You got a raise? It’s my raise now.
i got rent increase notices immediately after every ‘covid check’ was announced.
Which is why I plan to never move. My rent has never gone up and I keep printing out and signing extensions. I have the laziest landlord ever. Guy can’t even be bothered to raise my rent since that would involve some level of work on his part.
He may just be satisfied with you as a tenant and doesn’t want to raise the price so you will stay. Not every landlord is a dick.
Or he’s just lazy as you said.
I’d second the “not every landlord is a dick”, some will even lower the rent price when the demand goes down even though I continue to rent, not start a new one.
But that’s relatively rare, unfortunately
My mother is like this. She rents out her house for under half it’s market value.
The tenants know they have it good though and do a lot of things that really should be my mother’s responsibility like pay for or do minor repairs when they come up.
I have told my mom that the needs to raise rent at least some because she’s not saving enough for big things that will come up like roof replacement, but she’s terrified of her tenants leaving.
Me too! My landlord didn’t even ask if I was impacted by covid, or if I was even still employed… He just raised the rent to a level I’ve never seen before.
Were you not on a lease? Lease contracts always lock your rent in for the time period they’re good for.
Some leases lock in yearly increases, though, as part of auto-renewal. The last house I looked to rent included an auto-renewal clause with a fucking 5% annual increase. I noped out even before getting to the part that made me as the renter responsible for replacing the sewer if there was ever a problem with it.
first thing the current landlord did when he bought the building is raise the rent for all tenants… despite everyone having leases–the terms and obligations of existing leases is supposed to transfer to a new owner. but they don’t care, and they 100% would have raised them further (and in addition to the other increases since), had anyone pursued any sort of action against them. we have very little in terms of tenant protection laws here.
How bad is it where you live? Where I’m from that would be a fairly easy small claims court suit for breaxh (or done in bulk, you’d get all the tenants together and do a class action for breach).
Man, I went years without a cost of living increase… I told my landlord this, and that same year he raised my rent over 10% with only 60 days notice. That’s illegal in my state on two different levels. I met with an attorney, and the was basically nothing I could do that wouldn’t result in me needing to move out.
At the time, the rent was really bad in the city. I could find a comparable place to live, but the moving cost and hassle was too high.
This is how landlords do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it.
My landlord keeps getting violations from the HOA, and the HOA is straight up making rules up. I can’t sue the HOA for this (which is 100% what needs to happen to get them to stop), because there’s a legal layer between the owner and the tenant…
So yes, shit is broken. He refuses to call them out or take legal action against their harassment of my family. This is really obvious stuff, too. The latest violation involves them accusing me of having open flame torches on my patio. I own solar powered LED lanterns. They want to fine my landlord $100 for this.
I told him I won’t pay it. They are charging HIM, not me, and there’s nothing in my lease or the HOA’s CC&R’s saying I can’t own solar lanterns.
This guy has violated state, federal, and city laws over the last half a decade. He’s also a slumlord that never fixes anything. He once made me wait a year to get my front door handle repaired (sure, I could have fought that, but then he’d have just raised my rent.)
I hope he gets fined, and I hope he fucks around, because I’ve got an attorney ready.
I’m not saying to never take shit from your landlords, everyone… But at some point you have to stand up and tell them to fuck off. Rent is out of control in many cities right now, but that’s not an excuse for the often abusive landlord-tenant systems. Landlords should NOT exist.
I’m sorry you’re having to go through that. I’ve had a nightmare landlord before and it really fucks with your mental wellbeing. Best of luck to you!
I just bought a house from a guy who had been renting it out for thirty years and I’m now in the process of fixing all the shit he neglected during that time. I can’t believe that anyone was willing to rent this place for any amount of money, let alone the $1300/mo he had been getting for it. The kitchen ceiling was sagging down a foot in two places and held up literally only by the paint and caulk, thanks to mice - I got showered with mouse poop and urine-soaked ceiling tile material when I demo’ed it. The electrical outlets were all partially blocked by the baseboard radiators, which was probably a good thing because they were all ungrounded 1940s-era receptacles with the hot and neutral wires hooked up in reverse. One light switch caused the circuit breaker to trip as soon as I flipped it. Not a single door in the house could actually be closed (not even the front door) so I had to reset the hinges; one door looked like he had tried to fix the problem using a beaver with dental problems.
He sold the house as “rental ready” and I’m five months into the renovation now. I like to think the house appreciates my being here.
It isn’t in Charles Village by any chance is it? I’ve got some war stories with Ben.
