this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Your know, I guess experiences vary widely, but the landlords I know don't fit all the hate. For instance, one of my employees decided to rent her house instead of selling it when her family needed a bigger one. They've been renting to the same family for a decade or more without ever raising the rent. The family could not afford to buy any house, let alone the one they're in, so renting allows them to live in a kind of place they couldn't afford otherwise. My employee has let them skip rent a few times when times were hard.
I know a few similar stories. Maybe it's different with people who own apartment buildings or whatever, but I just don't see being a landlord as inherently bad. Like anything else, you can do it ethically or unethically.
Sounds like a problem with the price of housing, which is a not entirely unrelated issue.
Yeah, for sure - I live in southern California, which has about as high a cost of real estate as you're going to find, but that isn't caused by landlords. I mean, if you bought a new car and were selling your old one, you'd probably sell it for whatever the market would pay, right? Maybe if you're really well off you'd just give it to someone, but most of us are going to sell for the going rate. It's the same with houses. If I can easily get $500k for my house, I'm not going to list it for $400k just to be nice - I could use the money.
Do people feel like it's inherently more laudable to sell their house than to rent it? It seems like, as long as they're not gouging, they're doing more of a service by renting to people who can't afford to buy, and also covering all the costs of repairs and risk of damage that renters don't have to worry about.
I just don't get the hate broadly, though the management company who ran my daughter's apartment complex were assholes.
I work in a real estate adjacent field, part of the housing issue IS very much because of big companies and people just buying up all the houses to rent them for passive income.
I don't care if people have 2 or 3 houses but when they own 8 or 9 or hundreds then yea we have an issue.
Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. In every business, it's possible to be predatory. Big companies are doing some really shitty things, and we should try to figure out how to stop that.
But some people are saying that being a landlord is inherently unethical - the moment someone rents a property, they're a vile leach. I just think that's wrong.
My last land lord raised rent by 2.5x after the first year. When we moved out he kept the full security deposit because "the inside of the oven was dirty"
Your mileage may vary
4 beautiful words that worked wonders with my shitty landlord who tried to keep my deposit "normal wear and tear".
As soon as I stated that, the lady changed her tune completely.
Your landlord is allowed to raise it by that much? I'm Dutch and we have limits on how much rent can increase, which was a maximum of 4.1% in 2023.
Yes. My landlord is literally a corporation.
Doesn't matter either way. My landlord is an asshole who never fixes anything he says he will (even things he's legally supposed to.) Can't use the law against him because he's allowed to raise the rent any time he wants with a few simple changes to our lease.
I've never had a good landlord. Most of them are greedy trash.
I'm a land lord, did exactly what people say we all did. 15 years ago I bought two 200k homes for 30k each.. they are an income plan for my kids so they don't have to necessarily worry about taking a better paying job instead of something they want to do. Probably a little naive now. But I run the houses at a bare minimum profit just so the government won't come after me due running a loss on my taxes. I have raised rent only enough to do that. I pay for a property management firm to take care of the properties so that the tenants have 24 hour response to issues. I've had the same tenants for 12 years in both properties. Every 4 years or so I have one of the rooms that the tenants want renovated. It's a right off so doesn't costa fortune ava the house gets slowly updated. Not every landlord is an asshole. Some of us play the long game without screwing people. But I realize that I am part of the problem. I am part of the reason for less supply in the market. But selling my properties will make my children's lives less secure and I'm not willing to do that. So i do partially deserve some of the blame.
I don't see you having any blame. Supply and demand for housing includes everything, including rentals. You would be part of the problem if you bought those places and left them empty as vacation spots or something. You didn't, you're supplying them to people who I'm guessing wouldn't be able to buy them themselves. You're not driving up the cost of housing. I'd argue that, since you're charging less than you could, you're actually lowering it.
He literally is driving up the cost of housing. Rental markets are quite seperate to the actual housing market and people who own 3 houses, drive up the cost of buying a house. There is a good chance they can't afford to rent, yes, but only because of people like him buying housing they dint need to make a profit, they can afford the rent, so they would also He able to afford the mortgage for it if given the chance.
