Yeah, baffles me when people think that they’re doing people a favor by being landlords. Like dude, you are trying to get rich, nothing more. You’re not doing anybody anywhere any favors.
To them the only kmaginable alternative is them still having the housing, but just letting it sit empty.
I suppose we would need the government to step up with subsidized mortgages or rent to own programs or something to make things more fair?
The landlord in the OP should have sold their apartment but since they could’ve only sold to someone who could afford the down payment they should’ve also lobbied their representatives to make housing purchases more affordable in the future. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
Wonder what would happen if all landlords put their properties up for sale tomorrow. Should be a nice housing crash? And then the remaining renters who still cannot afford the newly reduced down payments, they need a solution prior to the houses closing, I suppose…
Well the situation she’s describing kind of is that, no?Sorry I realise I misread the meme. The rest of this is still valid but not so relevant. I’ll leave it anyway.
If you own a house, and plan to go on a, say, 6 month trip in a few years. You are obviously not going to go through the 6 month+ process of selling the house, storing all of your furniture, etc… only to have to spend 6 months renting while you look for another house to buy.
So either you store my personal stuff and rent it out as furnished on a fixed term rental contract, or it’s empty until you get back.
I really appreciate people’s furore at
landlordshousing scalpers - but single homeowners renting out their house are not the problem. It is perfectly acceptable to own a house and rent it out, you are not hoarding housing and some people need/want to rent for non-financial reasons (they travel for work, they don’t like the hassle of managing maintenance, etc).Won’t somebody think of the poor homeowner going an a 6 month vacation?!
This is such a bizarrely niche situation it doesn’t need to be discussed.
Sure, I suppose it makes sense for the person going on a 6 month trip to not sell their home. The process of finding renters who just want to live there for half a year, making sure you have someone to maintain the property, and having strangers living in your home isn’t exactly easy either.
If laws were pass making it illegal to rent single family dwellings it would have a negligible effect on this situation. The group of people able to afford a 6 month trip, yet need the money from rent, and are willing to let strangers live in their house is vanishingly small.Yeah, like I said I misunderstood the OP.
That said, I think outright banning renting houses would be a terrible idea. Even if we imagine a world in which houses do not cost the astronomical amounts they do today (which just taking landlords out of the market would not guarantee!), most of the time I’ve rented I wanted to rent… I wouldn’t have wanted to be tied to a house with months of buy/sale at either end of my time there, not to mention solicitor’s fees. We obviously want a situation where most people can afford and practically buy a house, it seems stupid to completely annihilate the concept of renting in exchange.
I would also argue it’s not necessary. If you have more people owning homes, you also have more people either temporarily or semi-permanently vacating them for a variety of reasons. Travelling for work or fun, moving in with a partner, etc. In those situations I don’t see why the need for rental properties (which probably remains relatively small if we consider only those people who actively prefer renting, rather than those who simply can’t afford anything else) shouldn’t be met by landlords who own a single property that they don’t live in… also as you say a relatively small group. Tax the shit out of or legislate against multiple property owners all you like as far as I’m concerned, though.
I know I spent a long time perfectly content to rent, I liked the flexibility and I didn’t have time to learn shit like how to fix my washing machine. I wouldn’t have wanted to be forced to either live with strangers or spend months buying/selling because it’s illegal to rent to me.
I think outright banning renting houses would be a terrible idea.
That’s not what I suggested. I suggested banning renting single family housing. If someone wants to rent out their basement suite or turn their house into a duplex that’s fine. That and apartment buildings would cover the people who want to rent. The landlord should have to live on the property they are renting.
An appartment is still single family housing unless it has multiple families living in it. This seems like it would just drive landlords to evict families to cram more people into buildings. Or if you mean the building has to have more than one family on separate floors… How does that help? Why should those who choose to rent be forced to live in a flat or HMO?
What would I have done as a 21 year old wanting to find somewhere to live? Here there aren’t many flats, there are lots of terraced houses. I wouldn’t have wanted to buy and tie myself down, so in this situation I’d either have to pile into a cramped HMO or live in someone’s spare room! This is worse for renters and not that much worse for landlords. Here they already cram as many students into what could be a family house as they can because it makes more money, this just makes it mandatory.
Ok, forcing landlords to live on the property kills owning multiple properties… But why not just deal with that? That’s the problem! Not people renting houses. Ban or heavily tax multiple residential property ownership. 100% ban corporations from owning residential properties. But housing associations, individuals renting out their one house, and other similar small scale letting is good for people who want to rent.
This seems like it would just drive landlords to evict families to cram more people into buildings.
If that was feasible they would already be doing it. It would also be harder to find people willing to live in these cramped places once there are houses available to purchase.