Nah, never take shit from your landlord. They’re expendable leeches on society.
Landlords should NOT exist.
There is the Georgism position where rent is discouraged with tax which is set to share out society’s share of the value of limited natural resources
It’s hard to run a civilisation without landlords, since some people are not in a position to buy land and need to borrow it.
since some people are not in a position to buy land and need to borrow it.
Some people have no desire to buy land, and want to borrow it. More than half the people I know (and I’m in my 40s now) have no desire to hold the liability of needing to sell a property to be able to move halfway across the country or world. They don’t “own” their, so they see having to literally own it as a problem. And they are willing to pay more in rent than a mortgage (which happens regularly in some areas around me).
There are shit landlords, and there are decent landlords. I think half the problem is that while some areas have great protection for poor renters, they often don’t have great holistic renter protections. In my state, for example, government-subsidized rentals have the most apartment quality regulations. But after that, you’re expected to leverage your rent to force action… without actually withholding it in any way somehow. And small business rentals? Even worse. I have a buddy who runs a breakfast joint. The heating system in the building died, so the landlord said “well if you want to stay open in the winter you should fix that”. So he installed a minisplit and the other business in the building had to close for the winter. Ultimately, both businesses started withholding rent (against lawyer’s advice) and he finally caved and called his renters “cheap bastards” as he got heating installed (and it was like a comedy that the heating company walked out on him twice for his after-contract renegotiations).
I’m ok with someone owning and renting out a building. But it should be somewhere near the level of quality the renter would maintain the place if they owned it.
If there’s more need to sell land then land prices will inevitably go down. Then everything gets better. At that point, we can afford to have multiple properties while trying to sell.
They should abolish buy to let mortgages. How is it fair that a renter literally pays for the mortgage by proxy but doesn’t have a stake in the home.
I am not being snarky. Can you explain your comment? I don’t understand what you are saying.
A common landlord technique is putting a minimum down payment on a house and having their renters pay off the morgage. I think the above commenter is saying that it should not be allowed to get a massive loan on a house that you aren’t going to live in.
People (talking mom & pop) should not be able to purchase a home simply for the purpose of renting it out.
I agree with that.
The problem is the reason people do that is because of a few things.
- The ROI is absolutely retarded. My last house (I live in don’t rent) I made 800k in 10 years. That’s insane. Find me an index that turns 500k into 1.3mil in 10 years
- Passive income if you don’t do shit that landlords should be doing like regular maintenance.
The bourgeoisie loves this one neat trick: just let a few of the poors own a little something, and they’ll fight off the rest of the poors without even needing to be told.
Seriously though, anyone want to sell out a generation for a bit of land and monies? I mean, you’ll never be able to pay for unnecessary things with just values and integrity
I will go to my grave that society writ large is broken. It’s not just the rich. Everyone has become a selfish turd out to get a buck on the backs of everyone else. The difference is that some of us are self-aware enough to see it in ourselves.
It’s depressing if you don’t step back and laugh at it all.
I was literally just thinking about this on my way home yesterday. Society is completely broken, there is no us only ME. this is especially terrible in the United States where we fetishize “rugged individualism.” You don’t care for anyone but yourself. Look out for #1…
So when the choice is “money for me” or “consider my impact on my surroundings” the result is “lmfao consider others? It would be stupid for me to not make this money at the expense of others.”
Every shitty self serving decision made for ones own profit is the “smart thing” to do, even if it was literally destroying the entire town around you. I hate it.
This is just whataboutism thou. Are you a landlord?
Yes and I charge well under market value (like $500 under what I could get) and my tenant does not have to live on the street. Would you rather I kick her out or let her live in my house for free?
You are trying to pass the idea that society is already broken so everybody should just do what the fuck they want. Your are part of the side of society that is actually broken, so all your tirade sounds pretty hypocritical.
S&P 500 did better than that in the last 10 years. I really hate that housing has gone the way it has, because on average it’s not as insanely profitable comparable to other asset classes as people make it out to be, it’s pretty comparable.
I wish it wasn’t comparable though, because we’re just parking a ton of cash to do nothing with it.
Capitalism is dumb.
True except it’s a little different than equity investments because of the ease of leverage. No one is going to loan me a half million dollars to invest in the S&P500 but they’ll have no problem giving me a house to rent out (if I can prove income).
Yeah that’s true
And #3 - redundancy so a family member doesn’t end up homeless. I have family that does fairly well for itself. When their first kid turned 18, they bought a rental house in case she needed it someday. When their second kid turned 18, they bought a rental house in case he needed it someday.