Have you purchased a house? Because this part is simply not true. You have to have a percentage of the cost up front. The more you have, the smaller the payments. Lots of folks who are renting out places put a lot down so the mortgage payments (and what they charge for rent) are much smaller than a first-time buyer can afford. Then you have the cost of property tax, maintenance, and repairs that the renter isn't liable for.
This is very much the problem with the Canadian real estate bubble. People are paying rental prices now that absolutely could have paid for a house 5 years ago. But now they are paying a dangerously high portion of their income. The problem is that their rental prices that they pay now wouldn't make the payments on the house today.
Not for myself, but yes, I have. And that's kind of my point. You have these arbitrary barriers to entry on home ownership that are designed to keep poor people out, since the can't afford these costs upfront, and can't save for them because they are either paying their landlords mortgage instead, or are paying money directly to the bank/asset manager/ whoever owns their rental. So it's in the banks best interest to not give them a mortgage.
And a mortgage plus maintainable and tax and everything else will be cheaper than renting, because if it wasn't landlords wouldn't be making money, so would raise rent
I think "designed to keep poor people out" is way off. People selling a product want nothing more than for other people to buy their product. The sellers of the house aren't the ones setting the mortgage details - they have nothing to do with it, they just want to sell the house.
But few people can afford to buy a house outright, so they have to borrow money. The bigger the percentage of the purchase price you have to borrow, the more the payments are going to be. That's not to punish poor people, it's because they're putting up their money so you can buy something, in return for them making a profit on their money.
You're still not getting it. Let's say I want to live in a house that costs $600k, but I don't have it. If I were to find a lender who would finance the whole thing (doubtful), the mortgage payments would probably be around $3k a month, and I can't afford that either. But let's say you have $300k to put down, so only have to finance another $300k, and your payments are more like $1500 a month, which I can afford. I pay you the amount that covers your mortgage, you end up paying property tax and other costs, but my rent is going into your property. If I live there for three years, you've gotten $54k in equity, even if the house's value itself didn't go up any, for just the cost of taxes and maintenance. Meanwhile, I got to live in a house that I flat out couldn't afford.
I was not blaming the people selling the house, I was blaming the banks for putting an arbitrary down payment on getting a mortgage to keep poor people out of home ownership, which benefits the banks as they are all heavily involved in property investment so benefit from more people renting either by directly being the landlords or simply from the increased housing demand from landlords wanting to buy as many properties as possible, thus driving up housing prices, which drives up mortgages and makes them more money.
Like you say, the banks male their money from interest on the loan, so the 20k down-payment they require is an arbitrary barrier to entry.
No, I get it, you're just making up a scenario that doesn't really happen. Like sure a landlord could in theory pay half the price of a house just to reduce mortgage costs so they can rent it out at half the market rate AND pay property tax and maintenance out of pocket, out of thr kindness of their golden hearts. They could also just buy the house outright and let you live in it for free and just make their profit off of the increase in house value. But obviously they won't. The landlord is going to charge you market rate for that 600k house which will almost certainly be more than 3k, because why wouldnt they? And even if they did, are the going to rent directly to you? Or are they going to advertise it and get a slew of offers of people wanting to live in a house for half price and so someone a little bit richer than you will offer them, say 1,750 for the house, because of supply and demand. And the vast majority of people aren't trying to live in houses they can't afford, they are just trying to live.
And even then, it's still not ethical, you're still exploring people for profit for their basic needs without adding any value to the system.
How the heck did you find not one but two 200k houses for 30k? Or are you saying you bought them for 30k and now they're worth 200k? Either way holy balls I wish I could do either of those lol
I assumed they meant they were just worth $30k when they bought them. That is a pipe dream that probably won’t happen again in any of our lifetimes.
This shows one of the most common things landlords tell themselves to justify it.