Ok, forcing landlords to live on the property kills owning multiple properties… But why not just deal with that? That’s the problem! Not people renting houses. Ban or heavily tax multiple residential property ownership. 100% ban corporations from owning residential properties. But housing associations, individuals renting out their one house, and other similar small scale letting is good for people who want to rent.
I don’t see the practical difference here, where is the person who owns the property living if they are renting it out? Personally this sounds like a loop-hole that would allow married couples to purchase a 2nd property to rent. But sure, banning corporations from owning residential properties and individuals from owning more than 1 sounds like a good idea to me.
I like the unspoken part where the people who have lived in this home must vacate when she decides she wants to spend a few years living in the UK again. They should have to find new accommodation when it suits her, but she is not subject to such requirements.
Tbh that’s the reason she bought and rents it out in the first place, so I’m sure she’s aware
yeah I don’t think she’s unaware. just emphasizing that the asymmetric nature of the relationship extends past just profiting off a basic need.
When you added it all up I am pretty confident I spent about 8K USD on my last move. When she is done having fun her sefs will be out that money.
I had a sociopathic narcissistic ex-boyfriend who did that. He owned a townhouse that people were renting out, and when his wife left him and their house was foreclosed and he got evicted, he kicked out his tenants and moved into his townhouse.
HE KICKED OUT HIS TENANTS SO HE COULD MOVE IN 😟
I do not approve of this master/slave dynamic that the housing industry has created. It’s inhumane, unethical, sociopathic,
I recently bought an apartment, and while I was searching I always made sure to ask if the apartments I was looking at were being rented (the listings never disclosed that information), and giving up on the ones that had tenants living in them. This always earned me weird looks from the agents - “you can just buy the apartment and kick them out”. Yes, the law and the contract will allow it, but my conscience wouldn’t.
“Is this… Empathy? In the year 2024? How old-fashioned.” The agents.
The utter god-complex some of these people have
Seems like there’s a lack of understanding in this thread.
Someone who owns a duplex and rents half is not a problem. My barber, who moved to be closer to sick, aging parents, but did not sell their house in Asheville, because they want to retire there and won’t be able to afford that if they sell now, is not a problem.
Corporations are the problem. They’re buying up hundreds of thousands of properties, and why not? To a greedy corporation that only cares about money, it makes sense. If you sell a house, you make money once. If you rent a house, you have a subscription model and a revenue stream. Adobe did it with Photoshop. HP wants to do it with printers. Greedy Bastard Inc. wants to do it with housing.
Legislate big business out of housing. It’s the only way to fix it.
It’s not a lack of understanding, it’s just that you’re omitting another huge group that is the other half of the corporation problem and also involves private landlords.
The person who owns a duplex and lives in one of the two units is not a problem. A business owner with a taxpayer above their storefront is not a problem.
But the large group of private landlords that buy up single family homes with the sole intention of turning them into forever-rentals are a huge problem and a much larger group than the niche private landlords you mentioned. These people don’t get a pass for doing the exact same things the corporations are doing but on a smaller scale. These people live in their own single family homes, which are financed by denying other people the chance to buy their own by removing them from the housing market and turning them into price-gauging forever-rentals.
I think you meant “HP did it with printers” but all told well put. There are worse and better cases, and some victimisers are also victims themselves
To be fair people like Mr Barber often are very supportive of zoning that prevents enough housing to be built and any measure which makes their property appreciate much faster than inflation is sufficient to eventually completely destroy the useful housing market for anyone who doesn’t own.
You are absolutely right that corporations buying up all of the properties are the biggest problem, but I think the reason most people in this thread are irritated with the landlord from the OP is because they make it sound like they are doing the world a favor by leasing their own building.
Even if they aren’t directly profiting off of the rent they collect, like say for example they are simply breaking even each month, they are still indirectly profiting by having an affordable place to return to whenever they decide they want to move back to the UK again. “Where would people live if not for me?” is kind of a ridiculous claim, because either the tenant would take over ownership of the property or another investor would purchase the property and take over the existing lease if that weren’t possible.
The real question is- where are those people going to live when you get back and evict them?
That’s the fun part: you get to de-home them with the full support of the law.
My landlord assured me I’d be able to rent this place for years.
A few days ago he tells me he’s selling it, and that I need to move by June 1st, when my lease is until September.
I could fight it, but for what? A few extra months? No point in that headache.
I was hoping to rent a few years till I could buy it, as it is in my home town and near both work and family.
With the crazy rent prices today I’m going to have to move over an hour further just to find a smaller place at similar price.
