This looks like hard work, but based on this article well done to the author for putting in the effort.
> Landlords won’t listen to tenants. In the same way that Republicans won’t seriously engage with Democrats and vice versa.
As presented, this interaction looks like a completely standard negotiation where both sides get something they want. It is a little unusual in that one side is being represented pro-bono by a neutral party, but stranger things happen.
So although I agree that landlords wouldn't listen to tenants in these circumstances, it'd be interesting to explore how much this is underselling this "Luke" fellow simply having good negotiation skills. If a landlord is presented with a choice of losing $1,000 or $3,000 and everyone is reasonably polite I suspect a vast majority would choose $1,000.
Understandably so. People are grateful to someone who's generous to them but contemptuous of someone who gives them what they demand, even when it's the exact same outcome.
A workaround I sometimes use when my kid demands something is to refuse, then shortly after, offer something entirely different, and they're happy.
This is why I laugh when people say Landlords are just business people. No, they're people who own more private property than they need so they can make money off doing nothing from someone else's need for shelter. They're willing to fight for the law to make shelter situations worse or nonexistence so they can charge more money. If everyone had a home, there wouldn't be a housing market, so naturally anyone involved in that ecosystem prefers there to be a shortage. They're the only market actor that expects no loses and fights for zero risk. That's not business, that's authoritarianism.
> so they can make money off doing nothing from someone else's need for shelter.
They already did something - they put up their money to buy this property. Now, if you want to use it for shelter, you need to give them something in return.
> They're willing to fight for the law to make shelter situations worse or nonexistence so they can charge more money.
In fact, it's just the opposite - by investing their money (which they could put into stock market, or spent on champagne, caviar and sexually attractive persons of their preferred gender) into the shelter market and then putting that property out to be rented, they are improving the shelter situation. If they didn't exist, then the shelter would not have been built, or you had to buy it outright to use it. Since many people can not afford to do that, and - for example, for young person just starting their careers - it makes no sense for them to do it, the existence of rental properties improves the situation on the market.
> If everyone had a home, there wouldn't be a housing market,
Where those homes would come from? Who would pay the costs for them being built? That's like saying "if everyone would be a bllionaire there would be no need to work for money" - but actually, if that were the case, we'd find ourselves in economic collapse, ask Zimbabwe, they had a lot of billionaires. Homes are a scarce resource that needs to be built using other scarce resources, so the situation you describe is not possible.
> naturally anyone involved in that ecosystem prefers there to be a shortage
A shortage is certainly preferable to any realistic scenarios where there's suddenly an abundance of homes for everybody (e.g. 90% of earth population dying out, or the civilization degrading so much that any random cave or hole in the ground is an adequate home now).
> They're the only market actor that expects no loses and fights for zero risk.
How it's zero risk? You put up an immense sum of money (frequently, that persons whole life savings) for a prospect of uncertain returns in the future (and certain expenses in form of taxes and maintenance). That's the very definition of risky investment.
> That's not business, that's authoritarianism.
I don't think you understand what "authoritarianism" means. Buying or creating a resource with the prospect of later giving other people temporary access to that resource when they need it, in exchange for compensation, is one of the most common business models in existence, you take advantage of it probably a dozen times a day, unless you live in extremely rural and isolated area - even then, how do you access the internet for example? Probably paying for access to somebody who invested in building the infrastructure for you doing so. This is literally one of the most commonest businesses ever.
It's wild that you think this is rational analysis. No amount of history or math will ever change your mind because you've created a fantasy where somehow housing people requires killing all but 10% of the population.
I observe that you choosing not to engage with my argument, but instead call me names and pretend I am insane. I hope one day you realize it's not how you make a coherent argument. Until then, good luck to you.
> where somehow housing people requires killing all but 10% of the population.
I never said that. I said that is the one of the small number of realistic scenarios where housing suddenly becomes abundant without consuming massive amount of resources which are to be acquired from somewhere and yet nobody is paying for them. This is a common fallacy which does not take into account economic scarcity - to make enough something for everybody, and deliver it at the point they need it to be consumed, takes certain resources, and the housing is one of the worst cases since - unlike food, for example - it's very hard to produce it where it'd be cheap to produce, and cheaply transport it to the place where it needs to be consumed. With grain or rice, for example, doing this is commonly feasible. With housing, not so much - we currently have no plausible technology that allows to do anything like that. Thus, "let's just make enough housing for everyone" is not a realistic proposal since there's no realistic way to do it in a way we need it done. If you know how to do it, you are welcome to enter the history of the humanity as a hero. Norman Borlaug did it, maybe you could do it too. If you think you can, don't waste time arguing with me - spend time saving the humanity.
presumably you had some legal basis and weren't simply breaking contract and civil law. I think what works people up is when people do one of these things.
I had no contract that said I could live there. Somebody had a rental agreement at some point I guess. Nothing was in my name.
Legal basis? That costs a lot of money to determine sometimes. Let's just settle up and move on with our lives. $1,000 cash and you never ever have to deal with me again.
>Legal basis? That costs a lot of money to determine sometimes. Let's just settle up and move on with our lives. $1,000 cash and you never ever have to deal with me again.
You seem nice, so I am happy to assume good intentions on your part. Do you understand how people could have difficulty finding the operational difference between your situation and a squatter that broke in?
>> You seem nice, so I am happy to assume good intentions on your part
I was not a nice person at this point, and my intentions were to have somewhere to sleep out of the rain.
I did at one point live in actual squat where people had broken in, the breaking in part happened before I got there, but I lived there for I guess what was the greatest summer ever. That was in a different city. I got out before the eviction happened, but what happened was that the landlord eventually figured out there were 7 hardcore kids squatting in this basement apartment and he came over and told them they had 24 hours to get out before he called the cops.
In that location, the cops would have come, and the cops would have kicked the kids out that day, like literally kicked them out. Kicked their asses.
In the other situation I describe, it was in a different city. Crime central. The cops weren't coming. Not to kick me out of a squat, not to kick me out of an apartment that somebody maybe had rented way back when. Not for anything. I could have set up a meth lab. Cops weren't coming.
My meaning is, if you're a landlord, you're signing up to deal with this shit, know what you're getting in to. In some places you just call the cops. In some places, $1,000 to get rid of a non-tenant like squatter me would be getting off super cheap. It would be a business decision.
I agree with everything you are said. I think where people in this thread get talking past eachother about practical decisions versus ethical and just behavior.
This was introduced with the comparison to extortion. I dont think knowing the risks of extortion, makes the extortion just or moral.
In the context of general usage, calling something a "business decision" is an intentional severing of choice from questions of right, wrong, justice, and emotion.
At the end of the day, I guess I'm just objecting to the idea that the landlord won because the squatting only cost them $1000. I did some petty B&E vandalism when I was young and dumb, and wouldn't consider it a win-win for owners when we didn't destroy move property. Im assume you'd agree it isnt a win for the landlord if the counter-factual was no squatter, so I dont really have much to debate.
At any rate, thanks for sharing your personal stories.
There's won (outright) and "won (given the situation)" - nobody would say that being hit by a car is "winning" but someone who was hit by a car, and survived when expected not to; they probably count the survival as winning.
No landlord wants to pay a tenant or squatter or whatnot to leave, but often it's the quickest and cheapest way to the goal; though if it becomes too common it ends up as a downside overall.
Some quite old (think 80-90s) landlording books I've read even talk about hiring a moving crew and a truck, finding a new apartment and paying the first and last month's rent for the tenant to get them out. Not out of goodness of their heart (though it may have seemed like that) but because those costs were less than lost revenue + cost of eviction + (potential) loss of a sale.
This happens all the time, I'm even surprised this is a blog post. I was paid to move by landlords twice already, one of them I didn't even ask, the other was a basic conversation about it.
I mean I'm glad this guy is doing something that makes him feel good, but this felt like reading someone describing their commute to work as if it was WW2.