You tell yourself this, to make you feel better, but you don't acknowledge that almost all the money your tenants pay you is profit, since they are paying for the mortgage. Even if you rented at 0 immediate profit, for the entire time until you paid off the houses, you would have actually made 1.2million in profit, since you now own 2 houses at 600k each.
And those families, instead of paying a mortgage and ending with hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity, that they could refinance, or use to buy a better house or leave as inheritance for their kids, now have nothing, as all that money has gone to you.
There is no such thing as an ethical landlord. Even the """good""" ones are still exploring people's basic need for shelter to make them rich.
If you really wanted to be a "good" landlord offer those families the chance to buy the house with the 15 years of down payments they already made to you to start it off. But as you said they're an "income plan" for your kids I don't think you would do that.
I mean, I get what you're saying. And perhaps if my financial situation was better I could consider the option to offer the houses to the tenants. But as you suspect I will not trade my children's financial security just to be charitable. The rent I charge is 30%-40% below market value. I suspect if you were in my position you wouldn't be so inclined to give away your wealth either.
I was in your position, when my grandparents died I inherited a house, that people encouraged me to rent out. Instead I sold it and invested the money (specifically into a green energy fund.) As that way I still have my financial security, without being a landlord.
I realize you aren't going to agree, but these two situations aren't the same thing.
Why not?
Because to start with, I invested and risked my own money a much less bubbled deal estate market with a significant amount of my available capital. You invested someone else's money. I took all the risk, and you want me to give away all the profits from that risk. Even your "green" investments take advantage of workers, buy off shore parts, cost people their jobs. Why don't you donate all your profits to those people. Your entire argument is so steeped in hypocrisy that it's hard to even know if you're not just a troll.
No. I invested my own money? Idk where you're getting this idea from?
I took much more of a risk than you. Real Estate is typically more stable than stocks.
If you want to be ethical, yes.
In the sense that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. But that argument is just whattaboutism.
Because investing in those sectors is beneficial to them, it helps those companies raise funds, which benefits both the workers of those companies as well as promotes green energy which benefits all of us. Landlordism detracts value from the market.
I guess its easier to say this, so you can dismiss whatever I have to say so you dont have to go through the process of introspecting on your life and your choices to think about if you're actually doing the right thing, and maybe even coming to the conclusion you arent and needing to change your behaviour. That sounds like a lot of effort so its easier to just assume everything you do is right and just and anyone that criticises you is wrong by default. That way you get to keep living your life however you like without worrying about silly little things like morality.
This is getting old. Regardless you said you inherited a house, fwiw. You live how you want. I live in the way I want. I admit my part in Canada's housing crisis. But I couldn't sell my children's future for moral high ground. You come across as sanctimonious. You speak from an imagined high ground with the assumption that you know what is good for everyone. That's your right. So you do you. Have a good one.
I was just pointing out you could secure a future for your children without being a landlord. But like I said. Its obvious you dont give a shit. So just dont act like you do.
This is the whole "not all cops are bad a guy I know is a cop and he's nice" argument just for landlords.
Or you could phrase it about slave owners "my freind owns slaves, but he just owns the one and he treats them really well!"
Landlording is inherently immoral and explotative, not matter hoe """ethical""" the landlord is.
That's what I'm not seeing. Can you explain what makes it inherently immortal?
The explanation depends on how deep or philosophical you want to go on this conversation, but basically you are exploiting someone's basic need for shelter for massive profit, keeping trapped in the poverty cycle as they are having to pay rent to the landlord to pay their mortgage for them and so is much harder to save for their own house. As well as reducing supply of housing on the market, thus increasing prices and making it more innacessible.
Like imagine a group of a few wealthy people buying a town's supply of food then selling it back to the hungry residents at a 300% markup. They don't grow it, they don't transport it, cook it or chsnge it, they don't do anything that ads value, just buy it and sell it at a higher price, to the people that would have otherwise bought it for themselves. Do you consider that ethical?
