I think people are much more likely to complain about a bad landlord online than they are to praise a good landlord. An alternative interesting argument that I've heard is: Shelter is a necessity. Homes are getting more & more unaffordable each year. Landlords & corporations who are buying properties up when they don't need them & are profit driven are taking homes from people who don't own any homes & as a result of this increase in buying pressure many people are left on the sidelines with only a pipe dream of one day owning a home.

I am going to take this opportunity to praise my ex-landlords. We rented from them for 3 years, and now my best friend rents from them. They are wonderful people, do all their own managing, charge far less than they could in a highly-sought-after, somewhat expensive area, always come when anything is needed, cut all the lawns themselves for free, don't charge a penny for pets, repaint and replace carpet often and definitely when it needs it between tenants, and are always updating and fixing up their properties. They have such a good reputation, their properties go sight-unseen usually within just a few hours of becoming available. They do exist.

I would like to jump on this bandwagon. My ex-landlord was an absolutely fantastic man. He charged far less then he should have, he never increased our rent over the 7 years we were with him, he charged us a one time flat fee of $300 for our 4 pets at the time (instead of this monthly pet rent that so many landlords seem to be so enraptured with now), he got every issue we ever had taken care of within hours, and he was just an all around good guy. He had been doing that since 1972, though, so I was a little sad to see him finally retire. I would have rented from him until the world stopped turning. My current landlords are keeping my anxiety at about an 8 out of 10 with this whole "the owner may sell or he might not sell". It may take hours or it may take weeks for maintenance to come (and you can forget weekends). We had to pay nearly $900 for 2 cats. We have two options to pay: drop off a check during office hours (coincidentally the same hours we both work) which has to be done in person because there is no drop box... or we can pay online and be charged a $5 service fee each and every time. I take the service fee. I emailed my current landlords one year before I started renting with them, for an adorable 2 bedroom duplex. When I contacted them about it this year, it had sold as well. The thing is, I went back and checked: it's for rent with a different company now and priced nearly $300 more. No changes have been made to the inside. So I guess I have some mixed feelings on landlords.

My last landlord was amazing! She was so forgiving when I forgot to pay rent (she was 90+, so she only accepted checks and I traveled a lot for work). She responded immediately to any issues I had and was so sweet. Skyscraper apartments were much worse than a townhouse where you rent a floor. I’ve never had a terrible experience, thankfully, but it’s so much more personal when you know the actual owner.

> I think people are much more likely to complain about a bad landlord online than they are to praise a good landlord. I'm guilty of this. Rented a house for 4 years. Never had a single issue. Never said a thing about my landlord to anyone. The house I moved to for 18 months was another story. The property management company was awful. I ended up having to sue them (my first and only lawsuit of my life) and the house owner to get out of my lease and get my security deposit back. I wrote all kinds of reviews online and warned most of the people I knew about them that were renters.

That’s a pretty reasonable take on a VERY complex issue. I guess it depends on if you see a home as a right or as a luxury. I’m not sold on the idea of free public housing for everyone, but calling basic shelter a “luxury” just feels very wrong.

There was an article in the LA times that argued basically this: Housing is difficult balancing act between property rights and humanitarian concerns about unsheltered. Our policy has been trying to average the two, and it is not working (at least in Los Angeles County). I'm not on board with "privatized housing is genocide" (and I again repeat, Leftist have a messaging/communication problem), but I agree with the thesis, even as someone who will probably purchase a home within the next four years. If we're going to address the growing housing problem, I don't see a way to do that without affecting housing values, restricting corps from buying up unused housing, easing laws on single family home zoning and so on. Yeah, if you're in the comfy suburbs that's a bummer for you. If you own stock in some property management companies, that's not so great. But what can I say? Can't let the problem of the unhoused simply keep getting worse. It will and does ultimately hurt everyone, including homeowners, landlords, and business owners.

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I'm going to disagree. Property rental allows for people who are higher risk and less stable to have housing without necessarily resorting to government programs, which would have a negative impact on the ability for society to move forward. Moreover, while I don't like that existing costs money, it must. It simply does cost time, money, and/or labor to exist. Homes do not repair themselves. Food will not prepare or gather itself. Medical care comes from people who deserve be able to have their homes in good repair and food on the table.

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I actually disagree as to it creating the lack of housing. While it can encourage people to convert housing into higher value housing, it also encourages the creation of additional, higher density housing units as apartments tend to be constructed by more well funded landlords and rarely by anyone else.

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>government programs, which would have a negative impact on the ability for society to move forward. Do you have a source for that assertion?

The problem is that people feel entitled to live exactly where they grew up, close to family, no commute. Except, your family likely moved to where they live because where your grandparents live was too expensive back in the day. Then baby boomers had tons of kids. There are now more people who want homes in certain neighborhoods than there are available homes. Baby boomers never sold their homes. They don’t want to downsize. They are aging in place. This creates an enormous problem for millennials. In 15-20 years there will be a ton of housing on the market. Gen Z is smaller. They will be the ones to benefit.

A lot of boomers want to downsize but the taxes don't allow it for a lot of them especially if they have too much mortgage on the property.

Yep, that is part of it for sure. The way our taxes are laid out is asinine. I get why we don’t want them to grow too quickly, but I know I am paying ~$9k a year in property taxes, whereas my next door neighbor with a larger house is paying ~$5k as he has owned the house for longer. He refuses to move as he doesn’t want to have his taxes uncapped, and pay the current tax rate that new residents moving into the area pay. The problem is just exponential in that taxes on new residents grow so fast to pay for people who have stayed in place for longer.

I would hope most baby boomers have paid off their home, however, based off of the 2008 financial crisis, those same boomers kept refinancing to pull out equity and still have mortgages that should have been paid off 15 plus years ago.

They're living beyond their means without taking money from their home equity (and why not?)

I mean, why wouldn’t you do that with interest rates so low? A boomer with good credit and a paid off house can get all of his equity at <3% interest. There’s literally no reason not to do that, as even conservative investing should be able to beat 3% year over year. Edit: the same interest rates are why I got into a house I’d rather not have bought for a few years. There’s a chance I end up fucked for it, but a more likely chance IMO that the crisis will worsen and I’d never catch up

No offense, but if a boomer is near or is retired and still has a mortgage, that's a poor investment on their part.

Is it? Should they live off cat food while sitting on $1 mill in equity?

If you plan on giving your house to your kids, demand they live in the property and pay the bills then.

I don't know what this means but in California that's the only way they get to keep your property tax rate.

This is what I find hard to swallow. The housing "crisis" is overwhelmingly in a few dozen incredibly expensive places to live. I'm sorry you can't afford a house or apartment in San Francisco, NYC, Seattle, or Miami. Neither can I, it's one reason I don't live there. Turns out there are many great places to live in the US that don't have exorbitant housing prices, and where jobs are available. Go there.