Eh, that isn't that important though. They can choose to feel however they like and a skilled negotiator could frame the request well. The question is really "would they pay?".
Skilled negotiator would know that how their counterparty feels is extremely important. This is exactly what determines whether they would pay or not.
Now, the real question is: how does a skilled negotiator frame “pay me $1000 and I’ll leave tomorrow” in such a way that the landlord feels like a hero for complying? With a neutral third party suggesting this, it is pretty easy as OP post suggests, but if you're the tenant suggesting that I think it won’t be as easy.
That's a fun prompt. Depends on the landlord but taking a Chris Voss approach here:
"Honestly, I'm worried I can't afford to move, you're a smart guy, I bet you're worried about that too. I get it, I don't want to be 'that' tenant." (label the negative emotion, empathize)
"How am I supposed to move so soon? It'd cost me $1500 and I can barely even afford the rent." (Anchor a price, turn it into problem solving)
"This is probably going to sound unreasonable, but could you help me with the move? That way I can be sure to be out on time." (Calibrated question to guide the conversation)
> This is exactly what determines whether they would pay or not.
It really isn't. They're a landlord. If one option loses them less money they'll pick that option. The finances will win because they're not putting the house on the market to get warm fuzzy feelings. If they've been a landlord for even a small number of tenants they're used to outrageous demands and know how to take them in stride.
They're more likely to accept the frame if it is nicely presented, but at the end of the day they'll swallow their feelings and choose the cheap option unless a tenant is being an outrageous bastard about the whole thing.
I agree that their feelings are important. But their finances are really the guiding star for their decision making.
> If one option loses them less money they'll pick that option
It's a nice idea to think human beings are strictly rational, but they aren't. We've long known, homo economicus had his funeral in the 90s. Amos Tversky murdered him in an entirely rational way.
OK, kidding aside - purely rational decisions are extremely rare.
> but at the end of the day they'll swallow their feelings
People do many things, but they very rarely swallow their feelings. If you've ever seen a neighborhood lawsuit or a divorce, you've seen feelings be extremely powerful things, even if finances are involved.
"unless a tenant is being an outrageous bastard" is the operative phrase there. Feelings color what's considered outrageous. Sometimes, "he looked at me funny" is all that's needed to make an entirely irrational decision.
There's a whole bunch of studies clearly showing that people would rather take a monetary loss than a gain where they think the other party gets an outsized gain (not at their expense) as a result in the latter case. Humans are weird. Feelings matter a lot.
One of the examples in there is a choice about pay at work
A: You make $50,000; others earn $25,000
B: You make $100,000; others earn $200,00
And a very large number of participants would rather choose A, because that means they'd be relatively better off than their colleagues. Even if they end up with half the income.
I’m aware of a guy starting a small hog farm out of spite. The size of it, it can only have been costing him money and time and property value. There’s zero chance it was going to annoy his neighbors enough to let him do what he wanted instead (zone it as some kind of dump, iirc) because that would definitely be worse for them, so all this effort and cost was driven by pure spite.
I think you’re both right. People’s feelings are absolutely critical to any negotiation. And people pretty reliably find a way to align their feelings with their financial interests.
That's one of the ways to negotiate something like this - it saves the landlord money and lets him feel better than the other landlords; if he feels that way he'll likely go ahead; but if he feels he's being scammed, he'll put up a fight even if it costs him more.
It’s hard for me to see how the tenant would go about negotiating that solution, though. How would you, as a tenant, present that option in a way that doesn’t just sound like blackmail? I bet there’s a way to do it, but it’s clearly a much easier sell from a disinterested third party who the landlord identifies as being in their in-group.
> How would you, as a tenant, present that option in a way that doesn’t just sound like blackmail?
If you don't want to sound like you're blackmailing [0] someone, don't blackmail them? Walking away is a real option for the tenant here.
But you can still be polite about the whole thing. You can blackmail someone and still have everyone be friends afterwards. Just make it clear it isn't personal, you like the landlord as a person, think they're fantastic [1], and that they're going to have to give you money for you to go away because the vicissitudes of fate have placed them over a barrel. They get karmic points and a good story for their next cocktail party.
[0] I was surprised to learn that blackmail might indeed be the correct word. I thought it would be technically wrong but it seems to work. I'd use extortion if I wasn't prompted though.
Hey, I’ve got some expenses to move. Moving costs, taking time off work, etc. How about we help each other. I’ll move out like you want and you kick in $X to help me through the process.
I think there’s also a psychological difference in the direction you’re asking the money to go. For purely rational agents, it might all be about expected value, but for humans, a tenant asking a landlord to pay them is likely to be seen as outrageous, particularly when the landlord hasn’t done anything wrong.
The business deal was you pay rent, and when the contract ends you get out. Now you're changing the deal unilaterally and threatening to occupy somebody's property without contract and without paying, unless you're given additional payments. It's certainly not like every business deal.
most people who rent have no intention to move out but expect the contract to be renewed. in some jurisdictions this is even enforced by law. so they are not changing the deal unilaterally. in fact the landlord who wants the renter to move out is the one who is unilaterally changing the deal.
> most people who rent have no intention to move out but expect the contract to be renewed
What this expectation is based on? You can't just "expect" other people to act for your benefit.
> in some jurisdictions this is even enforced by law
These jurisdictions likely have constant problems with their rental market, unless it's captured by the state or similar entity. It would be very strange for a willing person to enter a contract which essentially deprives them of control of their property forever.
> so they are not changing the deal unilaterally
Yes they are, unless their rental contract specifies that they are entitled to rent this property forever. I have not seen any such contract so far.
> in fact the landlord who wants the renter to move out is the one who is unilaterally changing the deal.
Again, this is not true unless the contract specifically promises the renter that they are entitled to be renting forever - which usually is not the case, and I am not sure why would any landlord sign such contract and lose the control of their property forever.
You can't just "expect" other people to act for your benefit.
at least german law says otherwise.
and see my other comment. i have never rented with an expectation to move out.
It would be very strange for a willing person to enter a contract which essentially deprives them of control of their property forever.
if the purpose of the property is to be rented out then what more control do you need?
you can terminate a lease if they fail to pay rent or destroy your property, or if you need it for your own family. but why would you want to terminate a lease otherwise? to raise the rent for the next tenant? that's just greed.
unless their rental contract specifies that they are entitled to rent this property forever. I have not seen any such contract so far.
in germany such contracts are the law. no other form of contract is valid unless it is a short term rental for a vacation home or something like that.
I am not sure why would any landlord sign such contract and lose the control of their property
> i have never rented with an expectation to move out.
Wait, you always rent with the expectation to stay in that place forever, until you die, and never move? That's certainly an unusual way of doing things. In the US, average renal duration is just above 2 years, and I have heard about people moving many times, so certainly you must be aware even if you do not intend to ever move, other people do that?
> if the purpose of the property is to be rented out then what more control do you need
Why do you think you can determine the purpose of the property that does not belong to you, once and forever?
> why would you want to terminate a lease otherwise
Why it's any of your business?
> welcome to germany.
Thanks, I'll pass, for one more reason in the otherwise very, very long list of reasons.
it does say that the needs of the tenants almost always outweigh the needs of the owner.
you always rent with the expectation to stay in that place forever, until you die, and never move?
why does undetermined time to stay always have to imply that i'll stay there until i die?
i rent with the expectation that i can stay there as long as i want, and renew as many times as i want, until my life circumstances change. i never have a moving out date in mind. where i am now i might stay 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. i have no idea. the expectation is that i am the one to choose when i move out and noone else.
Why do you think you can determine the purpose of the property that does not belong to you, once and forever?
i don't. the german law does however. the majority of people in germany live in rental properties. so if you build a rental property, it better remain a rental property and nothing else. that's what you got permission and maybe even subsidies for. because the country needs more rental properties. and this is one way to achieve that. by giving tenants the right to rent the same place as long as they need. the exceptions for the owner to change that are very limited and need to be in the interest of the community. you can terminate a lease in order to use the property for your family. but that is pretty much the only exception. and even that can be limited if the tenant would loose their job if they had to move or would be forced to send the kids to another school. both are considered highly disruptive and against the interest of society, so tenants are protected from that. as long as the tenant is in such a situation you have no chance of getting them out. germany does this in order to provide stability for families and the community.