So they own two buildings “for the purpose of renting it out”. Building number 2 is now perma-“rented” to kid number 2 because he needed it.
Also, bullet point #1. The NDQ typical long-term return is approximately 11%. Due to recent bubble bursts, it’s down to 10.4%. Importantly, that’s almost exactly 1.3mil in 10 years from 500k. Everything I’ve ever read and learned from investing or investors repeats that rental real-estate is a stable investment, not an aggressive one.
Good points and I don’t feel like counterpointing a lot of it because I’m tired.
I will say though on the returns. I used the 10 years in my house as an example but recall that was not a steady increase. Normally housing should be well below an index. What happened say the last 4 years was that the price of my house went from about 700k to 1.3mil. the 10 year example masks what I was saying. Houses had to 100% be returning more than an index the last 5 years otherwise how do you explain the rampant greed? Corporations AND individuals have been drunk on overleveraging on the residential market. They’re not doing that for index rate returns otherwise they’d be in an RRSP.
I don’t think the mom and pops are really the problem (in fact, this is I think one of the few viable ways for regular people to actually get ahead) but all of the things surrounding housing. One can get place renting for $2k, but can’t get approved for that mortgage amount even with tons of history showing it’s paid. Corporations owning massive amounts of property are also a much bigger problem. Appealing to an individual (mom and pop) is generally a lot easier than to try to appeal to a corp in which you’re just Lessee #4949857 who’s spreadsheet tells them to squeeze you for more money because.
Past that, I’d also argue renters need much more support when it comes to their rights because quite a lot of the things that people are posting here as anecdotes to why their landlords are shitty are already illegal, it’s just extremely difficult to get anything done about it. I’d suggest also that there was some regulatory body (if one doesn’t exist already) responsible for certifying housing/landlords because then at least shit would get fixed once a year.
My only half-decent experience renting was a blue-collar mom and pop who leveraged their own home to buy a second home to rent, that they rented significantly under market value. If anything, we should be trying to setup more systems that allow this outcome (they fucked me on the deposit though, but that’s the part about renter’s rights.)
One can get place renting for $2k, but can’t get approved for that mortgage amount even with tons of history showing it’s paid
I think the issue there is that there’s more risk to mortgage companies than “tons of history showing it’s paid”. There’s a reason they use complicated equations instead of interviews to make decisions related to risk. Questions that don’t directly relate to someone being unable to pay mortgage:
- Will they take action that reduces the property value enough to put them underwater
- If they choose to walk away for some reason, what percent of our investment do we get back?
And with the rest of the equation, home ownership is higher risk than renting because a tenant isn’t responsible for damage and repairs. If, for example, peeling asbestos gets discovered and you have to move out to fix it to the tune of $10,000 or more, will that homeowner be able to afford it? Will they just walk out and start renting somewhere? There’s a lot of things not covered by homeowners insurance that can financially devastate a homeowner, and the mortgagee (bank) might notice an income disruption that a renter would not.
Let = rent
That’s interesting. In my state, rental rates are just plain higher than mortgage rates. Maybe that’s why I’ve never heard of buy to let mortgages.
I never understood this sentiment. For single family homes the market sets the price. It’s not like when you buy a house and use it for a rental all of sudden it’s cheaper or more expensive in some way. You could make a price/demand argument but then again the underlying demand is housing not money hungry landlords. If there was not an underlying housing demand, no one would rent and it would fail as an investment.
How does the community serve those who want to rent? Apartments? Now that is where we can agree. Apartment valuation is calculated on operations not on the market. The only way to raise value of an apartment is to raise rent (or reduce expenses in some way but at some point you can only do so much). At least with SFH you have appreciation that landlords can factor in for return.
Lastly, 2 of my rentals were foreclosures. If anything I’m performing the city a service by buying these properties and adding value. If you had to choose, would you rather live next to a vacant house or a rental?
To answer your question, it’s fair for a renter to not build equity because they don’t pay for upkeep or have the risk associated with the loan. You have to put skin in the game at some point.
Edit: there are some good points for the other side of the argument if you keep reading. I don’t know what the answer is but I’m not convinced that restrictions or to disincentivize rental operations is the answer.
never understood this sentiment. For single family homes the market sets the price. It’s not like when you buy a house and use it for a rental all of sudden it’s cheaper or more expensive in some way. You could make a price/demand argument but then again the underlying demand is housing not money hungry landlords. If there was not an underlying housing demand, no one would rent and it would fail as an investment.