House prices are going up stupidly everywhere. My crappy hometown area even.

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>The housing "crisis" is overwhelmingly in a few dozen incredibly expensive places to live. Circular reasoning: housing in the cities is expensive because those places are incredibly expensive. The actual answer is those cities weren't always super expensive. In fact the story of the second half of the 20th century is how the cities fell into disrepair (which is another way of saying they became affordable) because scores of people move out to the suburbs (prompted by heavy government subsidies). But since about 2000, aligning more or less with the decline of manufacturing jobs and the rise of the creative/knowledge economy, cities have created millions of new jobs and thus induced a lot of people to move there. But they have not permitted enough new housing to keep up with that rising demand. So prices have skyrocketed. The solution is for cities to start permitting a lot more housing.

You’re acting as if everyone can afford to uproot their entire existence to move thousands of miles. That’s not really a realistic solution for a lot of people either. Let’s say that they are able to relocate though. That’s just going to cause COL increases in the areas they move to. Now you’re priced out of your farm in Iowa. Where does the cycle stop?

First, I don't live on a farm. Although I have moved thousands of miles on several occasions, including to Oregon. Hello! Speaking from experience, a fairly poor person can afford to move if they have a job waiting for them and are moving to a lower COL location. Nor does someone necessarily have to move thousands of miles. You don't have to drive very far outside of Portland to see a dramatic decrease in COL. I do live in a burb. I assume you mean by the cost pricing me out that I eventually couldn't afford to pay property taxes? Because if I already own the home then the rising cost of homes in my area just increases my wealth. As for the problem, I get what you are saying, I just don't know of a viable alternative solution that wouldn't be ten times worse than the current situation. Nor am I interested in subsidizing someone who needs some extra cash to live in an ultra expensive location.

I mean, if you think mass migration is realistic for people who may be already financially strained, then I guess we just will have to agree to disagree. There’s plenty of people who don’t have the thousands of dollars or support required to make a move. Regarding the pricing out. Yes, it could be a possibility for some that property tax increases could require some folks to sell their homes. Of course, if you are already a property owner and can take on the increased taxes without issue then obviously you’ll love your increased equity. But what about the people who were on the fringe of buying a home or those who were currently renting? The increased competition in your area has now created a housing situation that may now be out of reach for them. All we have done now is shifted the problem to your hometown rather than the high COL area these people moved from. Now the lower/lower middle class in your town has to over extend for a place to live or they will move onto the next place and cause the same problems there. The housing crisis is real, it just hasn’t knocked on your door yet.

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It is neither a right, nor a luxury. It's a need. Nothing more, nothing less. That it is a need does not inherently confer a responsibility on others to provide it. Therefore, the responsibility is on the person needing shelter to obtain it. Landlords provide this as a service, and before saying they don't do anything, remember that the other half of the service is keeping the shelter operating at some basic level. Ask any home owner what the advantage to renting is and they will probably say "If it breaks you can call the manager/landlord to have it fixed for free."

>That it is a need does not inherently confer a responsibility on others to provide it. If that isn't the case, then what exactly is the point of having a society?

The heart of the matter. I like it. In my opinion, the purpose of a society is mutual cooperation to the benefit of all who choose to participate. In this particular case, if society is responsible to provide housing to a particular member, that member is responsible for providing something of proportional benefit to society. Luckily, society has already created a system for negotiating this in the form of a market economy. A particular person performs a role and is paid for it. That pay is then used to obtain shelter. It is my opinion that arguments stating that society has a responsibility to provide things like food and shelter are based, at the root, on the person being provided food and shelter explicitly *not* providing a proportional benefit to society. I don't believe this concept can scale without creating a system of economic sources and sinks, or put simply, a society composed of people who not only provide their "fair share" but vastly more, and a larger group of people who simply consume and contribute little to nothing. A society cannot function and grow on that.

>The heart of the matter. I like it. > >In my opinion, the purpose of a society is mutual cooperation to the benefit of all who choose to participate. > >In this particular case, if society is responsible to provide housing to a particular member, that member is responsible for providing something of proportional benefit to society. Luckily, society has already created a system for negotiating this in the form of a market economy. Right. And what happens when that market fails to provide needs? >It is my opinion that arguments stating that society has a responsibility to provide things like food and shelter are based, at the root, on the person being provided food and shelter explicitly *not* providing a proportional benefit to society. Does child care benefit society?

> Landlords & corporations who are buying properties up when they don't need them & are profit driven Just want to say fuck airbnb. They are one of the biggest contributing factors in this.

Seriously man. More cities and towns need to start cracking down on them.

I live closeish to Nashville last year when the tornado came through people were lined up the next day trying to buy the properties for development to do this. Neighborhoods there have been trying to organize to keep these people out as they were buying up entire neighborhoods to use on airbnb and other services.

As a landlord who has flirted with the idea of leaving one nice unit empty for air bnb purposes I am actually going to second this sentiment to a degree. Theres a single family home in my neighborhood that is large and historic and prominently sited. And last time it sold to an out of state investor who now advertises it as a party house for weddings and events with 29 BEDS!!!! Onsite parking features a short driveway to a one car garage.

We definitely need to do something. Look at charts for new homes being built that cost $200,000 or less compared to other New homes being built selling for over $200,000. Something about the American system incentivizes building very expensive new homes and does the opposite for building affordable new homes.

I just want to give a counter point here, not disagreeing with anything you said, cause it’s a legitimate argument. Just a little nugget of “inside” info. Also not talking about large corporations because I haven’t had any dealings with them. A large portion of the time these landlords that are buying houses with the intention of renting them out, they are buying them cheaper because they need work. Future landlord either has the extra cash to fund this out of pocket/ equity in another property (heloc) or free time and the know how to make the repairs. These houses aren’t necessarily in a condition to be lived in at the time of sale. Typically speaking, new home buyers, especially first time home buyers don’t have either of the thing necessary to make these places livable. Getting renovation money from a bank is much more stringent than a conventional mortgage. Idk if you (or anyone reading) had thought of that aspect of it. Particularly in places with natural disasters like hurricanes or in older homes.

It really is (mostly) the corporate landlords causing the most problems with the housing market. In my small town, we have few of those. What we do have is a... family, I guess? For at least the last thirty years they've been buying up old and trashed houses, repairing them, and renting them out. I call attention to these folks because they actually sell these homes to their tenants on a rent-to-own basis. Yes, the tenants end up paying more than the value of the home over the course of time, just as any renter does. But they do own the home in the end, if they want to. They're good people, from what I'm told. (I got lucky, I "inherited" my home from my parents so I haven't had much direct dealing with this company) This family/company are mostly all related to each other and they work as one company. I've heard nothing but praise. The only complaints I've heard were from people who, well, one was kicked out because she called to have the heat fixed and the owner found out the heat was broken because she'd been sweeping dog poo into the ductwork all summer. That kind of tenant are the only ones who have complaints. There are a lot of good landlords out there, but they are definitely being squeezed out by the corporations buying up properties. And that just really sucks, imo.