Why it's any of your business?
again, not mine, but the governments. by forcing a tenant to move you are acting against the interests of the community.
Thanks, I'll pass
there are many reasons not to want to live in germany. i don't live there either for reasons, but tenant protection is not one of them
i have never once rented a place with a specific date in mind when i would move out again. it was always: we'll stay here until life circumstances force us to move, which may well be never. when we moved within the same city, it was always because the landlord forced us to and never because we wanted to (well, except once to get closer to our sons school). my grandmother lived in her home from her 20s until she passed away some 60 years later. and i believe before that her aunt lived there. and now my mother. and eventually me or someone else from our family will move in so we can continue the lease of this same apartment that has been rented by our family for probably close to a century. my dad lives in his current home for more than 40 years now. i am the odd one out in my family, having traveled so much that i have never lived more than a few years in the same place.
So, the point is it's ok for one side to want to continue the contract forever, or to exit it anytime they want, for any reason they want - but it's not ok for the other side to have the same freedom? Why is that?
while moving out at the end of a lease was a possibility, it was never suggested that it was the expectation. on the contrary. generally the expectation was that we'd stay. most landlords we met favored long term tenants.
of course not for the rest of their lives. i don't even know where that sentiment comes from. the original argument was about the claim that a tenant wanting to renew a lease is unilaterally changing the agreement with the landlord. and that is simply not true. the expectation almost always is that a lease will be renewed, and if a landlord doesn't want to renew they are the ones going against expectations.
a landlord not renewing the lease has certainly happened to us. mostly i think it was because they wanted to sell the apartment. but this was never expected at the time we moved in. if we had known in advance we would have found another place. in germany btw, terminating a lease in order to sell is also illegal. the buyer of an apartment has to continue the lease. they may then only terminate it if they can prove that they need the apartment for themselves.
>i don't even know where that sentiment comes from.
I introduced when I said I dont know anyone who expected to be in a rental for the rest of their lives. This is support for the idea that the contracts in the US are expected to be terminatable by either party at will. You then countered with stories of family that never left and statements like the following:
"most people who rent have no intention to move out but expect the contract to be renewed."
"we'll stay here until life circumstances force us to move, which may well be never."
>the original argument was about the claim that a tenant wanting to renew a lease is unilaterally changing the agreement with the landlord. and that is simply not true.
If the agreement is that renting continues as long as both parties are happy, and either party can end it after a minimum time, for no special cost. If someone agrees to that contract, then refuses to let the other party terminate after the minimum time, that is changing the contract.
If someone signs a contract saying they will leave whenever asked, then later refuses to leave without a payment, that is clearly changing the agreement.
If the agreement is that renting continues as long as both parties are happy, and either party can end it after a minimum time, for no special cost. If someone agrees to that contract, then refuses to let the other party terminate after the minimum time, that is changing the contract.
ok, putting it explicit like that i kind of agree. but i don't see the example from the story in that way. the tenant had a clear expectation that they could stay, and the landlord knew that. they got blindsided by the landlord wanting them to move out because regardless of the actual contract they signed, the tenant clearly wasn't in the position to be able to simply move.
situations like this are the reason why this is actually illegal in germany. being forced to move always creates a hardship for the tenant, and the laws are made to protect against that.
I think the difference in emotional responses you and I have is largely dependent on the backstory that we are filling in.
I'm more biased to believe or assume a malicious or incompetent tenant, and you are more inclined to assume a malicious landlord.
You think they are being blindsided, and I think they've been given a minimum of 2 months notice. There are no facts about the reason for non-renewal in the article. Maybe the tenant is knocking holes in the walls or the owner is moving in.
Like I said, our differences is probably colored by our experiences. I've seen people making 200k a year extort 50K cash for keys simply because they can and it's cheaper than an eviction. I've seen other tenants demand similar amounts to move out because they are doing 100K of damage per year and they know it's cheaper to pay them off.
actually, i am not assuming that anyone is malicious here, and i am observing that even without anyone being at fault, the lack of tenant protection puts the tenant at a disadvantage. and that disadvantage is what i intended to address.
if a tenant is malicious then none of this discussion is even relevant, because we no longer need to consider the expectations of the tenant. if they damaged the property, sue them to get them to pay for the fix, or do whatever you need to make the problem go away.
but if they are just a harmless nuisance, well then, tough luck. until the landlord provides a good reason for the eviction, i'll side with the tenant. have you had to find an apartment to rent on short notice before? two months is not enough. i'd need half a year.
Most tenants are judgement proof, so there is no legal remedy. That is to say, there is no legal recourse and compensation avenue available. landlords are lucky if they can get possession of their property back intact.
However, I agree that this is a distinct topic than no-cause eviction. The two intersect in that cash for keys is a common remedy for both situations.
I think there are valid practical arguments that can be made for legally barring no-cause evictions or extending notice.
The main point I was attempting to debate was the reasonableness of demanding cash-for-keys under a legal framework that explicitly allows no-cause eviction, and both parties have contractually agreed to no-fault eviction (and no-fault move out).
This is largely because I believe in honoring my commitments, even if I could profit through breaking them or lying.
> the original argument was about the claim that a tenant wanting to renew a lease is unilaterally changing the agreement with the landlord.
No, the argument was that the tenant that refuses to move out when the landlord does not want to rent to them anymore, after the original contract has expired, unless the landlord pays them off, is unilaterally changing the agreement with the landlord.
The agreement with the landlord consists of the lease/rental contract, the law, and other unspoken expectations of both parties.
Some times more things are spelled out (lease contracts that have built-in price changes; for example I've seen ones that basically auto-renew every year, with an optional x% increase on the landlord's side, which usually but not always is taken), sometimes they aren't.
You can even agree to things that aren't allowed by law; both sides just never bother reporting it (this is one of those unwritten things you find from time to time).
Usually a tenant "unilaterally changing the agreement" is just falling back on the tenant protection laws to their advantage. Savvy landlords know the laws and how to work with them, inexperienced landlords get caught out (often because all the tenants before have never used them).
If the landlord is wanting something that benefits them and conveys that to the tenets then it’s reasonable for the tenant to communicate their concerns and what would help the landlord get what they want.
Of course. We live in a world that wouldn’t dare to do any actions to save itself unless it’s “profitable”. This way of thinking permeates to each fiber of our social fabric.
I agree with you, running a business used to be about providing products and services to fill your customer’s needs. Go to any place whose owner is also working there and you still feel that vibe. The satisfaction of a restaurant owner hearing that you enjoyed your meal or the proud gym owner who starts a conversation with every new face which happens to start attending for more than a few days and just wants to help.
Sadly these businesses are outliners now. Nowadays MBAs are hired as CEOs and then Boeing happens in nursing homes. They are in fact bad businesses but no one seems to care.
Returning to the article. The home owner didn’t care a little bit about having principles or trying to run a business that provides value to society. The argument was purely profit based. If there was a way to pre-file for eviction that was legal and costed 900 usd. They would have taken that instead of giving the 1k
Landlording of single-family homes especially is much more akin to capital investment than small business.
A landlord who lives in one unit of a 40 unit apartment building that he owns is closer to the small business, especially if he provides the maintenance.
The nice thing about the small business is that the profit is practically capped - once the owner has "everything he could want" he will basically stop trying to get more. But shareholder corporations never hit that point.
You're free to make that argument, and the stock market and capital will make a different one. Using that capital, the businesses competing against you will make sure that your good business is no longer a business. At which point it will indisputably be a bad business, failing to do anything for anyone.