Close. You’re right there’s no profit without demand. Now, consider what happens when certain entities with way more money than most of us comes along and decides they want to induce artificial scarcity by buying up and leaving empty a ton of houses.
Lastly, 2 of my rentals were foreclosures. If anything I’m performing the city a service by buying these properties and adding value. If you had to choose, would you rather live next to a vacant house or a rental?
They both kinda suck. I’d rather live next to someone who is invested in the property.
To answer your question, it’s fair for a renter to not build equity because they don’t pay for upkeep or have the risk associated with the loan. You have to put skin in the game at some point.
I could agree with this if rent was pegged to a percentage of the mortgage value. The issue is that the landlord makes a purchase and now owes, let’s say, 1k/mo for everything. Rent, taxes, fees, etc.
They want to rent that place out, great. Maximum rent should be LESS THAN that 1k, because the landlord is already getting theirs, they’re getting equity, and the only thing they have to do is upkeep they’d have to do regardless.
I beleive housing should be a privately owned venture, at least for suburb housing where the entire plot is included. Outside of that social schemes should purchase/build properties for rental purposes.
Like you said, the housing market is in demand. But how much of that demand is manufactured by landlords purchasing more property to rent versus real buyers looking to buy-to-occupy?
Your argument for cost of maintenance is part of the equation, however the rent costs should be the cost of maintenance and upkeep with a modest margin for investment. However that’s not the case. Landlords want to take their cake and eat it. Rent is now the cost of the mortgage, AND maintenance/upkeep AND profit. Its a win for landlords and a lose for renters. If the renter is capable of paying the inflated rental costs on a regular, then they should be owning their own home. The current status-quo is unfair.
Just FYI, I am a home owner. I know the costs of mortgages, the risks that are involved and the maintenance costs of keeping a home running.
Apartment valuation is calculated on operations not on the market
Apartment valuation in my area spiked until the ROI crossed 10+ years. People stopped buying apartment buildings for a while except as owner-occupied with renters to assist. But in my area, none of those reach anywhere near a net-zero mortgage. The market absolutely still has an effect on valuation in most areas.
But two towns over, people are selling apartment buildings with 2-3 year ROIs, and they’re being swept up by one of a small handful of investors. Building maintenance is terrible, and there’s very little interest in the legal risk of being slumlords except those who are already slumlords over 40-50 buildings or more.
The system is
brokenworking exactly as intended.Just not designed to work for OP.
If by OP you mean literally any renter then sure. The term is landLORD for a reason.
Of course that’s what I mean.
Is this 2/3s of income plus tip or is the tip included? Because if you want to save money, tip your landlord less!
Yeah, but they really deserve that tip. They work really hard, you see. Just the other year my landlord was hard at work promising to paint over a wall he ruined with repairs.
I bet he’s going to get it done any day now!
Gosh, maybe it’s because my last tip was too low… It’s probably my fault.
As a general rule, it’s always the renter’s fault.
And don’t underestimate the effort and work and emotional energy spent on postponing painting the wall, feeling bad about it, postponing it again, … they spent a lot of time and energy on that!
Give your landlord a negative tip.
I donno, is that even legal?
In my area it’s more like 13/12ths
The other 1/3rd goes to the feds, so they can pay for
roads,social safety nets, nukes, drones, unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs, and Israeli genocideRemoved by mod
Alcoholic beverages would be a good place to start
Removed by mod
I really wanna make a joke about Irish cream, Irish whiskey, and an Irish stout, but I feel like that could get me a visit from a dozen letters worth of government agencies
Tear down the military industrial complex. We’re sandwiched between oceans on the east and west, and friendly neighbors on the north and south. Nobody’s going to invade us. We don’t need the world’s largest military.
The cartels south of us would like to have a word.
So would Trump supporters.
Have you heard of revolution?
U first
What does that even mean?
What part is confusing? The people advocating for revolution are often the last ones to the frontline. Just like these brave folks on Lemmy.
Pearls before swine
Removed by mod
Destitution? Definitely heading that way has been getting progressively worse for the last several years at least. Critical mass? Not yet previous generations are weak and people are idiots. I think radical thought is increasing especially among the younger generations.
There are in betweens.
Not listening to you
This Was perfect
Yup, same here. System is broken.
Thank God I live somewhere where I can work 32 hours per week as truck driver. I don’t even spend a quarter of my income on rent, have a healthy weed addiction and manage to save about 500 euro a month and that while being single.
