guide drove an imported japanese EV.

    • Patches@ttrpg.network
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      11 days ago

      I’m not a landlord but the taxes go up every single year. Home insurance goes up every single year. Both often by a lot. Compared to 2019 my taxes are up 45% and my home insurance is up 500%.

      The land value is up purely because they ain’t making any more of it.

      The cost to repair everything goes up every year. A part of my washing machine broke again. Part was $20 in 2017. Part was $60 4 months ago. Post Tarifs it will probably be closer to $100. Nevermind the labor if I can’t DIY.

      Plenty of reasons for costs to go up each year.

      Real question is :

      Why the fuck aren’t the wages going up?

      If that too kept up with inflation since the 1970s then we’d all be happier then pigs in shit.

  • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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    12 days ago

    Landlord said to me “property tax has gone up. This is my only form of income. Will need to increase rent”

    Told him “yeah, everything has gone up and my paycheck is still the same”.

    Like, these types of relationships are so parasitic. This is the “nice” mom and pop style landlord too that every liberal seems to want to give a pass too.

    Sure, are they less bad than the big corporate faceless landlords? Yes. But the entire relationship is the problem.

    They get to justify forcing me out of my home because the value of the house that they own WENT UP.

    That’s why their property tax is more. They literally own something that is more valuable and making it further impossible for me to ever buy a place of my own.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      If they offered to let you buy it for the fair market value of the home, would you? That’s the only viable way for them to extract that house value without evicting you. A fair answer could be absolutely, and perhaps that should be something renters are given some rights to do, but just pointing out that a tax assessment doesn’t mean they have usable money unless they can do something to cash in.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          That is unfortunate.

          Old guy or younger guy? If this is their retirement income, they would probably be better off selling it and putting the proceeds into a nice account.

          Of course those accounts also profit off of the inconvenience of others, but with social security all messed up, some form of screwing with the active working generation is needed to model retirement of the older generation, and a financial account is less egregious than sitting on potentially available housing stock.

          • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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            11 days ago

            I think I can answer most of your questions by saying he comes over to discuss the lease in a Mercedes Maybach. An SUV that starts at $178,000.

            I don’t think age or other things really matter at that point.

            He owns multiple properties and houses.

            But, still, my entire point is that this relationship in itself is what needs to die. It’s not this individual dudes fault. It’s a system that allows people like this to exist that produce nothing.

    • Tja@programming.dev
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      11 days ago

      If that’s their whole retirement investment (as they said it’s their only income, no idea about us retirement details) if they don’t increase your rent, their net income will GO DOWN. Prices of everything also went up for them, if you think it’s hard with constant income, imagine with declining income.

      The value of their house going up is useless to pay for bread.

      You should get a bigger paycheck, average wage growth is around 5% in the US, higher than inflation even.

        • Tja@programming.dev
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          11 days ago

          They probably had a job for many decades, it’s how they bought and paid the house.

          • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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            11 days ago

            And now they are taking away the next generations ability to buy and pay for a house by making them fund their retirement.

            • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
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              11 days ago

              People Mike that are not tge reason housepricees increase so mich that is 99% big speculators owning thousands oft units and hiking prices and rents.

            • Tja@programming.dev
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              11 days ago

              How are they taking it away? There have always been people who rent and people who buy. Someone renting doesn’t prevent you from buying.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        11 days ago

        Sounds like they should get an actual job, rather than expecting someone else to pay for their retirement; someone who probably won’t get to retire themselves

        • Tja@programming.dev
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          11 days ago

          If it’s their only income source I assume they are retired. If they aren’t, you are absolutely right.

          • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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            11 days ago

            Why do we have to sacrifice our future ability to retire and own a house because they bought all the houses and retired first?

            • Tja@programming.dev
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              11 days ago

              How are the two related? It’s not a zero sum game, there’s new houses being built all the time.

              • dastanktal@lemmy.ml
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                11 days ago

                There are studies recently released that show that the people who are buying houses 20 years ago are the same people buying houses today. It is a zero-sum game because nobody else is able to buy a house, especially not if they’re younger.

  • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    You know what’s the fastest way to make landlords disappear? Ask about some broken shit around the house that they are required by law to fix. Radio silence for months guaranteed. Until the next rent increase of course.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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      11 days ago

      For a lot of them, they don’t even care if there’s tenant turnover, especially if its a high-demand area. There’s no incentive to fix a broken AC; the tenants already signed the year lease. They can get to it next year when its time to clean up the place for the re-listing.

  • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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    11 days ago

    We don’t have an instance stance on landlord apologia, but maybe we should make one, based on the number of people from other instances defending these mooching rent-seeking parasites.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      11 days ago

      i hope you do; seeing it is a depressing reminder of how much americans think that exploitation like this is okay and even more depressing to see people exploited like this want to perpetuate it.

  • Grian@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Once again, may I introduce you to GEORGISM.

    Please, I know lemmy is a bit left leaning, and georgism are mostly libertarians/liberal, but the ideology is so centrist and common sense I’m sure even far left communist advocates can get behind it.

    • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      Leftists are aware of Goergism. They don’t generally take it seriously because it’s just ‘one weird trick’ reformism that’s trying to save capitalism from itself. It doesn’t change what capitalism is or the historical process it drives, it’ll get clawed back immediately just like every other social democratic reform, and it would cause a full on capital revolt if you somehow magic lamp’ed it into practice such that you might as well just do the real revolution and actually overthrow capitalism for the same amount of effort.

      but the ideology is so centrist and common sense

      I really just commented as an excuse to lol at this line.

    • Fatur_New@lemmy.ml
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      12 days ago

      Georgism is great but we also have problem with corporations so georgism isn’t enough. We need socialism or at least distributism

      • Grian@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Georgism is an ideology broadly based on taxing the full value of land, in order to prevent rentseeking.

        So rather than taxing people for the property they built/bought, you tax the land which no one made.

        The value of the land is based on the progress society made in that area, so when you tax the full unimproved value of the land, you prevent landlords from essentially leeching on the results of society progress that they did not directly contirubute to.

        You can still buy land, but when you do you must pay full rent to the government, so technically, if the government did own all the land and lease it out for rent, it would be goergist in practice(but not in spirit, since goergism wants to protect property rights)

      • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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        12 days ago

        It boils down to property tax as a means of preventing land accumulation and tax revenue generation.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

        I don’t see how that would have worked even when it was invented.

        Right now you can see how the rich own all the land and have no need to use or sell it. This way they create a shortage and can charge a higher price for the land they use or sell. IMO the only way to break this up to stop charging property tax at all - because all land ownership goes back to the state. If someone wants to use land they rent it from the state. If they do not use or misuse rented land the land goes to a different renter (or to the state).

        • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          Doesn’t Singapore or some other country have a system like this, where you don’t own the land, just get long term leases

    • cub Gucci@lemmy.today
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      12 days ago

      Hey there. Never heard of it, actually. Thanks, I’ll find a time to read about it.

      What I find interesting in this particular libertarian initiative so far, is that it is addressing an existing systematic issue. Almost all other libertarians I come around seem to be speaking about their and everyone else’s morality and righteousness, naively thinking that once we all become moral and righteous, society would become as well.

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    11 days ago

    When I married my wife and she moved in we tried renting out her house with a property management company. She got one tenant and had that tenant for over 2 years with no complaints and we never raised the rent, just enough to cover taxes going up too.

    But when we wanted to move to a larger house we gave her an 8 month notice we couldn’t renew since the market is so bad and we needed to sell. And my wife wasn’t profiting at all, she was still in the red from the repairs and setting up the house to rent out. We offered her like $10k off the price.

    Anyway long story short, the tenant gave us hell for those 8 months, and when she moved out we found she never complained about anything because she ignored all the problems which made things worse and the house needed thousands of more dollars to prepare and sell.

    She’ll never try being a landlord again, she hated it and the tenant shit talked her “landlord” on Facebook all the time like she was some evil monster.

    I don’t know how anyone else does the landlord thing, this must be all the ones run by evil corporations.

    This was a house my wife bought for like $150-180k originally.

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Standard rent is at least 1-1.5% of current not original value per month and taxes are about that per year.

      you probably bought for 150 you earned 100,000 when it ballooned up to 250k rented it for at least 2500 a month x24 months or 60,000 paid 6000 each to taxes and management pocketed another 48,000

      When you sold realizing that cool 100k you naturally had to do all the repairs and upkeep you had been putting off so you ended up coming out of pocket for “thousands”

      In the end you netted 140k for doing 10 hours work once whereas the median worker earns 200-250

      You probably charged here so much to ensure you made the “market rate” eg people like you that she had no funds saved to actually move and you probably nickel and dimed her deposit away for stuff that was actually on you.

      Where am I wrong?

