You don’t have to rent from a landlord, you should have the ability to rent from a nonprofit, a co-op, etc. Housing is a human right and should never be about profit.

Landlords aren’t the exclusive source for short term housing, and don’t need to be defended in this way. Advocate for and support collective ownership via housing cooperatives. Landlording is the practice of leeching money from the working class.

There is a legitimate service being provided there. It just shouldn’t be “lords” who provide it.

The problem is that the “lord” is earning tens of thousands of dollars per year for essentially no work. This makes it essentially similar to how a “lord” worked in a Feudalist system. This isn’t even capitalism where someone owns capital and uses that capital to generate profit. This is just demanding a payment for being in a place.

Since being a landlord requires essentially no work, landlords can accumulate wealth, buy more property, get even more income, buy more property, etc. More wealth / property means more political power. The main thing that political power will be used for is to gain and retain more wealth, which is equivalent to more power.

Imagine how different would be if nobody could ever rent out more than one property, especially combined with a vacant units tax. You’d still have “landlords” but they would be much less lord-like.

Land Contract (sometimes called “contract for deed”) provides all of those same benefits, from the same people, to the same people, as renting. It is a bit of a misnomer in that it applies to any real property, and not just “land”.

The difference from renting is that with the land contract:

• 1. The monthly price is fixed for the life of the contract;
• 2. After three years (in my state), the occupant begins gaining equity.

Grad students, visa holders, travel nurses, etc. might not necessarily want to purchase the property they are staying in, but they might also find themselves living in that area for longer than they expect. A land contract gives them the security of fixed housing costs and the flexibility of being able to walk away at any time and for any reason. They also allow the occupant to begin earning equity while still living in “temporary” housing, allowing them to save more for the future.

But, in our current market, renting is more lucrative to the landlord.

So how do we drive landlords to offer land contracts instead of rental agreements? We provide property tax exemptions to owner-occupants. We increase the nominal property tax rate: run it sky high. But, the owner-occupant exemption means the effective tax rate for homeowners (including land contract buyers) doesn’t actually increase. Only investors - people who own housing they don’t live in - will be paying that punitively-high tax rate.

With that sky-high tax on investment properties, today’s landlords will be incentivized to become private lenders. They will be taking the exact same financial risk on the exact same people, but now those people will be called “buyers” instead of “tenants”.

The only “renting” that will still remain is from landlords who live in one unit of a 2-4 unit property, or a roommate agreement, or short-term use like hotels and motels.

Home ownership is the single best predictor of financial prosperity in the US. Every housing contract should include some sort of provision for equity.

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I rent my house to military who don’t want to buy because they’ll leave in 2-3 years

I agree. I had a period where I moved very frequently and would not have wanted the headache of having any financial stake in the apartments I lived. Being able to just say I wasn’t renewing the lease and never having to think about the place again was very convenient. You also don’t appreciate how nice it is to not have to worry about maintenance until it’s your responsibility.

Sure, how many people do you think you’d walk up to who are renting who would say that that’s their situation?

Why are you talking about the exception not explicitly the problem that this is supposed to be trying to address?

The issues are people who want to purchase cannot while people have more than one.

Are you saying we prioritize those renters over homeowners? Is that better for the economy of the country to have people who are renting as opposed to people who own?

Edit: also how does this work if a country cares about their citizens and absolutely any of their citizens are homeless while someone has extra and empty housing?

Exactly, if renting wasn’t a thing, that means everyone unable or unwilling to buy a whole house has no other choice but to live on the street.

The middle ground should be there. It, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, quite the opposite.

Don’t ever call what landlords do a service. They do it for profit. It’s not a service.