For the vast majority of Americans social status is directly tied to income or wealth. As long as this is true the profit motive will be the highest motive for most people.
I think it's an acknowledgement of human tribalism. We tend to take care of ourselves and our "family & friends" and let the rest of the world do the same, and one reason why capitalism and markets work better than most alternatives, they acknowledge human nature and selfishness and don't try to delve too abstractly into moral philosophy.
This is why landlords want to rent to tenants who have not been evicted before. With "good tenants gone bad" these things work, but if you regularly rent to bad tenants, then it's going to happen all the time (at which point you're implementing other things to protect yourself and recoup the costs, or selling and going home).
It’s good, but the best possible outcome is still only moving bad landlords from being sociopathic, petty business people* to being people who impassionately make logical business decisions.
Personally, I think that obtaining a secure and safe place to live, and having certainty over living conditions deserves more than that. From a renters perspective it’s not a business transaction. The stakes are incredible from an emotional and quality of life perspective.
* I’ve seen enough landlord forums to conclude that there is an astonishingly high concentration of shitty people.
Because normal people will own maybe 1 place and take normal decisions. I know many people that own a rental place, but I don't know anyone that frequents "landlord groups". If you're a member of a group like that you're already a sub-population that probably wants to "landlord harder".
I frequent landlord groups (online) and I’ve never been a landlord. I own a SFH but could see myself temporarily moving out of state in a few years, and reading various online discussions had been super helpful for giving me an idea of all the things I should think about if I ever rent out my home. I’m sure there are a lot of people in similar boats, people who have no clue what being a landlord is like
From your comment it looks like your usage is mostly read-only so you'd have no effect on the "vibe" of said groups, which is what I replied to. A group is defined by its posters more than its lurkers.
IMO it should be illegal to rent private homes for profit. It creates such a toxic cycle. In some places better wages in cities is completely absorbed by rent extraction. And as an area sees economic prosperity, landlords collude to extract it. It also inflates the prices of homes, where a family wanting to live in it has to compete with those that want to rent it out, maybe even turn it into an HMO, yuck.
As a society we should despise landlords and make them feel like the scum they are.
Indeed, there are no imaginable alternatives. The people who can't afford to build roads can't drive..
Suggestion, only the government is allowed to rent out homes to individuals. Many cities already have government owned homes that are rented out at 1/3rd the market price to people in need, like single parents and co. I see no reason why this couldn't work at scale.
> Many cities already have government owned homes that are rented out at 1/3rd the market price to people in need, like single parents and co. I see no reason why this couldn't work at scale.
Kekd.
It doesn't work for the simple reason that if you don't have enough homes, no matter how you shuffle people around and divide costs, someone is going to get the short end of the stick in some way. There are many places with elaborate systems of rent control and social housing, usually the effect is waiting lines and discrimination.
Yes, having to pay a lot for rent sucks, but you know what sucks even more? Applying for social housing and then being told that you should've started thinking of such things at the age of 4, now it's too late. That's how the Netherlands functions, despite having the highest ratio of government housing in Europe.
it does work in vienna. almost 60% live in housing owned or subsidized by the city. there are waiting times, but not as bad as you think. for one you have to be already living in vienna for a few years to qualify (which is unavoidable, otherwise any EU citizen would qualify automatically). the option to pay a lot for rent still exists, but the average family can't afford that.
One test of how good it is to rent in Vienna, would be, what is the vacancy rate? In my area a 3% vacancy rate is regarded as balanced market between demand and supply. Gives tennants a good choice of dwellings and promotes a level of competition and negotiation amongst property owners. I predict that once people obtain subsidised dwellings , they would be move less and or be reluctant to move. I predict that the supply of "new dwellings " privately constructed , is less than other places with the system that is implemented in Vienna does not exist. It would be interesting to see the management costs and loss of taxes experienced by the cities ownership of dwellings.
the supply of "new dwellings" privately constructed , is less than other places with
from what i have seen, this is not the case because other places do not provide enough incentive to build new homes. vienna is growing faster than some other cities. it's not easy to find good numbers. maybe this helps: in 2021 in all of germany about 260000 new apartments were built. that's one apartment per 323 inhabitants. in vienna in 2015 11500 apartments received building approval. that is 1 apartment per 165 inhabitants. of these only one third were built with government support. while in the same year 100million euro of government support remain unused. but apparently, since 2020 it is not allowed to have more than 1/3rd of any new building project without government subsidies and rent control. unlike germany subsidies continue for the lifetime of the building and so they can't be used for speculation and thus ensure a steady supply of affordable housing.
because of viennas growth i suspected that vacancy rates should be low. what i found is that from 900000 apartments in 2015 35000 were empty. that's 3.8%. this is from a statistic made by the city. others claim estimates from 80000 or even 100000. in 2017 9000 out of 2009000 city owned apartments were empty (4.3%). most of those empty places are available on the market.
i could not find anything good on financing. apparently most of the money comes from rent-income, so it seems to be mostly self-financing, although critics claim that the city also does not spend enough on maintenance. the city can also save money because they already own the properties they build on.
so it looks to me like a successful non-profit operation.
America has failed over and over and over at building public housing. It costs more than privately built housing and Ive never seen the management run well.
Terrible take. I never had a problem with any of my landlords, and I always rented houses. If something went wrong, fridge stopped working, HVAC broke, washing machine stopped draining, etc. the landlord would have someone out that day or the next or have an appliance delivered. My roommates and I didn't need to maintain an emergency budget for these things or be responsible for annual maintenance of everything.
I always had multiple roommates and we split the rent and happily had access to a much nicer home and neighborhood than we had any right to.
One landlord I had lived just one street over, in a similar house, so his family wasn't getting rich by any means. Another was some SE Asian immigrant woman and she was just getting by but the rental house was her retirement plan instead of a 401k.
When I eventually bought my first house at 26, I had a roommate come with me for a couple years until I had my first kid. Technically I was a landlord in that scenario, so does that make me scum too? I mean he was incredibly happy with the situation despite knowing I was turning some modest profit.
You are looking at specific instances. For me it's about the systemic, large scale effects of the system. People routinely partake in exploitative systems without ill intent.
The examples you provide could be applied in spirit to child labour. Is every instance of child labour immoral? I don't think so. But using the example of, how you as a 15 year old mowed some lawns to defend systemic child exploitation seems to miss the mark for me. I believe not all instances of landlordism are bad, but as a whole its effects on society are very negative. And that remains true even if all landlords were friendly and full of good intentions. The systemic effects remain the same.
This talk for example while focused on a different topic covers some of the large scale effects https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A.
You misunderstand. I was specifically addressing the post which was encouraging bad landlords think in business terms to stop their emotional antisocial behaviour.
But in reality the ideal is that landlords are considerate and decent towards renters. And, for when that fails, there are enough protections that renters aren’t at the mercy of a petty and vindictive landlord.
Has the writer ever been a landlord ? Most likely not.
I've been a landlord for 37 years - since 1987
At times I have employed agents.
Other times if DIY. That includes study to be up to date with tenancy legislation and law changes in my jurisdiction
Also have access for advice how to deal with certain tenancy situations - what are my options.
Some of these property's are complete houses .
Some are boarding houses ( multi room )
Some are "share houses " where the house is rented by the room.
All the boarding house management and share house management and tenant selection paperwork I do by myself.
I have rented to 100s of people over the years - over a few 100s of tenacious.
I do not know if I would give the tenant money. I would offer to help them.
However I would definitely advise them how to do it cheaply.
If can rent a small truck ( only need car license ) for one day for just 100$ . and it has a hydraulic lifter.
For tenants with smaller number of possessions I have actually provided transport and helped with moving.
Out of those 100s of tenants, Ive only every evicted 2 people.
Anyone that says being a landlord is no work - has obviously never been landlord.
The statement "Landlords won’t listen to tenants." is wrong in my case.
I actually do a survey when people move out to find out good and bad experiences and ways to improve.