      • xantonin@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Wow lots of assumptions here. My wife only rented it out enough to cover her expenses (mortgage, insurance, property management, etc). She only netted $100 a month as “profit” but that doesn’t include taxes at the end of the year, and she was paying towards $6000 she owed to house repairs. It doesn’t include repairs needed from normal wear and tear and tenant damage.

        A lot of your assumptions are based on profit towards selling the house, which in this situation means its not sustainable on its own without you covering everything out of pocket.

        The real kicker here is that her tenant made more money than my wife. The tenant was making at least $10,000/month per bank statements.

        Your other comments are false also. State laws here are very clear on what can be charged as a deposit.

        None of that was my point though, and I realize sharing that here on a meme was dumb on my part. I’m not looking for sympathy, I was just feeling a rare moment of sharing an experience often overlooked: two hard working people who independently buy a starter home, meet later, and one moves in with the other and tries to rent out their house. Landlords aren’t always evil but your reply demonstrated all the immediate assumptions and biases. After all, why should anyone be allowed to own more than one home, right? Especially if they try to rent it out? I guess Air BNB is better.

        A lot of us lived in rentals and heard talk about the dream of rental supplemental income, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and not really feasible without an insane rate or having enough cash to not pay a mortgage. It’s probably why more companies are trying to buy up houses.

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          If your wife was only clearing 100 per month in profit from a rental house you all must be just amazingly bad at whatever you were doing and should have sold the house as soon as you weren’t living in it. Rent has skyrocketed and home value continually risen quickly for the last 40 years. I’m not even sure how this is possible.

    • krolden@lemmy.ml
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      11 days ago

      Tough shit. Must be so inconvenient for you to not keep up on repairs to your own building. That’s on you.

    • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      I have managed a building with 8 units before. Never again.

      I once had a lady’s ceiling collapse. I then come to learn she’s been putting a bucket out to catch water for months, never told anyone about it. What should have been a quick 15 minute fix ended up being a total nightmare.

      Had one dude who was a heroin addict. Kept flushing needles. The plumbing had to be taken apart multiple times to get his needles out.

      Had a lady who kept adopting cats, wouldn’t get them fixed. She would then let them out into the hall to spray the walls with what was basically straight ammonia, except grosser.

      I could go on all day, trash fires, fucking litter, a phycological inability to break down cardboard. I think my blood pressure just spiked writing this.

      You couldn’t pay me to be a landlord. People are awful.

    • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Mod removed my post without reason. Maybe cussing offended them.

      The market seems to self select for bad landlords. All the well intentioned ones I know got burned and stopped renting.

  • TheCompliantCitizen@lemmy.ml
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    11 days ago

    Owning 1 extra property and renting: Okay

    Owning apartment complex and renting: Okay

    Owing millions of single family homes and duplexes and rent hiking/price hiking the entire market: not okay

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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      11 days ago

      Owning 1 slave: Okay

      Owning a dozen slaves: Okay

      Owning hundreds of slaves: not okay.

      /s obviously

      /uj

      Of course slavery and landlordism aren’t identical in every respect, but they both are based on a parasite class doing no work, and extracting labor value from people who do. Large-scale vs small-scale doesn’t make landlording any more ethical.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        11 days ago

        Do you have a problem with public housing or are landlords okay when it’s the state?

        • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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          11 days ago

          Publicly-owned and controlled housing is the solution to this problem, yes. Then rents, upkeep, and all housing questions are determined at the level of public/political decision-making and not by petty tyrant landlords acting only in the interests of profit.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          11 days ago

          You support this alternative with completely a completely different dynamic and incentives??

          Another win for pithy internet hypocracy gotcha debatelord!

    • ano_ba_to@sopuli.xyz
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      11 days ago

      I wish people here understand this. It costs money to buy property, and so effort needed to be applied into buying one was done beforehand by being good with money. Rich people don’t need to go through this, and should rightfully be criticized.

  • n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    NGL if you are paying 2/3 of your income to rent you need to move to another part of the world.

      • 37piecesof_flare@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        What did he say? Not a landlord myself, but I’m always curious to hear both sides. I think there can be good landlords, had one myself… Didn’t raise rent on us, took care of the place when things went wrong, even offered to sell the place to us but we weren’t ready financially at the time…

        Some people choose to rent instead of buying for the sake of not having to keep up with house maintenance, and in that case, the landlord I speak of, I’d argue was a good landlord. Win win for both parties. Not common, I know, but speaking in absolutes is rarely productive.