This is a situation where the landlord doesn’t want you to know it, but the power is in *your *hands. Legally, your lease runs until September no matter who owns the building, but the landlord can get a better price for an unencumbered property, so you can ask (basically) “what’s it worth to you for me to be out before my lease is up?” and negotiate something that will offset at least some of the pain of having to find a new place at a higher cost.
Yeah, same thing happened to us. Landlord said he had at least 5 years. After 2 he starts grumbling that our rent is too low but he can’t increase it to the level he wants to (BC rent control). We say, oh that’s too bad.
After 3 years he decides he’s done being a landlord and wants to sell the apartment and tells us he’s going to kick us out and sell the place. We fight. BC has a policy that the landlord must actually live in the unit for at least 6 months in order to evict a current tenant and he’s shown us he doesn’t intend to do so.
There is more fighting, he finally consults a lawyer (he didn’t seem to be aware of the law). He finally understands what he must do to evict us and we started losing ground. End of story we negotiated him for extra money, getting evicted on the same date and decided it was better than walking away empty handed.
The lease goes with the property, there’s no reason for you to leave, unless the new owner is planning on occupying the property. You could ruin the deal if he tries to evict, especially since you have a lease until September. I would ask him to pay you to cover the costs of moving and securing new housing. If he doesn’t, then he can wait until September/October.
Make them pay you to leave early. Cash for keys. It’s probably worth a couple thousand depending on the price they’re getting. “Hey, we have a signed lease, so it is mine until September. But I’ll let you pay me to leave early.”
This is why you make a written contract before moving somewhere. If you don’t have it in writing, you’re shit out of luck.
Even with a written contract, it’s still a question of whether you want to fight it, which is often more hassle than it’s worth.
Who cares? They knew the deal moving in.
In their 13th property they own outright from landlord profits
The only value landlords have is that is easier to be transient and move around for work and stuff, and not be tied down.
It should be for those in that niche, not because home ownership is too hard to obtain.
If you live in the same town doing the same job, the only reason you should be renting is because you didn’t like doing the extra work homeownership requires.
If anything beyond these niche is your market, fuck off.
3rd paragraph is me. I rented the vast majority of my life. I didn’t want to mow the lawn, shovel snow, clean gutters, fix/replace major items, eg: hot water heater.
Nope. Not interested.
I rented a place that had a small yard. I was excited to have a yard to tend. After cutting the grass once, I was done.
The landlord had the grass removed and a bunch of local plants put into a garden with a minimal watering system. Never needed to be tended. Was a well-loved upgrade.
Yeah, that would’ve been a good idea at my last place.
You can hire people to do those things and if home ownership were affordable, you would likely be able to afford to pay people to do those things and have it all even out to being around the same as renting.
No thanks. No interest in worrying about upkeep or saving $$ to replace my roof in “x” amount of years. And, as others have mentioned. I’ve moved a few times without any hassle about trying to sell/buy. People that insist on home ownership are annoying as shit.
I’m not insisting anyone buy a home. I’m just saying the reason you gave would not be a reason to not buy one if prices were equitable.
Sure it is. Why would I want to deal with finding a good landscaper or other service providers, eg: plumber?
I don’t care about price equality. I straight up don’t want to think about it.
Okay, but why shouldn’t that be an affordable option for others? Shouldn’t you be able to afford a home and such services just like you could afford to rent if things were more equitable?
I’m not talking about others. Just explaining my position. I’m not here to debate the issue.
And not having to take a big loan or have a lot of money on hand to live somewhere.
lmao so retarded
“where would you live if I didn’t own all the houses?”
IN MY OWN HOUSE, BITCH
thanks for trying to pass off you owning more houses than you can live in as a favour to me though, you fuckin fuck
Similar logic to “job creators”.
Imagine thinking this is an actual rebuttal. They can’t afford buy this house whether or not she owns it. If they could, they’d buy it or one like it. They can afford to lease it because apparently rent there is lower than mortgage, I’ve lived in places like that, 10,000 a month to buy over 22 years but 1300 a month rent. You nitwits want to blame people doing ok for themselves when maybe look in the mirror.
Rent payments are not less than a mortgage payment, that’s the problem. Normal people are struggling to reach the 20% down payment in this economy. Otherwise they would buy. Just because you personally found something with rent lower than a 20-year mortgage doesn’t mean other people can.
Not everything worldwide is exactly how it is where you are dude.
You just wrote that rents are less than mortgages because you personally had a rent less than a mortgage. You’re the one who needs to read that.
It’s often the case, fucking keep up.
Tbh this type of landlord isn’t really the problem. It is the people who intentionally buy up masses amounts of housing just to rent out. Middle class people who have a heart using it for their own security is the ideal landlord situation.
Landlords are the most delusional class.