Several of my tenant's have stayed long periods 5 - 10 years when they have been free to leave at just 2 weeks notice So I must have been doing "something" better than "the market"
You likely did the most common form of landlord "largesse" - subsidizing the tenant's rent by charging below market.
This is extremely common and doesn't hurt anyone, really. The tenant gets a stable place to live, the landlord gets a good tenant, and only the economists complain about something being sold below its value.
What do you think you offer to society? Are you not just profiteering off a basic human need, only enabled to do so because so many politicians and their mates own property?
We don't need landlords to be better people. We need functioning institutions and laws to protect both parties in the lease. More importantly we need a massive increase in the supply of housing. Whatever I guess. It's a fun game trying to manipulate people on the internet I bet.
Yes, we do. The legal system always has friction, and I wouldn't want to rent from someone who I know is an asshole and expect to lean on the legal system, even if I had all of the protections in the world. The best scenario is always people behaving well.
The issue right now is that the housing crisis has progressed to the point where the legal system is breaking down. At least where I live, the landlord and tenant board (which adjudicates claims between landlords and tenants) is backlogged 18-24 months or more. Many tenants realize this and have started taking advantage by refusing to pay rent altogether, knowing they’re protected from eviction by law (until their day comes to be brought before the board).
For their part, landlords have completely lost trust in the system and demand excruciating levels of background checks and references and personal information to try and avoid these bad tenants. All the while raising the rent to exorbitant levels (due to hot real estate market and low vacancies). It’s become an incredibly vicious situation!
RE ".... landlords have completely lost trust in the system and demand excruciating levels of background checks and references and personal information to try and avoid these bad tenants......"
It appears OVER THE TOP
However Im about to hand over an asset valued at a large amount so it is entirely reasonable.
I've had applications where person has edited PDF documents to fake them. Ie bank statements. Revealed with forensic analysis.
Applications with fake references are not unusual.
Its like a bank application. The data is needed to catch these bad people out.
Insurance normally does not cover these situations.
IMO what's really needed is for most of these 'checks' to be made illegal. Then those who are willing and prepared to take on the risks associated with being a landlord can do it. Many other industries have regulations preventing all sorts of background checks that companies might otherwise want to do (e.g. insurance).
The side effect of your proposal would be rent increases and a decrease in supply in dwellings, as less people would be prepared to accept the risk, That's my prediction after almost 40 years supplying several rental properties. You should tell banks and other lenders the same thing, do not ask so many questions.
That is a generic argument that can be used against any form of regulation on the rental market. As the proportion of people who rent increases, I suspect that there will be growing political pressure to ban these intrusions and humiliations. (I wonder if you share your own bank statements with your tenants?)
Amusingly enough that's becoming an issue in some places; people "rent" properties they don't own and then skip town with the deposits and leave the owner with an unexpected tenant to evict.
States have passed laws that b an background checks before. It always leads to discrimination as people just use stereotypes because they cant find out the truth.
The article is talking about checks for criminal history in the context of employment. Any leap you make to the effects of laws banning entirely different kinds of background checks in an entirely different context is...well, a leap.
On top of that, the article reports on the results of a single behavioral study, which while interesting, is hardly conclusive. A few minutes on Google scholar is enough to find other papers casting doubt on its results: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b69fbe78f51306042d1d...
The study you point to doesn't even seem to be accurate (see the link I added as an edit to my previous comment), so even if you make the logical leap, the factual premise isn't there.
Yeah, being a good person plays both ways. It is a shame when tenants squat, and it's a shame when landlords avoid their legal obligations when they know their tenants can't effectively do anything about it. My point is that sitting in court won't turn a bad experience into a good one.
If all the landlords sold, there would be no place for the people that want to rent.
Sure, some landlords will sit on a property rather than rent it for less than max. And some landlords will rent for the absolute minimum that pays the bills (and doesn't account for risk, load, etc). But lots of landlords are in the middle, renting for a fair price, treating their renters reasonably, etc. And forcing them out of the market isn't going to help the overall health of the system.
Not everyone _wants_ to buy. Why is that so hard for people to understand? I have rented at times in my life and owned at other times. Sometimes owning is not the right choice.
We need supply to expand to where there's ready housing available and then people will realize that landlords do exist for a reason; if they didn't commercial landlords wouldn't exist at all. Some major chains like Walmart own the stores they operate in, but others operate on various leases.
It fascinates me how pervasive the housing crisis narrative has become when in point of fact the real issue is economic opportunity has been stolen from rural and small communities. It fascinates me even further when the housing crisis narrative is used to justify municipalities greenlighting (and in some cases subsidizing) wildly profitable real estate development projects that generally make all of the issues collectively referred to as the housing crisis objectively worse in the communities these projects were intended to serve.
We need landlords to be people, period. Local people, who gained the property through other business means and have decided to make a little bit of extra profit while providing a necessary service to the community. Ideally, they would live in one of the units with the tenants.
My landlord lives in the “best” unit of the apartment. It makes the experience so much better, and a kind of mini-community develops.
Faceless corps becoming landlords and using professional management companies is part of the problem.
The professional companies at least usually know and abide by the relevant laws. They have lawyers and risk management teams that make them.
It’s usually the small time landlords who end up deciding they can keep your security deposit because you didn’t renovate the kitchen, or if they want to let their brother in law stay there they can kick you out with no notice or whatnot.
I have had the exact opposite experience. Lived with a landlord for a year (he inherited the property as part of a trust), and he was the nicest guy whenever it came time to sign a lease or extension, but as soon as the paperwork was signed he was a jackass to most tenants. It also didn't help that he didn't have a job, and was attempting to pay for all of his living expenses using money from the rent (which led to him trying to nickel and dime the tenants for everything).
My experience with professional companies has been very good. The managers aren't trying to micromanage the tenants, and as long as you're not causing problems they are usually quite reasonable if anythings comes up.
Nope. I've rented ~20 apartments in my life, both from individuals and from big apt complexes, the former is much worse. A small landlord worries so much about his precious, a missed payment or a broken AC can mean he has to choose between food or his medication next month. There is a lot of tension, suspicions, emotions involved. They can't hide their racism, prejudices very well. Some very ugly situations ensued. Same goes for airbnb vs hotels.
Not only are there always going to be indecent folks it is the factor that is least amenable to any sort of meaningful change. You can't make people be good people but you can via law make them stop doing particular kinds of wrong.
> it is the factor that is least amenable to any sort of meaningful change.
I disagree. You can create systems and cultures that encourage most people to be decent or most people to be indecent.
There will always be some indecent folks and you always need to be able to deal with that, of course. The question is-- will that be the exception or the usual course of business?
People have been landlords and tenants long enough for every facet to have been explored. The whole surface area of the problem is composed of a multitude of aspects that pretty much only work consistently when rules are externally imposed upon actors. Wherein such restrictions are pervasive and enforced they become internalized by all actors and normalized.
If you want to fix a current issue in your state for instance if a substantial portion of your state's tenants are getting their deposits stolen. Say 10% of 200,000 landlords are doing wrong by their tenants.
You can either convince 100 or so lawmakers who have no stake in it and a handful of judges to enforce treble damages against a relative handful until flying straight becomes culturally normalized OR you you try to somehow have a discussion with hundreds of thousands of people with their flag firmly planted on one side and see if you can convince the worst 10% of them not to fuck people over.
Discussion is like the living coral on the outside of the reef its built on the bones of rules and enforcement. People are on average not very good, very motivated, or very intelligent. You don't rely on their goodwill for much beyond navigating and following existing rules and building on on them and you normally build on them by creating new rules not hoping people on the ground spontaneously come up with useful improvements against their own interests.
It's weird to suppose that something nebulous like overall good will and functionality is anything but a conglomeration of all the tiny little aspects which individually provably only work with adult supervision. Hell pick an aspect and compare a US state that regulates some aspect of the landlord tenant relationship with one that doesn't regulate it and not shockingly that its not JUST the state in question that is better or worse it will be better or worse in respect to the matter so regulated.