Okay, that's clearly exploitative and unethical, but that's not inherently what landlords do. Anyone who sells products or services can do it in a way that's fair or is unfair. The mere act of selling something itself isn't unethical. Look at the conversations we have about drug companies. I don't think anyone argues that drug companies shouldn't be able to sell medication, or even make some profit for their research investments. The problem is when they price their drugs way above what's reasonable just because they know people are going to have to pay it.
Renting out a house isn't different from renting out anything else. You go on vacation and you need a car while there, but you don't want to buy one for a short time, so you rent one. The rental agency used their money to buy the car, then they rent it to you for something you're willing to pay for a week, and they make a profit from all the people who rent the car over its life. You both win. Why is it any different with a house?
This is exactly the problem with landlords. The argument for landlords being that some people can't afford to own a home becomes a bit moot when landlords buy up all the houses and rent them back at unaffordable prices.
Because you rent a car for, like you said, a vacation. That's like renting a hotel room. You rent a home to live in. If you could afford a mortgage, you'd buy a home. But landlords basically go "hey, the bank doesn't think you make enough money to make regular payments, so make those payments to me instead."
The problem most people have is their credit, not the mortgage payments. Both my mortgages (I'm not a landlord, but I do airbnb 3 months out of the year) are $1500/month, and most people pay that and more just for rent.
Nevermind the fact that some people are eligible to buy a home, but think they won't qualify so they dont try. I was in that group with a credit score of 680, which is acceptable for the first time home owners program. I was accepted, and now I own 2 homes.
You make it sound like that's the normal case, but it's just not so. Here's a Pew research article.
I don't mean to minimize it as a problem - it's a big one - but the vast majority of rental house landlords aren't big corporations buying up all the available places and jacking up prices, it's individual's who decided to rent their place out instead of selling it.
Drug companies produce the actual drugs though. They are creating value by making the drug and the money they make from selling it is their reward for creating value. Landlords do not build the house, so they do not create value.
And renting a car is different because its not something you need to simply survive and less importantly we don't have a car shortage. And also you typically don't rent a house just for a week most people rent houses for years and years until they can afford to buy a house, at which point their landlord has made 10s or maybe even hundreds of thousands off of them, while doing little work and adding no value. Like I'm not arguing against hotels or even renting in general, I'm against landlording for private homes, because its inherently unethical, just like buying all the food in a supermarket and selling it to the same supermarket customers at a markup to make profit for no work.
I guess we just disagree. I've said why I think they can be providing a useful service and create a win/win situation, but you don't see it that way. Good discussing with you.
By this reasoning, farming for anyone other than yourself is also inherently immoral.
Farmers exploit someone's basic need for food for massive profit, keeping people trapped in the rental cycle as they are having to pay for food from the farmer to pay their business loan for them and so is much harder to save for their own farm.
Farmers grow the fucking food you dunce. Do landlords build the fucking house? No.
I was just going to have a discussion about housing, but something in what you said made me curious about something else- Hopefully this isn't too personal of a question, but do you make many friends with that sort of approach to conversation?
Yes, I'm only abrasive to people who are purposefully being dense and I'm lucky enough to have surrounded myself with intelligent people.
Idk I feel like there's also something to be said to have the freedom to just buy another house after saving a bit. It sounds so easy, but most families would have to sell their house in order to upsize.
Never moved but my mom was in credit unions and the trade in of the house was pretty common. In all fairness, there were many "multiple apartment complex owners" at that same CU, they were notably colder and exclusively about numbers (i.e. throwing a fit and sending another appraiser to their barely functional building to get a dozen k).
Yeah, there are honestly a lot of reasons to rent instead of buy. One of the main ones is uncertainty about the market. Lots of times people think that the prices in an area are inflated and likely to come down. If you buy, you risk taking a big loss. The landlord, in that case, is the one with the risk. Similarly, if you don't plan to stay in an area for several years, it can be more trouble (and even cost) than it's worth. I've also known people who simply don't want to be bothered with the upkeep, even if they can afford to buy. There's a real freedom in being able to just pick up the phone when anything isn't working, there's a leak, or whatever.