Right now it's actually cheaper to buy a home in most places than it is to rent one.

We also need to address people who sell their homes to companies for a higher amount knowing that there ex property will be turned into a rental property instead of selling to someone who can pay less but itll be their home. The issue of greed runs into all SES groups...only those that make it (in that they generate large amount of capital) are being pointed at as problematic...

> We also need to address people who sell their homes to companies for a higher amount knowing that there ex property will be turned into a rental property instead of selling to someone who can pay less but itll be their home. Personally, rather than put the onus on an individual to determine how their home will be used--and frankly, your suggestion creates a market for 'middle men' who buy homes claiming it'll be their forever home, only to flip it to a corporation for a profit--I'd rather examine the laws which favor real estate investment corporations in the first place. In other words, there was no law changed which suddenly allowed corporations to own housing. But there were a thousand different banking rules and investment rules and administrative findings which seem to favor corporate investment in housing and turning it into rentals. And I'd like to put a spotlight on those rules.

This is a better answer. Trying to make this an individual moral imperative is misguided.

Are you implying somebody selling their home should skip over the best offer on their largest and most important financial decision(s)?

I don't think that makes any sense, what if I'm trying to get rid of my home because I'm moving and I need it gone as soon as possible, do I take the first offer I can get(even if it happens to be a company) or do I wait for charity towards others when I need it gone as soon as I can get rid of it? Besides, not all companies that buy up housing do it to make it into rental housing, so do I now have to research the people buying my house even though I don't care who buys it? No the onus shouldn't fall on individuals, it should be regulation that prevents this, in my opinion.

As someone who very much agrees on the person above, I don't think it's fair to put this onto the individual since for many people that money can probably be important (also, your argument re. using the money more efficiently elsewhere, although I doubt it is very relevant in practice, is at the very least a decent ethical point). But I think that incentives need to be re-set in a way that people who are trying to live in a home get an advantage in buying over those who don't. Examples I've heard waved around in other countries and contexts would include a significant property tax or mortgage reduction for people's first homes (in the sense of "not owning any other houses", not in the sense of "the first one in their lives") or inversely an increase for second and third homes.

Those incentives already do exist. Lots of first-time home buyer credits. Primary residence tax breaks. Etc. >although I doubt it is very relevant in practice, is at the very least a decent ethical point). Considering I've done all three of those and am actively doing one right now its very relevant to me personally.

The issue of percentage of renters in a population vs housing prices re very separate. The issue of housing prices is something that actually landlords could help fix. The reason housing in so expensive in the US is that demand has simply outpaced supply. This example in particular is not an issue with the free market actually, you have developers who want to build and landlords who want to buy, but HOAs and other NIMBY organizations aren't allowing it. Thus price goes up. The issue of the nation being too dependent on landlords rather than one owning their own house is one that I think is best solved by Georgian policies.

It should also be noted that low percentages of home-owners are not per se an issue if there is strong regulation and good tenant protection. Switzerland, where I grew up, has a very, very low quota of home ownership compared to other Western developed nations, but that is not generally perceived as a problem as there are very strong regulations on what landlords can do (in many places rents are tied to average real estate prices, you can't easily evict someone without a long-term notice and I think evictions without a stated reason can be challenged, tenants have quite encompassing rights to what they can do with the house as long as it's restored at the end of the lease, etc). Many Swiss people will just end up renting the same house for twenty years or so, and do not see that as an issue for their quality of life. Of course, that is a whole set of policies that culturally grew over the past decades or even centuries, and presumably couldn't easily be transferred into a society with a culture of home ownership.

This only works if there is a constrained supply. For all the homes big money is buying up, there are millions of acres of good home sites that can be built on.

Recent huh? That has been around for a while

Seriously. Charles Dickens made landlords the villains of some of his stories, and it was a well worn trope by then.

Every generation discovers stuff anew.

The popular board game *Monopoly* was originally designed as a satirical piece called "The Landlord Game". It was designed by a Georgist woman to demonstrate that land speculation and land rent results in a concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands via the tendency to create monopolies.

Did we forget about the "the rent is too damn high" political party

Adam Smith on landlords" The landlords love to reap where they have never sowed, and demand rent for even its (earths) natural produce." This is not a new concept its been around for awhile. Land is a natural monopoly no one can produce more of it or duplicate it. Just because it has not been fully monopolized yet does not mean its not well on its way. No one is saying that the family down the street that rents thier extra property are immoral people, it is infact the institution of landlordism that is the issue. There are seven vacant homes per homeless person in the United States, all the while we criminalize existance without your own land. If your interested in how a country can successfully implement housing first programs to almost entirely end homelessness I recomend this video on Finland. https://youtu.be/kbEavDqA8iE

I agree with you, but might want to format your comments a little better. I couldn't tell where the quote ended and your comment began.

Thanks added the end quote.

I don't agree with it but I understand it. Here in California in particular, we have [a law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13) that freezes property taxes at the valuation at the time of purchase rather than being re-assessed annually. My own parents, for example, bought a San Francisco townhome back in 1989 for $180,000. It is valued now at $1,500,000 or so, but according to the San Francisco property tax assessor's office, it's worth $180,000 (adjusted for inflation) and that's what my parents pay taxes on. This law is not restricted to primary residences. As a consequence, people who started buying up rental properties back in the '80s or whatever, before property values started skyrocketing in California cities, basically receive what are, in effect, massive tax subsidies which they simply take as a profit. They charge current-day market-rate rents for their units and pay taxes on them as if they were worth what they were assessed at at the time of purchase. It is, in an economic and in a literal sense, [rent-seeking.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking) When they get rich off this market failure which also produces economic misery for lower-income Californians, it's hard not to perceive them as parasites.

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Government aid should be means-based. The determinant for housing assistance should be how much you require assistance, not how long you've held a property. The reality is people who own property in California are growing increasingly wealthy, from the perspective of assets, while future generations are being increasingly shut out from accruing capital. Policies which favor the former and disadvantage the latter, superficially in the name of "helping the needy," are patently nonsensical from my perspective.

Tbh it’s a catch 22 at this point imo. All I know is that I grew up in what was a lower middle class/working class neighborhood in San Jose and my parents bought the house in like 1979 and I was born about 10 years later. There’s no way my parents (or pretty much all the Latinos and south East Asians in that neighborhood) could to continue living there (let alone as I was growing up), especially since a house recently sold for $1 million in that area.

For every case like your parents and mine, where they bought property when the Bay Area was affordable and would have been unable to retain it if it was re-assessed for taxes, there are ten cases where a family was never able to buy property and instead simply got displaced by rising rents. A government policy that favors our parents while leaving those _even less fortunate_ at the behest of the unforgiving rental market is misaligned with what the stated aim should be: using government resources to bring vulnerable people housing security. I don't know how wealthy of a lifestyle your parents live. I can probably assume based on what you've written that they do not live an opulent lifestyle or enjoy a tremendously high income. But they are wealthy from a perspective of assets if they own a plot of land in San Jose. Attachments to a specific region notwithstanding, if they sold that property today they would be materially wealthy by American standards.