You can't manage relationships with that much obvious power imbalance via negotiation.
> until flying straight becomes culturally normalized
c.f. "Of course, systems that make it easier and safer for people to be decent would be good, towards that end."
I think that's what's been being discussed here: the system itself can change what equilibrium/expected behaviors are. Right now we have a system that often incents extreme behavior on both sides to preemptively protect interests.
> You can't manage relationships with that much obvious power imbalance via negotiation.
I don't think anyone in this thread has claimed so. I think you're responding to something entirely different than what was actually said.
I find that extremely difficult to believe, considering that "all other forms" includes modifications of capitalism and could also include theoretical forms whose primary goal is decency.
I agree but funnily enough I think this kind of operation is probably one of the most effective things we could do to establish those institutions.
I have always suspected that one of the most effective things you can do to make a lasting and significant impact on problems like this is to infiltrate hostile communities and influence them in favour of the _ideas_ that are needed to create a more reasonable political landscape.
So, like what OP did, but instead of "cashing in" on a single tenuously pro-tenant action, I would "cash in" on an argument in favour of, for example, fair and neutral government mediation services for tenant disputes. Or something of that nature.
The problem is that the number of tenants always outnumbers the landlords, and so it's very hard to convince everyone that the government mediation service is fair and neutral.
Fixed that for you. As the radical leftist Adam Smith himself pointed out:
"[Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind"
I'm a landlord for a property in Berkeley. I've rented exclusively to students for the last 25 years. If I weren't there to do that, where would the students stay? They certainly can't afford to buy the house.
Landlords manage liquidity in the market, and maintain the property. Good landlords do serve a purpose. I teach my tenants, who are often renting for the first time in their life, how to not get screwed by other landlords. I point out to them all the places that they could get screwed. I tell them to take pictures of everything when they move in and have me sign it. I tell them that in Berkeley, they get interest on their deposit every year.
And when it comes time to raise the rent, I don't gouge them. I usually let them keep the rent from the year before if they choose to stay a second year. On the third year I only raise it slightly. I've found that undercharging from market rates gets me better tenants who take good care of the property.
And I know that there is no such thing as a rental unit that can't be filled, only one that is too expensive. When the market goes down, I lower the rent, because I'm smart enough to know that it will take me multiple years at the higher rent to make up for just one lost month of rent.
I'm curious what your solution to housing liquidity would be without landlords. How would people who have no need or desire to stay in one place more than year find a place to sleep?
Google Vienna. Much nicer and affordable than Berkeley and far less landlords. Also, people can’t afford to buy houses in Berkeley or find cheaper rentals because people use housing as an investment vehicle, rent seek off them, prevent more housing from being built to their asset values from declining etc.
I’m sorry - this is pretty bizarre; especially considering this is a public school like Berkeley.
Wouldn’t the school just expand their housing and own the homes - like many other schools globally? One could even argue your presence is a net negative for students. Had the housing near Berkeley not become a speculative asset, the school would likely own it and rent it at a much cheaper rate.
Also, this would just make the school the landlord. And a landlord that is renting to a "company man" as it were... because if you cause a problem, you can lose both your job (school) and housing at the same time.
Last year the California supreme court ordered them to stop construction of 1100 dormitory rooms because they insufficiently studied in their environmental impact report whether a human makes sounds. So no, in California the universities will not simply build housing.
I went to Purdue, a land-grant University in Indiana. When I was there the school had over 30,000 students and housing for about 1/3 of that. They can most certainly afford the land to build more housing, but the demand is not there[1].
Other schools have to require underclassmen to live on campus to fill their housing -- which is often more expensive than living off campus.
1: Housing was provided based on seniority; older students got first pick, yet the housing was overwhelmingly occupied by freshmen.
It's nice that you as a person exist and do what you do but know that you are an exception. I'm sure some slaveowners were more decent to their slaves relative to other slaveowners.
I'd say a large number if not the majority of landlords really are parasitic, they do very little upkeep especially in cities or municipalities with poor tenancy laws, but reap the benefits especially when there is high demand.
You're right, most of them are awful, including the ones in Berkeley. But they still arguably provide a service, which is liquidity in the housing market. The provide housing for people who can't or won't buy it for themselves.
This housing provider myth is pretty bad. I also live in Berkeley, where I pay so much rent that my landlady covers all her expenses in 6 weeks and spend all of her time on vacation. Who is doing the providing in this scenario?
Re "...I pay so much rent that my landlady covers all her expenses in 6 weeks ..." THe implication here is landlord is making enormous profit. That's good because if the profit really is enormous, the government and lots of other people will be able to either buy and rent homes. OR actually build homes to rent them out. They will them be able to reduce the asking rents to such a level to just cover their costs. If not then there are unexplained expenses or risks not mentioned.
Expenses in my area would include agents management fee , normally a % of rent - like 7 - 10 %. Local authority "rates" - typically a few $1000 . Insurance , typically a few $1000 at least. State government "land tax" depending on land valuation. Possible strata fees and levies. Bad debts Accountant fees for proper tax return for rental property - - typically $300 - $400 . New tenant assessment fees every time there is a new tenancy. Maintenance and repairs. Sinking fund for future repairs. In my area, its not unusual for a large proportion of the rent ( 50% or more ) to be consumed by all the fees and charges. Note the above does not include interest on borrowed funds. And was the quoted 1978 price typical as determined by comparison with other building for sales in 1978? As it is not know what other ( if any consideration ) was in the sale. Could have been a family transfer for example. The above does not include "risk"
You can throw out whatever arithmetic you want but we know from the aggregates that landlords are raking it in at unprecedented rates. Lessors' net income as a fraction of GDP stands at the highest level ever recorded. Net, that is after all the little things you whined about.
Re "...landlords are raking it in at unprecedented rates. ..." The implication here is landlord is making enormous profit. That's good because if the profit really is enormous, the government and lots of other people will be able to either buy and rent homes. OR actually build homes to rent them out. They will them be able to reduce the asking rents to such a level to just cover their costs. If not then there are unexplained expenses or risks not mentioned.
You have to consider the time value of money. 19K invested in stock market in 1978 would be over 1 million dollars today, maybe 2 million if you include the taxes paid since purchase.
So put the money in the stock market like everyone else with a 401K and stop constantly whining about getting someone else to pay off your mortgage. It’s not like what the world needs more of is real estate speculation.
I dont think that you can view housing as a fixed quantity of resources that are being allocated.
Houses dont grow on trees. They take many thousands of man-hours to build, and hundreds of thousands in materials, even in the absence of land scarcity.
Landlords front the cost of these things. without them, most of the housing stock would never be built, and there would be nowhere to stay for anyone who doesnt have good credit and a pile of money.
Landlords by and large do not build houses. They buy up existing stock and coordinate with other landlords to constrain supply and raise rents. I dunno who you think is going to believe these fairy tales, but they’re transparently false to anyone with like an 8th grade reading level:
Words drift a bit over time. Smith isn't talking about landlords in exactly the sense of, say, someone who rents out an apartment. He's talking about people who own land and extract economic rent (ie, do nothing, breath through their mouth & get money; land isn't going anywhere).
So he'd probably be on board with the idea of setting up systems that get rid of the unearned part of rent, but even if the class of people he is talking about were gone there would still be people who own houses/apartments and rent them out to others. They'd be making a bit less profit since they'd earn whatever the market thinks administration is worth plus some sort of premium for tying up a lot of capital in a house.
No, this is just ahistorical revisionism. Smith opposed pretty much all forms of economic rents because they’re a parasitic drag on the productive use of both labor and capital. He would be on board with none of what you describe. Go read the Wealth of Nations, chapter 11.
In the section you referenced [0] he explains himself reasonably clearly. He isn't talking about the entire class of duties that a modern apartment or housing landlord has. He is talking about the part that requires no planning, ongoing investment, work or even attention.