If I was a landlord, I’d make the serfs work the fields for even more profit. I mean, If I’m gonna be evil, I’m going all-in.
Isn’t that just charging rent in turnips instead of money?
Sounds like slavery with extra turnips
“instead”?
You can eat turnips. You can’t eat rent money.
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My family owns a few rental properties. It was the mechanism that allowed my grandfather who grew up in 1930s Mississippi working the same land his slave grandparents did to escape poverty and retire pretty well off. He moved to Chicago, worked as a garbage man, bought a 3 flat and lived in one unit and rented the other two. Eventually he invested his money in more properties and and had his lawyer buy his house in the racist suburb of Oak Park so my mother could grow up in relative comfort.
The company was never ment to extract unlimited profit, we actually had many unprofitable years due to demographics changes, recessions, maintenance, and poor tenants causing damage ( who flushes weave down the drain?). But in aggregate it’s made enough to give stability, because being a landlord is always our side job.
During the pandemic my mother worked with all the tenants who lost their jobs or had limited or no income. Since none of our properties have a mortgage, she reduced rent to just enough to cover the insane Illinois property taxes and the shared utilities for the people that could pay. When the boiler went out she picked up a few extra nursing shifts with covid pay to cover it. When things returned to the new normal or when tenants found new work, she just had them resume normal rent without needing to pay any back rent in their lease.
You’d think we would be rewarded for doing the right thing and treating people with basic human decency, but no. When we applied for covid assistance, the money was gone. We then started to receive building violations for one of our properties is an up and coming area. The funny thing about these violations was that they were for items repairs 10 years earlier, and also for things we received city and used city grants and contracts to fix. Now we are currently in a legal battle with the city where they want us to take a $900k loan to fully renovated the building or have the city seize the property because it’s a “crime den” in their words. Like how, we screen everyone, rent mostly to old people and single mothers, and have camera in public areas and around the buildings. We even routinely provide footage to the police when they request it, even though that means we have to buy a new DVR since we have yet to have one returned.
But ever since covid and this inspection bull, we get daily calls letters, emails from corporations expressing their interest in buying our not for sale property.
Like how, we screen everyone, rent mostly to old people and single mothers, and have camera in public areas and around the buildings.
ever since covid and this inspection bull, we get daily calls letters, emails from corporations expressing their interest in buying our not for sale property.
That’s why. Someone’s asking a “friend” to lean on you and make you sell so that a corporate landlord can consolidate more of the rental market.
Exactly
I’ll be honest, that building sounds like a piece of crap. Inspections are easy to satisfy if you keep the building up. First of all, not many building inspectors take bribes (even in Chicago). Second of all, the updates they ask for aren’t crazy. Third of all, if you think the building inspector was bribed, discretely ask them about it as if you also want to bribe them. You can find out.
It sounds like you have some issues that they let you slide on before. Maybe the old building inspector retired during Covid and now you have somebody who’ll actually enforce the rules. You have an old ass building with a bunch of old ladies in it. That’s exactly what a run down building is like.
The funny thing is that we have to be present during inspections because we have to allow them into utility areas and different units along with giving tenants notice that people will enter into their homes. We passed 2019’s inspection and was working on getting leed grant to help finish some improvement needed to qualify to accept section 8 renters since we just replaced all the windows and installed central air conditioning in each unit. The violations were for things corrected across almost 20 years of inspections. There was no inspection that led to our violations.
finish some improvement needed to qualify to accept section 8 renters
Let me get this straight, your place isn’t good enough for Section 8? That’s the definition of a crappy place.
Be honest. Imagine if someone else told you their building was not good enough for Section 8 housing. You know you would think it sucked.
Sweet summer child
If it wasn’t for hoarders I’d be able to afford a house. Shit my parents bought in 2003 and paid 233k, the fucking place is about a million now. They only make like $4 more an hour than they did in 2003, but because they were able to get in before it got stupid they are set.
Like shit it’s an entire house and they pay what I’d be paying to rent a two bedroom apartment.
Oh, so you’ll be able to inherit a house one day. Stop bragging
Well due to the massive increase in end of life costs in the last decade his parents will have to sell to house in their last few year and the inheritance will vanish. Don’t worry we’ll all end up in the same place.
Ah yes…
If it wasn’t for scalpers, where would people buy concert tickets??
Eat shit Tina
No, another landlord would own it and charge 3× as much. Lol.
Ah, the “I am a smaller asshole, because others are bigger assholes (but I am still an asshole)” argument
Where the fuck are you seeing this argument take place? How do you know this isn’t a fair landlord? Why are they not allowed some profit for a service they provide?
That’s like living in america and not owning a gun. Your past virtue signal won’t lift you out of poverty.