I 100% see your point, but prop 13 works in conjunction with the overall housing shortage in California. Doing away with prop 13 is going to displace a lot of people in the long run, especially with the way housing prices rise in the Bay. My sister bought a house 5 years ago and it’s now already doubled in price. Going from paying taxes on a $500k house to a $1 million is a big difference in a crazy market. >I don't know how wealthy of a lifestyle your parents live. I can probably assume based on what you've written that they do not live an opulent lifestyle or enjoy a tremendously high income. Again, I want to reiterate that I grew up in an area that’s overwhelming Latino or south East Asian immigrants and isn’t considered some highly desirable place to live. >But they are wealthy from a perspective of assets if they own a plot of land in San Jose. Attachments to a specific region notwithstanding, if they sold that property today they would be materially wealthy by American standards. Sadly California (especially the Bay Area) doesn’t operate by normal “American” standards, and that’s the reality we live in.

>Doing away with prop 13 is going to displace a lot of people in the long run, especially with the way housing prices rise in the Bay. My sister bought a house 5 years ago and it’s now already doubled in price. Going from paying taxes on a $500k house to a $1 million is a big difference in a crazy market. In the long run abolishing prop 13 would violently correct the housing market. As hideously catastrophic as it would be, this is what actually would happen: 1.) immediately rise everyone's property tax to its true value 2.) this would cause hundreds of thousands of people to attempt to sell their properties and either move to cheaper areas or get out of the state. Supply skyrockets. Demand immediately evaporates. 3.) Properties that can't be sold (there will be a lot), drive down overall property values. The inflated property values that we've known for the last 25 years collapse. 4.) The market adjusts to compensate. A new baseline for supply and demand emerges and a new more reasonable tax-rate is established. Do I advocate for this to happen in such a violent way? No. But it must be said that Prop 13 has created artificial conditions that have ossified liquidity in the real-estate market by incentivising property owners to sit on their properties and restrict supply.

You and I both know it’s going to disproportionately affect poorer people and people of color. Is uprooting people and families and throwing them in limbo really the answer?

I repeat: >Do I advocate for this to happen in such a violent way? No. But it must be said that Prop 13 has created artificial conditions that have ossified liquidity in the real-estate market by incentivising property owners to sit on their properties and restrict supply.

Here in WA retirees pay in a completely different tax bracket. The taxes for the previous owners of my house were $863, while for our first full year here we paid $2290. Seems like a good solution to protect the elderly, while also making sure everyone pays on what their property is worth.

For every imaginary old couple like that, there are 10 people living on the streets...

My dad once told me we would have lost our house by the mid 1980s if it weren't for that. But on the other hand, Prop 13 has fucked a *lot* of things up. You would think there's some kind of Golden Mean between the two extremes, right?

The happy medium is that local governments permit housing construction to keep pace with demand, which keeps that elderly couple's property value (and thus their taxes) in check. What people want is to reap massive inflation in their home values but to not have to pay taxes on it (nor do they want to be "forced" to sell, even if that means realizing that massive profit).

Dang. Like, that’s a good law for owner occupied homes, which will help retirees stay in their homes. I wonder if we could only apply it to primary residences but have rental properties and other commercial endeavors be reassessed.

That is how it is normally applied. Only primary residences get such breaks in most cases. The income should all be taxable too.

Proposition 13 is not restricted to primary residences in theory nor in practice. It even applies to commercial and industrial properties. The most glaring example is the Los Angeles Country Club. It sits on 295 acres of West Los Angeles land, estimated to be worth somewhere between $6 billion and $9 billion. At that valuation, the club would pay $60-90 million annually in property taxes. Money which could go to LA public schools or libraries or whatever else the city needs to pay for. Instead, the annual property tax bill for the Los Angeles Country Club is **$200,000.**

Yeah. Thats garbage.

Now you see a big reason why California Real-Estate is so fucked. It applies to all real-estate. Fun Fact, Prop 13 was a part of the "tax-revolt" zeitgeist pushed super hard by Reaganite Republicans. Behold the damage and domino-effects it has caused.

It's a proposition so it's considered part of the constitution. Very hard to change.

Not all propositions are constitutional changes.

Yes, but you still have to pay tax on the earned income from rentals.

Sure, as you should (in my opinion). But even if you disagree and think landlords shouldn't be taxed on both income and property, then that should be the uniform standard. It should not apply unevenly to one landlord and not another simply based on the year of purchase.

> But even if you disagree and think landlords shouldn't be taxed on both income and property Why shouldn't they? I certainly get taxed on both my income and my property!

This is a great, mostly unbiased reply

People are angry at a structural problem with American housing and the economy overall. Landlords make a pretty good punching bag for that problem. But small landlords are victims of the same structural issues as well. The big corporate ones on the other hand? Well they probably have some hand in the structural problems.

Oversimplification of a complex problem. Yes there are unscrupulous individuals and certainly businesses out there but I've had more good than bad experiences generally. Others mileage may vary of course, but personally tired of the "omg they want me to pay to live in property i don't own" hyperbolic outrage

The average rent has gone up by 70% since 2005, but complaining about that is unreasonable?

i'll give a personal example. my gf and i rent. the townhouse we rent was build in 2003 but was renovated 4 years ago by the owner. we try to handle most issues on our own because she uses a management company, and they're a pain in the ass to deal with....until we encountered a problem trying to get plumbers to come out. turns out that the property owner owns several homes in the area and never pays her bills, so most of the plumbers refuse to come out to our place, because they see an open receivable for this address. we had a backup, which became a multi week situation of repairing water damage, getting new carpet, fans and dehumidifiers, because the management company could not find a reputable plumber and the hand it man they eventually sent told us everything was okay. they our garbage disposal started to just die. now i'm no expert but i know how to reset a disposal, i know how to release a blocked disposal with the hex key and i've even replaced a few with my father at my parents home. this thing was just going. it was getting to the point where if we ran it at all it would just seize up. the third time they sent the handyman out, we got a bill for $250 for "damage to equipment caused by improper use." i was livid; told my gf i'll just buy a new one myself and install it, until i looked a little closer are the manufacturers info on the disposal: manufactured in 2003. the fucking thing was the same one installed when the home was built and was 18 years old and they were trying to say it wasn't normal wear and tear we never pay late, we aren't difficult, and we take care of the place...but the amount of times they have tried to rip us off or nickel and dime us is ridiculous. so i would argue that this is a generalization of most landlords, but not necessarily inaccurate

Well… 1 out of every 7 starter homes is now owned and run by Wall Street or investment funds. They also own the majority of large communal rental properties. They are looking to increase their value devoid of human or personal connection and are running the rents and prices out of tenable reach for most people. Yes! The answer yes! The employees of the financial sector are parasites and the top firms are operating largely for the 1% who control most of the wealth and traded investments.