Some aspects of being a landlord are economic rent and should go away, but other parts are ownership and maintenance of capital and shouldn't. I'd suggest that while Smith was against economic rents he'd have no particular issue with a capitalist renting out their capital - even if that capital is a house. Note that Chapter 11 is rent of land not of capital.
Adam Smith is consistent in his opposition to rent seeking as a behavior, as embodied in his disdain for landlords and other “unproductive classes” throughout the Wealth of Nations. He was a moral philosopher above all concerned with how systems and incentives guide human behavior toward positive or destructive ends. You haven’t provided any evidence to the contrary, only tried to invent some special, imaginary form of his philosophy with carve outs that suit your beliefs.
Yeah, but the words mean something a little different to Smith - he's writing in the context of 1700s Scotland. As you note, he is talking about unproductive classes. That is different from the modern tenant-landlord relation where there is an unproductive aspect and a productive aspect. He wouldn't have changed his position at all on the unproductive part, but if we got rid of that he'd have been OK with what was left.
> You haven’t provided any evidence to the contrary
Neither have you. You've provided huge amounts of evidence that Smith doesn't like rents from land. I'm with Smith on that, rents from land are a moral and economic problem.
The issue your argument has is modern rental landlords aren't just doing that - they are also maintaining and renting out a significant amount of capital. That aspect of their role isn't going away; it would be silly to demand that everyone owns the house that they live in.
The word has drifted. We aren't talking about aristocrats who own vast tracks of farmland that they're leaching off. At the start of the chapter he lays it out with "In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave [the tenant] no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood.". That isn't what modern landlords are doing.
A landlord in Smith’s day is more or less the same as someone who buys a building and raises rent based on its increased value from the productive economic activity that occurs in and around it, as opposed to anything they do themselves. This is the thrust of his argument, the landlord is an immoral parasite because he “reaps what he does not sow,” i.e, extracts for himself the value created by others through productive economic activity occurring on or around his asset. This isn’t about any semantic drift, but your disagreement with Smith because you like landlords, are a landlord, like rent seeking in general or whatever else. Just say that instead of wasting people’s time with some imagined form of his philosophy that does not exist.
> A landlord in Smith’s day is more or less the same as someone who buys a building and ...
Wealth of Nations is available for free online and Chapter 11 isn't that long [0]. You should probably find a copy and read it - he is talking about a different type of rent. He explains himself in excruciating detail and outlines how "rent" is controlling access to natural factors of production like kelp, timber, cropland (especially cropland, this is a major focus of his [1]), coal, hunting opportunities, yadda yadda.
If you want to grep for "After food, clothing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind." you can see he breaks down lodging into the natural elements used to create a house and how they all present opportunities for the person who controls the natural resource to extract rent. He isn't talking about renting out capital which is a significant part of what modern landlords do for tenants. Houses (and apartments) aren't naturally occurring.
> This is the thrust of his argument, the landlord is an immoral parasite because he “reaps what he does not sow,”
Smith, you and I all agree on that. But we agree in the context Smith was using the word where that was all the landlord was doing. In the modern context, you can take all the parasitic aspects out of the landlord and there'll still be something left behind that you pay money to every month. The house doesn't appear by almost-magic like coal does - someone has to build it and the owner doesn't have to be the same as the beneficial user.
[1] We get this choice quote: "Food is, in this manner, not only the original source of rent, but every other part of the produce of land which afterward affords rent derives that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labor in producing food by means of the improvement and cultivation of land."
I’ve read it and you still are just engaging in nonsensical special pleading. In Smith’s conception, a free market was to be built on freedom from rent seeking, where labor and capital are deployed to productive ends and not siphoned off to unproductive ones by rentiering. Go watch this talk by UCL economist and historian Mariana Mazzucato for better context.
She makes some good points, but now you have the problem that even though Smith has left us a large body of work to refer to, you can't support your claims by referring to it.
On the other hand, if you look to to Volume 3 Chapter 2 you'll notice that Smith actually dealt with this specific topic (see: "Taxes upon the Rent of Houses") and drew the conclusions that I suggested he would. He breaks the rent up into "ground rent" (aka economic rent, the part that is economically damaging) and "building rent" (the return on capital) and concludes that ground rent should be taxed out of existence but that building rent is necessary and not all that much of a problem (he anticipates it settling at a fair premium of maybe 2% above interest rates, which seems like a reasonable guess that is in line with the actual rent I tend to have paid).
He is advocating a demise of rent on land (hence the more classic and literal landlord). Rent on houses (modern urban landlords) is a topic that he has a reasonable and balanced view on that acknowledges the necessity of a return on capital after dealing with the component of the rent that is for land.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! No modern landlord would support the demise of rents on lands, which is why they the same as the parasitic feudal dullards Smith elsewhere decries. Modern, urban landlords want to reap what the do not sow, i.e. the value derived from the productive activity of cities where they buy up houses to maintain an (individually partial, collectively large) monopoly on the availability and use of land. They generally in fact go one step further and leverage this monopoly to obtain loans, premised on the inflated valuations derived from the constraint of supply, and extend it even further. In a Georgist arrangement, they would be forced to reinvest rents on properties into making said properties more economically productive…which is why no modern landlords are Georgists!
1) Land tax. See Georgism [0]. Would be a great direction for society to go in.
2) Well, you can make something like 5% buying bonds. So if renting a house is making less than that people will sell the house then go buy bonds which are lower risk. The logic of alternative opportunities suggests the rate of profit for renting out a house won't change much.
I'd expect that profits would drop by a bit and then the supply of rentals would adjust if a bunch of landlords want to leave the market. But IMO most renters aren't in a position to buy houses so I don't think the supply would be able to contract by much. So I think the net effect is profits would drop a bit and then life continues.
Doesn't matter if I'm wrong on that point though. Whatever happens it'd still be an improvement.
> [Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care
Spoken by someone who has never been a landlord. Being a landlord incurs risk and mental load at a minimum. Being a good landlord costs both labour and care.
That's bullshit; being a landlord is a lot of labor. Buildings don't magically maintain themselves. It is true that there is a disconnect between the labor and the income; being a landlord in a desirable area isn't more labor than being a landlord in a less desirable area (in fact it can be less!).
Smith is speaking about the core business of owning and letting use of land (or some other finite resource) itself.
The improvements that one might speculatively build on the land and then need to maintain or alter over time is actually a different, secondary business which can be seen as more labor-based, as you note.
Flipping burgers and making french fries is a lot of labor. When you aren't up to your elbows in grease you are up to your elbows in some cleaning up between rushes and the pay is low so if you want to live you better have a second gig. Your check between your 2 jobs only says 55 hours a week but in reality between community and preparing for work and lunch breaks you are out of the house at least 65 hours a week or about 3400 hours. It eats your entire life!
Conversely being a landlord isn't even really a job. Once every 3 years you spend a few hours overseeing the skilled labor needed to do any repairs and updates and a few more hours interviewing 2-4 tenants and in between you mostly cash checks or fire off a few angry letters if the tenant gets behind. Spending less than 20 hours per year per unit.
An average mom and pop owns 1-3 units and works less in a year what a low wage worker works in a week.
I currently own a house. I spend a fair amount of time and money on the maintenance of that house. When I rented, my landlord spent that time and money. Now, admittedly, the (normal) money came out of my rent.. but the time sure doesn't.
And when the boiler went in the base of one of the place I rented, the landlord had to have it replaced. That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent. There is more risk in being a landlord than there is in owning a house, because you have to deal with all the risk of owning a house AND the risk of your tenant being a problem.
Many homeowners fancy themselves a jack of all trades and do many sorts of work on their own homes often unwisely. A landlord earns enough to pay for actual tradesmen to work on their homes.
Owning say 1 home and trying to save money by doing all your own work is generally ill advised. You would do better to invest the proceeds in purchasing a second rather than trying to pinch pennies. Done properly there isn't much risk that isn't trivially insurable.