Where do you live? Many of us need to know
I have seen the amount paid in property taxes in USA via Zillow and… It is HUGE. No surpries that rents are so high. Rent have to cover minimum taxes, maintenance and part of house value. These expenses set the minimum value of a rent. But why you have so high property taxes? Cause enterprieses and billionaires don’t pay taxes and cause they put their huge capitals also in real estate, raising the prices. The problem is that real estate is a right ( house ), but also an asset.
Or u know, live in California where the boomer who owns the house is paying 1200 in property tax.
Taxes are astronomical because prices are inflated because of buy-to-rent.
Taxes on single-family residential properties should be like 50% of land value annually for third-homes and up or homes owned by non-human entities. Make it so fucking expensive to own extra houses that they get unloaded cheap to people who will actually live in them, and at the same time reduce the taxable value of the land because it’s selling cheap.
deleted by creator
Property tax is like 2-3% of the property value in my area, the comment you are reply to is just suggesting making it 50% of the value of the plot annually for people who are buying their third property or commercial buyers.
They are saying that it should be for third homes to discourage owning houses in bulk
I have seen the amount paid in property taxes in USA via Zillow and… It is HUGE
A snake eating its own tail. Lenders keep cranking out cheap loans, inflating the money supply. Buyers keep bidding up prices, inflating the cost of housing. Municipal governments need the extra cash to fight the endless “crime wave” that mysteriously crests every election cycle, so they’re always ratcheting up their spending for larger and more comically overequipped police departments. And then we’ve got another big economic downturn, so its time to lower interest rates and send out a new wave of cheap loans.
Nobody can afford to have housing prices go down. Just look at what that did to the economy in 2008.
Cause enterprieses and billionaires don’t pay taxes and cause they put their huge capitals also in real estate, raising the prices.
The threat of capital flight (which would leave you with a large number of unpaid and extremely irate police officers) means you can’t risk upsetting the ultra-wealthy.
And besides, their job isn’t to pay taxes, its to create jobs. They employ people in your town and then the employees pay the taxes. The employees get to see their housing prices rise, so they grumble but don’t complain too much. And then you have more money to hire more cops to protect against the latest Crime Wave that just so happens to be paired with a wave of housing foreclosures from lay-offs. So its time to clear the streets, re-list the houses at a higher price, and issue new mortgages with another wave of subprime loans.
If you really want to spice things up, maybe we denominate all our accounts in bitcoin, so we can really start speculating.
Many states have tax cuts for living in the property you own. The high tax rate is the state saying “if you make money, we want to make money”.
The problems is that if you live in an house you rent, you have to pay indirectly full property tax. Cause you aren’t living in a property you own.
My city* only levies land taxes on investment properties
If you live in your own home, there is no tax
*Canberra, Australia
deleted by creator
You are right, taxes are a part of the problem. Home scarcity and the fact that real estate is THE asset are another thing
People called me crazy when I didn’t like the fact that they wanted free public transit and for all the bus costs to be put into people’s property taxes. My only argument was those that actually need free bus fare, will be unable to continue affording their places they rent because property tax will go up. They will end up paying the same, if not more in the long run…all for free transit. People couldn’t grasp it and resorted to verbally attacking me. Lol I still laugh.
I am really not against the idea. The only thing I would say is maybe try it first on areas that are already losing money on mass transit. That way we could massively increase usage. If you are not making money on something stop pretending that you are. NYC system is almost break even so leave that one for last.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding but I don’t believe public services should need to break even. They cost money because they’re a service
I think it is nice when they do break even. It does cost money and effort to run them. I agree it is not essential that they do but it is nice. Cities have budget crisis if their system is running at cost or near it the chances of it losing funding is lower.
I think the best solution is tax brackets for houses, like we do income. 0.1% for anything under 200,000, .4% under 500,000, and so on. Get that transit fund from those that won’t use it anyways but rely on the labor of others to fund their mansions.
The tax bracket is for the landlord, if the landlord pay 0.4% , you pay 0.4%.
Any owner.
What’s to stop Trump accounting under your system?
Easy, your insurance policy can’t exceed the taxed value.
Taxes do not set the minimum price of rent, supply and demand do that. A real estate investment can still make money even if rental income is less that taxes and maintenance because land appreciates in value over time. This is why the rich invest in it, and why we should tax them where they can’t evade it.
the problem is blackrock
Its wild how the entire country is experiencing a housing shortage
Which entire country? This is lemmy.world
Op is even from Lemmy.zip!