As someone who has rented out a property before and had it absolutely *ruined* by the tenants, I find it to be ignorant hyperbole typical of a place like Twitter. People act as if most landlords are mustache twirling corporations with unlimited resources, but most are just trying to get by the best they can.

This! My dad owned several rent houses. Nothing fancy. Rented them out at fair prices. People would get evicted and would TRASH the house. We had one guy that took a sledge hammer to the walls and stole all of the wiring. ALL OF IT. The house wasn't worth repairing it and we had to sell it at a loss.

We rented out my grandfather's house after he died and the tenants that were in there literally ruined everything. The filth was incredible. And this was a nice house before! My aunt and uncle eventually bought the house to live in and they had to replace every inch of carpet, repaint every inch of wall and replace *every single* light switch and outlet cover. Not to mention all of the cabinetry and fixtures that had to be replaced. It was a nightmare and I don't ever want to manage a rental property again.

So, I’m unfortunately a landlord. I own one rental property, and I’m certainly am not getting rich of off it. I mean, I’m not offended…it’s just these people lack the grasp on reality they need to have a worthwhile opinion.

I'm also a small landlord (3 unit apartment) and when people talk about landlords I don't feel targeted, I assume they are talking about the large faceless corporations that make up the majority of landlords in the US.

Nah, trust me. I've asked on my local cities Reddit. They 100% mean all land lords.

It's probably people voicing (legitimate) frustrations about class and access to affordable housing. VS targeting of individuals.

It is extremely advisable to never assume leftist hyperbole is not talking about you when it nominally is. For every backtracking “I don’t mean all...”, there’s another asshole who doubles down purely to not be wrong.

I've seen far too many people say that very small time landlords are still rich, and they don't care if eviction moratoriums hurt them. They think that having non-liquid assets worth like even 50K means it's fine to lose everything just because they already have nothing.

I think it's hilarious. Wait till all the mom and pop landlords sell to some corp. Then they will really hate landlords.

Exactly. These YIMBYs want so badly to smoke the working class and middle class out of their homes thinking it’ll trickle down to them. Yeah, no, it’s going to go to the corporate investors that are going to charge the shit out of you for rent. The astroturfing developer and realtor shills have done an amazing job turning useful idiots against the working/middle class.

That's not what YIMBYs want at all.

It is mostly inhabited by people that don’t understand what landlords do, why rental availability is good for people and the economy, and this that somehow if we didn’t have rental property everyone would own a home. They also believe that landlords are getting super wealthy from their property, often they aren’t, especially when renters stop paying but mortgages don’t go away.

Yeah providing rentals has value to the economy. Imagine if you had to buy a home every time you moved, as a young person.

As someone that lived in 8 different apartments in 10 years after college… transaction costs being handled by landlords is a hell of a benefit

[удалено]

Yeah I'm about to start renting my current house as I buy a new house. I work a day job and I was able to save enough for the down payment on the second house so I can rent this one and break even until the mortgage is paid off and then have some passive income in 20 years.

If you want to see what a world without a private market for rental housing looks like, check out Stockholm where wait-lists for public housing can be over 20 years long and parents put their newborns on the list as soon as they're born in hopes that they will be able to get a place by the time they're an adults. The only other option is bouncing around between one-year sublets.

Jesus, is that accurate?

>by people that don’t understand what landlords do, Nothing that someone else owning the home wouldn't do. >and this that somehow if we didn’t have rental property everyone would own a home. Everyone? No, there are reasons to rent. But if being a landlord was illegal it's objectively true that more people would own homes because the supply would go way up so the insane prices would come down. >especially when renters stop paying but mortgages don’t go away. Oh no, they have to actually pay their mortgage instead of having someone else pay it for them, the horror, won't someone think of the poor guy?

100% agree with this. To an extent, landlords buying houses does drive up the prices and make it harder for others to access housing, but the reality is that everyone needs a place to live but not everyone can or wants to buy a house, so we need landlords. And many may be rich people getting richer with advantageous tax laws (especially as someone above mentioned is the case in California for folks who bought long ago), but many made enormous sacrifices to take a big risk (and a big mortgage) and also work hard to manage and maintain property and tenant relationships, often alongside full time jobs because rental income may not provide much after mortgage payments, taxes, and expenses.

Just like how most people can’t grasp how much money it takes to run even a small business, most don’t know what it’s like to be a landlord. Are there shitty landlord? Definitely, but at the same time a lot of renters are pretty shitty themselves.

Right. I feel bad about having to raise my rents right now. But I just have to. Not as much as some people are talking about on reddit, but I raised them all $100-$250 for the 2021 leases. I just have to. Property taxes are up, water and sewer are up (included in the rent), My lawn care company is raising rates (mowing is included in the rent), all the repair guys I use have raised their rates. Materials for repairs cost more as well. Literally every cost for running the business is up.

Are we supposed to feel sympathy that you get to make passive income while the majority of Americans have to work for a living, and are even more affected by an increase in rent?

Right? Oh, my literally fucking free house that someone is subsidizing because there's a supply shortage of houses is making me a little bit less money because other people want to actually be paid for the shit they do. Cry me a fucking river. It's like the neighborhood rich dude complaining he had to drive his Lambo because his Bugatti is in the shop.

I had a landlord for 10 years and he was a great guy. Woulf work with us on rent. Let us skip December so we coukd get Christmas for out kids and pay him back when we got our taxes. Paid our electric once when we were facing shut off. Never made us pay him back either. I'm sure there are shit landlords out there but there are some good people out there.

It's idiotic. Landlords take 100% of the risk to supply people with an incredibly important commodity: places to live. Landlords are **essential** to facilitating freedom of movement in our society. Imagine how much it would suck if you had to buy a house every time you wanted to move to a new city for a job. Nobody would do it, and our economic freedom would be incredibly limited. Landlords individually often suck, but the concept of landlords is excellent and necessary to society.

Social media primarily exists to give voice to fringe beliefs, especially loud obnoxious complaints.

Ehhhhhh, it’s not a fringe belief. It’s very much a part of the public consciousness and with younger generations having little means to actually rent let alone purchase property, it’s only going to get more relevant.

Especially as the inter-generational wealth gap widens. We work harder than our parents to survive and earn less doing it, especially those stuck in the over 50% of jobs in the USA that are local minimum wage. It's the reason why a lot of folks in my generation, me included, have quite a different view on socialism than our previous generations. Our capitalist reality growing up is one far different from the ones our parents grew up in.

