Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Here’s the thing: landlords make a profit, right? Where does that profit come from? There are better and worse landlords, but any time there’s a profit there’s money being taken away from people.
No one is coming after your aunt, but that’s where it comes from. They’re leaching money away from tenants. Some are worse than others, but it is by definition parasitic if you’re making a profit and not providing a service.
FuryMaker@lemmy.world 1 week ago
But… they are providing a service.
czardestructo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I am a landlord, I’m sure I’ll catch hell but whatever. I bought a dumpster of a house in a popular metro area and proceeded to pump $300k of my own money as well as doing half the repairs myself because I’m physically and mentally able. I also do all the maintenance on the property and I’m on a first name basis with the tenants. They call me for anything they need. Not everyone has the means to operate like this, but I don’t suspect anyone in this thread will listen to those realities. I now own a house that is worth a decent amount more than my total investment so I rent it way below market rate because I have two awsome tenants living in symbiosis and I don’t want them to leave (selfishly, because its more work for me). But I guess according to this thread I’m a leach. I’m tired of reading these childish black and white arguments, the world is inherently grey, nothing is simple and easy to boil down but everyone sure likes to try and make a simple agreement.
ghen@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
In my head I think a fair solution would make it harder for landlords to buy one extra house every time they go to buy a new one. So one person renting out one house would be barely any harder than the current setup, but one person renting out two houses would start to feel like it might not be worth it etc.
CodeInvasion@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
I believe it could and should be made harder, but it is already a high barrier to purchase an investment property. For a business loan on residential housing, an investor needs 25-30% down payment for the property. Also I think the longest terms are 15 years and not 30, but I could be wrong.
All the small time landlords acquired their homes through primary residence loans which allows for PMI and smaller down payments that only exist because they are subsidized by the government. A primary residence loans either requires an owner to lie to the government and bank which puts them at serious liability in the sense they could make the loan due immediately if found out, or the owners have lived in that home for at least one year.
lurklurk@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Some countries tax properties higher if they’re not your primary residence for example. It might drive rents higher though
phthalocyanin@lemmy.world 1 week ago
they are in inflating artificial scarcity of a necessity
darreninthenet@lemmy.sdf.org 1 week ago
Is the implication here that if the landlords hadn’t bought the property, the people renting would be able to buy it?
ghen@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Yes that’s correct, if landlords couldn’t run a business then the overall pricing of housing would be low enough that a renter could afford it due to supply and demand of the greater housing market