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Ditto
I don’t really understand the market failure happening with such a long term housing shortage. By definition there is excess demand for housing right? So it should make economic sense to build more.
When I ask people always say conspiratorial stuff like “they” maximize profit by keeping housing low but even if there was a conspiracy there should be individuals who are not part of the conspiracy who would profit from going against it.
So it has to be either regulatory or funding based, I think. But I don’t know of any recent regulations that would cause this nationwide, “zoning” is probably part of it but there was no one timeline for that, it’s super local. And funding has been free for a decade and a half and homebuilding has still been slow.
I don’t get it.
Where I live, they simply have made it illegal to build any housing since the 60s. It really sucks
Look to other forms of scalping to see how this works at a smaller scale. Scalping isn’t done through conspiracy, but a bunch of small, self-interested actors reducing supply in the market to inflate prices.
On top of that there are actors that are more coordinated and not as small, like corporations that own hundreds of thousands of homes. These corporations can just coordinate internally (not conspiracy, business) and reduce supply to increase their own returns.
This works for smaller actors too though. As long as the number of houses owned is more than a couple, then it’s likely they’d profit from temporarily restricting supply, and locking in renters to leases for more money. They’ll try to slowly sell off their supply without “flooding” the market and hurting the value of their own supply, just like other scalpers.
Scalping isn’t the comparison though because 1, scalpers don’t reduce the total supply. Any scalper who refuses to sell a portion of their tickets, loses all the money they used to buy them, and the opportunity cost of selling them, and there’s no way it’s worth it for any given individual. The supply/demand differential they make money from is that the venues only have a certain number of seats.
Which brings me to 2, theres no equivalent of homebuilders in the scalper world. If some scalpers could generate new seats at the venue for roughly the cost they pay the venue for tickets, supply and demand would figure themselves out pretty quick.
Hard disagree on the last part there. For one, homebuilders again. Their business model is to build the houses and then sell them, if they joined the “sell houses slower” cartel it just means they earn less profit.
But really the whole idea you’re laying out, the math only works if everyone works together, so it becomes a prisoners dilemma. Because say there’s 20 companies slowing down house sales to maximize profit, there can always be a 21st who gets the benefit of the restricted supply from the 20, but they just sell as much as possible and become the most profitable of all. Maybe it’s in everyone’s interest to restrict supply, but it’s in any given company’s interest to sell as much as possible. So it has to be an as of yet unknown cartel of every home seller in the country and there’s just too many of them to have both: Either it includes everyone or it’s secret.
There are absolutely scalpers that reduce total supply. They’ll only list a couple of consoles that they scalp at a time even if they buy in massive bulk, and it’s all done on the pretense of a limited supply from the original seller that they’re artificially limiting past what the market would naturally do (by buying a ton of them up). Given a literally infinite supply, scalpers lack an ability to do anything. Put another way, when they can’t restrict supply, it’s not a viable strategy.
It’s not that they refuse to sell some of their supply, it’s a temporary restriction (all supply restrictions can be viewed as temporary because we don’t have total knowledge of future supply). The temporary restriction benefits them because they can start bidding wars over the reduced supply, and get a higher price per unit at the cost of getting the money over a longer period of time.
The exact same thing works for housing, when you have the same company renting out tons of units but also keeping tons of units in the same area off the market. It means the bidding wars for the smaller supply of units results in more money per unit (lower supply, same demand, means higher costs).
The concept of a prisoners dilemma here only works if houses are fungible, but they’re not. There are sometimes very similar units or even houses in a neighborhood in the same location, and these are almost fungible, but even in these contexts those nearly identical units in nearly identical locations are usually owned by a single entity (corporate or otherwise), so again there’s no prisoner’s dillema, they can restrict supply effectively to increase yield.
The time vs value calculation is different for housing too compared to smaller things like groceries. If you’re a grocery store, and your local distributor of apples lowers the price of apples, some of that will likely go to the customer because of local competition pushing prices down, and you have a constant supply tied to a constant demand of these (from a buyer’s perspective) essentially fungible things.
Houses are different because if you see the price of houses in your neighborhood drop by some significant amount, individual actors who may otherwise want to sell will actively choose to not list their house because they know the value will go back up, and so these actors are all incentivized to vastly limit supply if something in some area cuts the prices of houses (like a huge influx of new homes for example). These individual actors could be literal individuals or corporations.