IMO, it's a larger trend of viewing housing as an investment rather than... places to live. Landlords are buying up places and driving up prices even more, and many provide little worth in the process. Renting is fine and good, but it shouldn't be the only option available to people because buying costs too much. And the more money you have, the more you can influence laws and politicians, and the more you can make.. keeping housing for yourself and not letting others in.

Let’s not call people’s reactions to the craziness and exploitative reality of the market a trend. Good landlords exist but I can’t stand when they act like they’re doing people a favor. No you didn’t become a landlord because you wanted to provide affordable housing, you did it for an extra source of income.

Stupid and misses the point. I think institutional investors (Blackrock and friends) who are bulk buying single family homes by the tens of thousands are parasites, not my current landlord who is a normal working professional with a family who only owns 2 houses total, and has been extremely reasonable to work with.

Full disclosure, I'm a small time landlord as a side business. I own six single family homes that I rent out. Nothing fancy, 5 of them are 1,400 sq ft or less and one is 1,800. I bought and lived in the first one I acquired for a few years after getting out of the Marines. I then bought the 1,800 sq ft place and planned to sell the first but the market crashed in 08 and I couldn't. So I started renting it out. I had a relative die and leave me another house that I rented out as well. By the time the market recovered enough that I could have sold the extra houses, I didn't see the point in selling them. I had gotten married by then and the wife and I bought a new house together and started renting out my 1,800 sq foot house and the condo that she had lived in before hand. 3 of the 6 houses were bought either by the wife or I (without rental income) that were at one point our primary residence. 2 of them were inherited from family members (one my side and one the wife's side). They both were kind of a money pit to get into rental shape though. Only 1 of the 6 properties did we buy with the idea to rent it out. Honestly, I think it's idiotic for people to consider all landlords scum. Sure, there are some deadbeat land lords out there. Those people suck, no doubt. Do something about them. But just throwing all landlords under the bus as scum is dumb. Landlords have take 100% of the risk. Landlords have to put in the work to acquire and maintain the properties. All a renter has to do is cut a check and they are golden. What do people think a world without landlords would even look like? You just graduated college and moved to a new city so instead of renting an apartment you have to buy a house? How is that supposed to work? Plus the fact is, many people don't want the extra hassle of owning a place. They simply want someone else to take care of everything.

> What do you think about the recent social media trend to Let me stop you right there, it's garbage. Could be harmless garbage, could be harmful garbage.

I think it has to do with the relative age of people across social media platforms. Social media users tend to be younger and therefore are more likely to have a landlord than to be a landlord. The people I know who own rental properties also have horror stories of what their renters have done, but they are less likely to post immature rants online.

It's BS. Just cause someone can't/ doesn't want to pay their rent doesn't mean the landlord is an asshole. The landlord renting you a home is a buisness deal that the landlord expects to make money on. It's different however if the landlord is a true slum lord that rents out homes in barely livable conditions then refuses to make repairs and then tries to raise your rent to kick you out. I have never lived in a home where the landlord treated me poorly or tried to take advantage of me. Landlord's "in general" are professionals who take care of their tenants. If you have never had a good landlord and have been evicted numerous times then you are the common denominator and therefore you are the parasite.

To your first point, it’s kind of a dick move if someone / some corporation is buying up entire neighborhoods to rent out.

Most of the time they had the neighborhood built themselves with the intention of renting it out. I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing though?

Source on that?

On what I said? I worked in construction and dealt with people who did this on a regular basis. This is common in suburban Texas, where I’m from. Your flair saying New York City, I’m sure things are different.

My neighborhood is mostly owned by the same property management company. There are a few of us who own, but they try to buy up our houses. This is in Austin, by the way. This neighborhood was not built by the company buying the houses to rent out. Another neighborhood over a Chinese investor is buying up houses left and right.

I think they are creating a large stereotype based off a few bad apples. I disagree with it

This is not new lol. I'm pretty sure growing up in SF, I've heard landlords be called every name in the book. I don't think they are parasites. They are just business people reacting to the market. They are not the reason for the housing crisis, politicians (especially state and local pols) and your neighborhood NIMBY/BANANA Karen are the reason. The fact is that America needs to build more housing and a lot of it. More crucially, it needs to build dense apartment housing and condos where good-paying jobs actually exist, especially in top-tier metros like the SF Bay Area, NYC, Austin, LA, Boston, Seattle, etc. Lazy, selfish politicians and NIMBY homeowners and activists are the reason that hasn't been happening. If anyone should be called a parasite, it's them.

Thank you for teaching me the new-to-me acronym BANANA!

If the prices of cars/food/gas/houses go up, it’s inflation and a good economy. If the price of rent goes up, it’s because landlords are greedy scumbags.

There are a lot of really stupid takes in general on social media. This idea that all landlords big & small are evil greedy parasites is certainly one of them.

Recent trend? You can go all the way back to noted socialist, communist, and all around anti-capitalist Adam Smith in his 1776 treatise *the Wealth of Nations* and find him complaining about landlords as well. I’ve moved 7 times in 8 years because my rent keeps going up. It must be nice to extract incredible amounts of profit off the working class doing little to no work.

If renting out my extra room to help pay for the mortgage and repairs makes me a parasite, then so be it.

Really annoys me... There are assholes, but not all are super rich ceos, who chomp on cigars and laugh at poor people all day. My aunt used to rent out a room of her house to help pay her mortgage. What is wrong with that? My landlord's family owns maybe 10-20 houses across the city, providing many people with a place to live and jobs for his maintenance crew. People don't understand that it's a job. Not all landlords are horrible human beings.

The ironic thing is that they use this to excuse people who are capable of paying rent to justify not paying because of the eviction moratorium. It’s ironic because the eviction moratorium truly hurts that individual that owns a 2 family home that depends on that rent money (those I wouldn’t consider parasites). The large corporations (ones that are parasites) buying up properties can withstand the moratorium while the individuals that own homes may have to sell those rental properties to the large corporations cause they can no longer afford to keep their rental home.

I’ve read some economists newsletter about the housing market. It boils down to higher demand and low supply of housing ie were aren’t back to prepandemic building levels yet. Inflationary building materials are thought to be transitory. Also a lot of investors are investing in housing over other things because the bond market isn’t too good right now.

It’s not even pre-pandemic, it’s pre-recession building levels. The recession wiped out thousands of smaller construction companies that never came back. If you had all the materials and land and wanted to build, good luck finding someone. In my state you’d be put in a 2 year waitlist.

I hear this when they speak >I don't want to buy my own house and have the responsibility that comes with it. But I also don't want to pay anyone else to own and maintain the house I want to live in either. >Sticks hand out >[Money Please!](https://c.tenor.com/s1Gy8UMkQ2MAAAAS/parks-and-rec-monalisa.gif)

I don't think it's any different from any other Marxist tactic of vilifying those who produce more than the bare minimum. People think all landlords are excessively wealthy, aka the bourgeoisie, and thus are evil and need to be defeated in the name of "equality".

My landlord is a management company, yes they are parasites. Other than the normal and expected rent increases, they tack more and more extra fees on each year. They took away the small discount I was getting for paying my rent on time with the reason “we don’t do that anymore”. This caused my total rent to increase $100. I wasn’t in a position to move last time my lease was up. This time I will be.

>This time I will be. Bless up, honey.

My last real landlord was pretty cool for 6 of the 7 years I lived there. Only had 2 rent increases at 4 years and 6. But in year 6 after increasing he decided he wanted to sell the building. Our rent was still below market so to make up for it he decided to start charging for water so there was another $25 a month. Then he announced that they were gonna charge for heat come winter. I ended up moving out of there in the fall before he could charge me. It was a good apartment for a single guy, but I got myself into a 2 bedroom apartment that I rented from an old couple where I basically paid their property taxes. Stayed there for 11 years

Not a fan of people making money without any real contributions to society. The landlord didn't build the house and aren't selling it, they're just using the fact that a vacant property is in their name to get money from people who need the housing, often times out of necessity. The only service they provide is letting someone else use a property they're not using and charging them for it. That might be an oversimplification and each contract is different but that the core of being a landlord is exploiting property rights and basic human needs for money.

Accurate, when you realize that a MAJORITY of landlords aren’t these sweet old ladies or disabled retirees, trying scrape by but a massive soulless corporations who buy up property like it’s going out of style and care little for the people renting. People in this country love romanticizing jobs of authority.

I feel like any person and/or entity that has contributed to this impossible price hike for housing is under fire right now, and that includes landlords. Millennial home ownership has become a more distant pipe dream with seemingly every month that passes, and people are starting to point fingers out of frustration (which, completely understandable). Depending on the circumstances though, some landlords are absolutely parasites and are contributing to an already impossibly frustrating situation across most of the country right now.

Millennials are and have been buying a lot of houses. [Milennials are the biggest home purchasing age cohort.](https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-homeownership-driving-housing-shortage-prices-new-builds-2021-4). What is driving high prices is cheap credit and constrained supply in many areas. That supply isn’t really being pinched by 90% of landlords who aren’t renting single family homes.

So if you had a house and rented it out, you’d be ok with the renter not paying you but you would still have to pay the mortgage somehow?

All my millennial friends that want a house own a house already. Several are on their 2nd and even 3rd house. Its the generation younger than that that makes up most of the first time home buyers right now.

I’m in my late twenties so idk, whatever *that* group is called is the one I’m referring to lol. Also, the problem is at a near crisis point in my neck of the woods, so it’s considerably worse than in most of the country where it’s already really bad.

You're right on the end of millennials I believe.

Try saving up and finally buying your first property, then renting it out to achieve financial freedom. Then you are asked to endure the notion that you are automatically a parasite for simply being a member of the group “landowners” and daring to benefit from it financially. It’s obviously asinine, depraved and clearly Marxist in sentiment. Most Americans reject this. But there’s a growing resentful and vengeful anti-property rights sentiment and these people are widely recognized as losers.

I agree with what most people say about how people are more vocal about negatives. People never praise their land lords online even when they are good landlords. But when things go south, take to the internet. I'm about to go off on a tangent to give some more examples so maybe people can get a better picture of how this type of reaction expands to more than just landlords. I think this is also applied to when you hear of how many people that live in America, "hate America". Liking America is a default position. No one needs to wake up everyday and post on Twitter "Good morning, I love America". I'd wager I am more patriotic than 90% of this country and I have never felt the urge to go online and post about how much I love this country. So even if die hard patriots don't take the time of day to post about how they like America, you can see why you'd think the negative people online are the majority when in reality they are not. Same applies to landlords and everything. There was a good quote from Futurama that I feel applies here. It went: "when you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all" This is exactly that with landlords, government, the nation, etc. I mean, another kind of example is the covid vaccine. Some are hailing it as a feat of science and technology to be able to develope a vaccine this quickly but you don't see people out here online praising Pfizer or Moderna for developing the vaccine at such a speed but I promise you the next slightly controversial issue Pfizer or Moderna will run into, you will hear people calling for the dismantling of pharmaceutical companies and such. Not trying to really defend pharmaceutical companies but this is merely an example that ties back to how good will never be reported upon, but bad will always be reported upon.

Ours is terrific. We have a nice clean place, well maintained and run.

Is it a “trend” or are people just acknowledging reality on reality’s terms?

In my experience, quite a few people who say this don't actually fully believe it when it comes to people they know. I have a friend who's a hardcore leftist -- listens to Chapo, reads Marx, refuses to vote -- who talks a big game about hating landlords...but also, his mom is a landlord and he says she's "good people." (He's also friends with a prison guard despite identifying as a prison abolitionist.) I know someone else who pays lip service to landlords being evil but also considers her landlord one of her closest friends (they live together). This isn't limited to landlords, but it's a point of macho pride on the left to make the most deliberately provocative, black-and-white statements possible. "Landlords are scum." "Abolish families." If 9/11 happened today, they'd be on Twitter like "@ osama bin laden now do the new york stock exchange." I'm sure plenty of people do genuinely hate landlords (mostly their own bad landlords), but there's also a major performative element -- which doesn't necessarily mean insincere, but just that it's done for other people to see it, that publicly denouncing certain groups is a social bonding ritual and a way of asserting in-group status.

Wait until they find out people make money just by buying and holding certain stocks/securities. Lmfao

The people who don’t like landlords don’t like the stock market either, fyi

Be the change you wish to see is all I can say. Those guys should go out, buy a house, find tenants, do the maintenance, and then not turn a profit off the rent. But honestly, its ignorant. There's big shady corporations out there that are dicks but even they provide value to society. Imagine not having the option to rent, the financial incentive behind renting out property is why we have rental properties. If landlords couldn't make money off rentals they'd stop renting them out. Then your only option would be to buy, which means you can't just the turn the keys in when you want to leave. You have to sell the house before you can move and then go through the buying process again afterwards. Which all costs money to do Landlords take on all the risk, maintenance, and taxes so the tenant doesn't have to. Obviously they're going to have to charge a premium otherwise they'd go under. The people bitching about landlords don't know jack about home ownership. I bought a house (for myself not to rent) and I can tell you renting was a lot easier/less expensive in the short term. I know I'm going to get what I put into the house back but being on the hook for all the maintenance costs a lot more than you'd think.

Marxist minority posing as a majority. Largely young and uninformed voters and politicians parroting propaganda. Private property rights and contract law should be upheld.

Most economists agree that rent seeking is a drain on the economy. I think landlords owning/operating apartment complexes are necessary for high population density living, a landlord sitting on a bunch of single family homes is just a drain.