It’s not so simple, my mom purchased a property with her divorce settlement and the return on the investment can be good, but it can also be not as good. She remodeled an Oregon property in Salem and sold it for less than cost later. While she did get rent for it before she sold, she could have saved a lot of effort just buying dividend stocks.
Real estate can be a good investment, but it can be a poor one.
This isn’t relevant to the meme at all though.
Also if your asking me to feel bad for someone trying to make a profit off acting as a middleman to a basic human need you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Remodeling a house and maintaining it is actual work
Then let the people who actually need to work there do it.
My mom is the landlord and remodeling houses IS her work. She was a stay at home mom until I grew up, that’s what she does for a living after she divorced my dad. She lives on the rent of her properties while she does each project
She lives on the rent of her properties
This is exactly the thing people have issues with. The whole “I am the breadwinner of my landlord’s household.”
That’s why I thought she should just buy stocks and live off dividends instead. I mean, any investment has a rate of return or people would not buy it
Yup, and housing shouldn’t be an investment. It can be affordable, or an investment, not both.
Then charge for work done on the house like any contractor would, instead of rent for simply owning any old plot.
She’s the one who hired contractors. You need someone who decides what work needs to be done, find the people who are qualified, and pay them.
Not all contractors do good work, she got scammed once by a guy who does crap labor and tries to upcharge to fix it. It happens
Even if she sold the houses, the person buying them would probably want a return on their investment and end up renting it out to people
The only way rent would be cheap is if there was a lot of supply of it, less restrictions on building like zoning, fewer fees on developers.
Look one of my siblings is doing the same thing. I’m happy I don’t have to worry about them financially, but I’m not going to say I wouldn’t prefer they made an honest living
My mom is too old to wash dishes in a restaurant, it’s really hard labor and she has carpal tunnel. She tried, it’s just not something a 60+ year old person is fit to do. So she can’t just sit on that money and do hard labor on the side. But drawing some plans and hiring contractors while painting some walls on her own time is something she can do
Removed by mod
I think landlords is kind of blanket statement. I think most rational people aren’t blaming the landlords who own a single family home and rent the basement suite. I think it’s more referred to companies gobbling up single family homes and rent gouging their tenants.
This is also Lemmy, so, you know, fuck cars, fuck trucks, fuck landlords, fuck Windows, fuck Google, fuck conservatives, fuck you, fuck me, etc etc
This is also Lemmy, so, you know, fuck cars, fuck trucks, fuck landlords, fuck Windows, fuck Google, fuck conservatives, fuck you, fuck me, etc etc
I don’t think I’ve ever seen something I agreed more with. Fuck me.
And fuck you.
Removed by mod
LMAO if you pay 66% of your income on rent then you really need to change something in your life.
You’re just out of touch.
Look at almost any major city in North America and then look at the average annual income vs average rent for a one bedroom. Rents have skyrocketed since COVID. Essentially doubled where I’m from. Think wages kept pace?
While I agree, something needs to change, a lot of people aren’t in that spot. Raising rent got them there, and now they can’t leave because they’ll have to miss rent to have enough to move somewhere else, that’s either way too far or just as expensive.
Removed by mod
You can kindly take your shit opinion elsewhere. Most people who live pay to pay cannot get their life in order because they work 2 jobs.
Get some help.Removed by mod
Exactly! Flipping burgers is meant for KIDS as a first job! But also if I can’t get a speedy meal during my noon lunch break while the kids are at school I’m going to be PISSED!
If everyone who flips burgers gets a “better job” are you going to stop having burgers?
The issue is that while there is work that needs to be done, then there will be a need to pay people to do it. If you’re a business owner and you have work that needs to be done, and you can’t afford to pay your employees enough for them to pay their bills and lube decent lives, and you can’t personally take the hit to your own income to cover the difference, then your business should fail.
Right now, the arrangement forces people to work more than 40 hours a week – which is illegal, but companies get away with it because they don’t work at the same company for the whole time. In fact, many people with multiple jobs don’t even have full time jobs – they have 3 part time jobs, all working them less than 40 hours a week, so they don’t have to give them the benefits they’re required to provide for full time employees.
(Personally, when I was young I had multiple places scheduling me for 39.5 hours a week. Now I’m a white collar FTE and I work 35 hours a week.)
So, next time you call someone who’s flipping burgers “lazy,” think about how lazy a person must be to work 100 hours a week. Is that what laziness looks like to you? How many hours a week do you have to work too not be considered not lazy?