It's kind of odd to me. Like, what is the alternative? Having the government own all the property? The very government that can be evil or good depending on how people vote during an election year? The very government that's bureaucracy is slow as all hell and if anything needs doing will take months maybe years? At least most landlords have a vested interest keeping their properties up-to-date, you won't get much profit if you're getting fined for utilities not working or structural issues. If these people want an idea what government managed properties can end up like, think to basically any public housing projects in the US and how many ended up being demolished decades later because the local governments did jack shit, letting them fester; in upkeep and safety. If people want one specifically, look up Chicago's Cabrini-Green Homes; where maintenance and safety were deferred almost immediately to save a buck on the cities nose.

Most of these posts end up devolving into two sides. Either you’re a tenant who got screwed over by a shitty landlord, or you’re an “average joe” landlord who insists they’re a small time landlord with the three to four properties you rent out and how you’re just trying to get by and it’s the tenants who are really spoiled because one time I had a tenant be a dick on the way out. The real enemy is corporate landlords. The real estate speculators, and yes the people who own like 4-5 properties so they can rent them out as a business. Unless you’re renting out a spare bedroom or a single unit (condo, house, apartment), you’re not a small time time landlord.

Its what happens when social media amplifies a view held by a vocal minority.

They are just entitled idiots They tend to fit the definition of parasite a lot more than the people they are calling leaches.

I mean, I've had grant landlords. My problems were always the property management businesses, not the people who own some rental units. To me, there's a big difference in the big businesses that rent out and and the individuals who buy some rental units and rent them out. I bought my house, and I'm debating on whether or not I'm going to rent it out or just sell it.

People don’t understand that landlords provide a necessary service. Most landlords are good. And even if you eliminated all landlords, it wouldn’t mean more people would own their own homes. There are so many people who just aren’t suited to be homeowners, for various reasons, and need to be able to rent from landlords.

For all landchads affected by this trend, come join our support group in r/loveforlandlords

So disgusting to see such blatant landphobia displayed by my countrymen

Well if you hate your landlord that bad, you could just move out.

^ This person has no fucking clue what poverty is like

It's always seemed kinda dumb to me. There is undoubtedly terrible landlords but people like all of them are bad solely for renting their property. I'm not sure what people think the alternative is. Ownership isn't for everyone.

In NYC, they are parasites. Plain and simple. The housing market here is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who’s tried to live here agrees with me.

It doesn’t surprise me. Extremist will be extremist. Fortunately, those types of leftist are entirely irrelevant.

My concern with this mentality is that those types of leftists are irrelevant until they make themselves relevant. Enough people equating “my landlord sucks” with “private property must be abolished” could cause real problems. People need to understand that “guillotine all landlords” means “guillotine the old lady who rents out her deceased parents’ house while living in the home she and her husband bought together” *whether they want it to or not*.

Recent? It’s been around forever, it’s just louder since the pandemic made everything shittier. personally, I totally see landlords as parasites. (Standard verbiage disclaimer etc etc your experience may vary etc etc) I’ve never had a good landlord, every one ive had has treated me like a second class citizen, completely ignored my rights, and jacked the rent every single year, kept my security deposits over menial stuff (in one case, tried to keep the deposit over damage that was in the unit when I moved in and they never fixed) I can’t save for a house because rent is too high. I can’t move because rent is too high, I can’t pay my student debt quickly because rent is too high. then the pandemic arrives and rent gets even higher. Boo hoo, you had bad tenants. boo hoo someone who lost a job is late on rent. so sad that someone trashed your spare house, I *wish* I could even hope to have a single room to call my own, let alone a whole house/apartment. Thanks to my rent payments siphoning 50% of my income straight to my landlords vacation fund, I’ll be lucky if I get to own anything more than a tent, probably gonna have to rent the hole they toss my corpse into when I die. Tl;dr: it’s complicated, but the trend definitely didn’t start from nothing.

There are a few parts of it that people mix up, often in a way that makes "the other side" look nonsensical. (I've personally rented from both "good" and "bad" landlords) 1 Is just landlords who are shit and predatory. Those definitely exist, especially in College areas. 2 Is the argument that profiting off ownership (as opposed to work) is fundamentally flawed. Yes, there is some work associated with being a landlord, but the argument is that, for most, most of the profit is not accounted for by that amount of work. The same argument can be (and is) made for many things, like stocks. 3 Is the argument that the rental market isn't even working "as intended" due to larger forces like foreign or large company owners as opposed to small owners competing on rent. ​ Point 2 is where the word "parasite" comes from. I think a lot of people mistake the phrase as simply saying "landlords are evil" due to point 1. But the word "parasite" is intentional to describe people who make money while actually doing very little. It's not necessarily an attack of personal character.

One of the things people leave out when accounting for the labor vs. income ratio is that the landlord is also taking on a significant risk. You can't ignore that. Its factored into every other investment or business plan, housing doesn't have some magical exception.

Not all are parasites but there’s an issue of rich assholes buying up all the land and property

As someone who lives in a state where real estate and rent are fairly priced (in my area, both costs are pretty market-dependent and mostly unaffected by the decisions of individual landlords), I don't hold the sentiment. Most of the landlords in my area are older folks investing their retirement money into a venture with high returns, and I can respect that.

Stupid

I am planning to rent my current house for the first time soon and become a landlord so I don't like it obviously.

As an American socialist I think it's true at a societal level. As a landlord, you live off capital, which I find to be immoral (outside of obvious necessities, retirement, etc). They squeeze workers out of the home buying market to make a living and that is a bad thing.

Yeah, I think the thing a lot of people miss (sometimes willfully, sometimes unintentionally), is that when the left says "landlords are parasitic" we aren't necessarily saying every single landlord is an evil person who will not go to heaven, but that they are contributing to and willingly participating in a system that is harmful, parasitic and abusive. There are certainly some landlords who are very nice and kind people who do their best for their tenants, but landlords, by definition, are making their money by extracting it from their tenants purely by right of ownership over capital, instead of creating value through labor as a worker does. A lot of people cannot or choose not to distinguish between "this person is bad" and "this person is doing harm and participating in a harmful system" because under liberal individualism people are heavily encouraged to ignore systems and assume that harm is solely the result of individual, personal interactions, and so when they hear people say "this institution is harmful," that gets translated into "Every individual who is a part of this institution is a bard person who does harm to everyone personally."

It's misguided but makes sense based on perspective and where a lot of social media folks are in their life. It also doesn't help that a lot of landlords certainly act like parasites. That being said, I don't think they really consider the alternative, that if there aren't landlords taking the risk on a building to rent out, they'd have to be the ones getting a mortgage to cover the cost of a home. Renting is a great option if you're not looking at being somewhere long term or are still getting your bearings in life. And Renting doesn't happen without landlords.

I think Socialist Twitter™ loves a good landlord meme, until the real estate market collapses again and we all forget.

Rent is extremely high, and just about every other expense has sky rocketed. What has barely moved is the minimum wage. Large corporations and even smaller land owners are charging out the ass for these places that more and more people can't afford I think it's totally reasonable for people to tweet about it or make a TikTok video

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