Because, the thing is, you know they aren’t lacy. They’re working their fingers to the bone, and have much shittier and shorter lives than middle class people. Calling them lazy (or stupid or unlucky or whatever) is how you rationalize the fact that you’re unwilling to accept any inconvenience it might cause you to help them.
In this scenario – aka, the real world, the world we are in right now – they are working harder than the rest of us are, for less money.
Removed by mod
Why can’t they just flip burgers from the age of 16 till 65? What if they don’t mind the work, they have a full and fulfilling life outside of work, and their job is just what they do to make ends meet? Does that mean they deserve to live in debt and working 100 hours a week? Are you so ignorant that you don’t understand that, in any economic system, capitalism or otherwise, not everyone can move up?
It’s literally not possible. There have to be people flipping the burgers. That’s a fact of the system; there’s no way around that. And it’s ok – not perfect, but acceptable – as long as we treat those people with dignity and respect.
And that means paying them enough to survive – and thrive – on 40 hours a week. No one’s saying they should have enough money to buy megayachts – or even regular yachts. But they should be able to buy a shitty canoe – and still be able to pay all their bills, and not have to work more than 40 hours.
If you’re concerned about the possibility that, if they earn more, you’ll earn less, that’s just not true. There’s no scenario in the USA where a company is charging customers any less than the most they possibly can, and paying their workers any more than as little as possible. That’s literally the law. There is plenty of extra money that can be used to cover the needs of our poorest people – and to raise the salaries of more scarce labor who would otherwise turn to flipping burgers if burger-flipping salaries went up.
Literally every business that’s even a little successful has extra money. (“Extra money” is also known as profit.) There is no reason why one person should have to work more than 40 hours a week while another person has more money then they can possibly spend in a lifetime; it’s illogical and irrational, and cruel.
Well obviously because burger flippers are only detrimental to society. These people should be THANKFUL we’re paying them at all to play around behind a stove all day!
In all seriousness, lad has some screws loose, you’re wasting time and effort if you expect to change their opinion. Dudes a slave to the system he’s defending. Sad.
wtf are you talking about? Do you think we don’t need plumbers? Nurses? Get a job loser
Removed by mod
See here the man not only a slave to the system, but placing the shackles on his own arms and legs! Capitalism is wonderful!
Removed by mod
Kinda a chicken and egg thing ain’t it? System sucks, I was born into a shit system, and learned from it, so now I’m a slave to it. What if I told you people are, on average, doing absolutely everything they can to not be paycheck to paycheck? Even the “welfare queens” I’m sure you’ll bring up next are a product of the fucked up system were born into. And also what if I told you people can be working on bettering their own positions while also pointing out that the system they are forced to take part in is absolutely rigged? Get the fuck outta here.
Removed by mod
The system can be abused, sure. I also have a working brain and choose not to, because every person who has abused the system and gotten fat off it has done so off the suffering and legitimate work put in by those who are in less fortunate spots.
The simple reality is that the system only works if you were born in the right spot, or if you’re one of those lucky enough to be pulled up, simply so some dumbass on a forum can go “see? See? It works sometimes! Use it to your advantage instead of complaining!” Fuck capitalism, not because it can’t be used to ones advantage but because it necessarily screws over anyone who isn’t frankly a psychopath, and fuck anyone who thinks it’s a good system.
Removed by mod
That may be the case, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out the flaws of the system and work to make them better. I’d probably be complaining about the aristocracy then, too. Hopefully in the place that fuckin beheaded them.
I also don’t know why you seem to believe that someone can’t be bettering their own life while also complaining about the flaws of the system they’re in. You have problems walking and talking too?
Removed by mod
George Soros
“Soros, who was born into a prosperous Jewish family…”
Removed by mod
Hmmm, which source is more trustworthy? Britannica with their biography, or Business Insider with their click-bait article? Hard to say…
Removed by mod
>If you had a working brain you would totally “fuck capitalism”
What change do you propose? Being born ultra rich?
If you work hard and become a professional you can make 100-120k in your 30s. Maybe as much as 150 if you get lucky. Those jobs exist in places where rent is 50% take home and ownership is completely off the table.
Do you suggest working a Denny’s in a rural area? Fuck that and fuck you.
Removed by mod
How many people are born ultra rich
All the people who are ultra rich
how many people get rich by hard work
0%
Removed by mod
So I need to do your research for you? I thought mister “Provide an answer and educate yourself while researching it” would have, you know, researched it and would have a source for his bold claims.
Removed by mod
Then don’t rent it an move to a place you can afford to buy the house
So move off of the planet. Got it