Those 20,000 should either be an unfortunate accident covered by your insurance or expected costs of doing business whereby you should either have saved for it or financed by virtue of your equity in the property.
> And when the boiler went in the base of one of the place I rented, the landlord had to have it replaced. That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent.
Boilers go out. That's expected. It's predictable.
The only risk involved is landlord-created risk, playing Russian roulette with the boiler, hoping it won't fail yet because that means earing more money now and not spending it on upkeep yet.
RE "....That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent....." What is the $$$ cost of this risk? that is the question that property owner and tenant have completely different perspectives on.
That's bullshit. Building maintenance per tenant is on the order of single-digit hours of work per week per tenant, and that's for landlords that bother to show up. If your argument is that they provide the services of a handyman, then they can bill hourly like a handyman--i.e. live near or below the poverty line like most handymen. To say that there's a disconnect between the labor and the income is an understatement; the labor is simply negligible in comparison to the income.
The number of tenant properties one would have to manage to reach even a 40-hour workweek average is quite large, and by that point, most landlords would hire a super.
> That's bullshit; being a landlord is a lot of labor. Buildings don't magically maintain themselves. It is true that there is a disconnect between the labor and the income; being a landlord in a desirable area isn't more labor than being a landlord in a less desirable area (in fact it can be less!).
Nope. I co-own a late 19th century New England triple-decker: a purpose -built rental building endemic to the northeast, and easily one of the most common rental properties in the country. In my comparatively inexpensive market, it would yield about 8k month in revenue. In Boston, it would be closer to 15k. The building hardly requires more maintenance than my 2021 car. I lived in apartments where the landlord literally didn't step foot in our apartment in the 8 years I lived there except for the one time our two downstairs neighbors got bedbugs so we all got treated (and it was a 45 second walkthrough.) If you think being a landlord is "a lot of labor" for the amount of income you get out of it, you either don't realize how little most landlords put into their properties or you don't realize what "a lot of labor" means.
If its so profitable ( implying landlord charging high rent ) then lots people will buy own home. If its such good risk to landlord than more rental available , and rents should be coming down OR increasing less due to increasing vacancy rate.
If it was that profitable then it would be cheaper? That doesn't even remotely make sense in the most superficial ways. I don't even understand how you'd think it does.
Maybe if there were infinite housing options? But housing supply is extremely low in the US in large part because larger corporations are buying up huge swaths of housing and turning it into rental housing... Because it's really really profitable. And since supply is low and prices are high, it's not possible for most renters to buy houses. Nobody rents because it's cheaper overall, they rent because you don't need tens of thousands of dollars upfront for a down payment, plus a great credit score. That is, unless you're in Boston or the like where you must pay first months rent, last months rent, a security deposit, and a realtor fee generally equal to one months rent, meaning for that relatively reasonable $3k 2br apartment, you need $12k upfront to move in. So why don't they just buy it? Because buying a 2 or 3br market rate flat in Boston or the surrounding municipalities would cost maybe from $700k to $2m. The further surrounding areas are only slightly cheaper and by the time you hit more affordable places, your looking at a 90 to 120 minute car commute each direction.
You either don't understand the math or you're not interested in understanding the math and just want to justify gouging people. Like I said, I own the exact type of building that most landlords own in the urban northeast. In fact, it was an absentee landlord rental building for decades and hasn't structurally changed since it was. I know EXACTLY how much it costs to operate this building, and how much labor it takes. That hand-wavy "but it's so expensive and takes so much work" garbage doesn't work on me. It's not labor-free and it costs money, especially if a roof needs to be repaired or the like, but that's true in all businesses and if you don't prepare for it well enough to not be a disaster when it happens, or you buy an instanely unreliable and maintenance-heavy building, that's not your customers fault. Even in our flat-roofed old timber-framed triple-decker, our very healthy and responsibly funded major repair savings and building expenses fund (roof repair, insurance, snow removal, water damage repair, etc) takes in a little over 5% of what our rental income would be in this fairly inexpensive market, and aside from the gardening and cleanup in the courtyard, we contribute nearly no labor outside of our own units.
There's a culture of entitlement among landlords, at least in the US, that completely skews their understanding of what they deserve for what they put in to something. You show real plausible expenses or labor that I don't have in my 19th century timber-framed building that most other landlords have, then I'll happily change my perspective. I've asked for that every time I've had this conversation but it just doesn't materialize.
You want to see what a lot of labor and expense for the amount of profit looks like? Look at the Eater article where the owner of Mei Mei in Boston details her P&L.
Im saying in my part of the world. The costs of providing the building and actually renting to a tenant can consume a large part ( easily 50% plus for me ) of the gross yearly rent- ( and that does not include any cost of borrowed funds. or the expected return in invested funds ) My observation is lots costs are missed and not accounted for.
A) I don't know where your part of the world is, but this is an article about the US market on a US website. You might live somewhere with entirely government subsidized housing and it would have no bearing whatsoever on the realities of this market. Even within the US, market's where landlords don't have the leverage to price gouge aren't a problem. People who want to price gouge who don't have the leverage to price gouge are never a problem until they get it.
B) Landlords always throw their hands up and say "but the expenses!" but they never have the receipts handy. Are there missed expenses? Of course. But the chance of there being enough missed expenses to change the nature of this conversation is pretty much nil. If there's no actual evidence– and there never is– assuming it exists would be ridiculous.
C) In the markets where this is the biggest concern, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments yield upwards of 5k per month. You could include a free leased Porsche for each tenant and not touch 50% expenses.
D) Paying your mortgage, beyond the interest, is not an expense. It's your money. You get the equity.
RE "...I don't know where your part of the world is, but this is an article about the US market on a US website....." Article does not say that. After several paragraphs it could be implied with mention of LLC ? There is also examples given of Venia . So I would not say exclusively about US at all. And I just say , lots people claiming its good money , quite profitable, so we can look forward to lots new investors that are attracted to this profitability.... but it does not seem to happen. Why?
> Article does not say that. After several paragraphs it could be implied with mention of LLC ? There is also examples given of Venia . So I would not say exclusively about US at all.
Don't be obtuse. They're obviously speaking about the US legal system, some of the comments listed signed with US locations, and if you look at the article two entries down in their blog that refers to "the housing market," they only cite US statistics.
> And I just say , lots people claiming its good money , quite profitable, so we can look forward to lots new investors that are attracted to this profitability.... but it does not seem to happen. Why?
What in the world are you talking about? Real estate is one of the most, if not the most popular long-term investments in the United States? If nobody invested in real estate when why is the market so tight? Do you even think about this critically for a moment before you type it out?
And once again, ZERO evidence of these so-called expenses. I'm not even talking about receipts, I'm just asking for examples for regular expenses large enough to change the nature of this debate. Of course, they don't exist. You are either willfully ignorant, genuinely ignorant, or lying.
And the rent is paid by the tenants while the equity accrues to the owner. That’s it’s an investment with variable ROI is not anyone’s problem but the investor who stuck their money in this asset class instead of something else. No one is guaranteed a specific return on investment.
>No one is guaranteed a specific return on investment.
Indeed, And nobody is guaranteed housing.
Landlord profits are arbitrage between 1) long term and short term financial obligation, 2) High credit and low credit individuals, 3) high and low assets at stake.
Just like how a bank makes a % interest for taking risk and providing capital that owners wont, landlords do the same thing. Landlords get paid a profit to take on risk and long term liability (to the bank), and again provide capital.
In short, banks loan cash to landlords because they are more credit worthy and take on liability. They in tern loan a home to renters, who have worse credit and much less liability.
It is all about paying a premium for others to take on financial risk.
In parts of America anyway, although states like New York do in fact have a right to shelter. This is nonetheless not the clever jibe you think it is, so much as indicative of moral bankruptcy. That all are not guaranteed housing, that the few can pursue greed at the cost of others survival, is a social and moral failure.
As I already mentioned, New York has had a right to shelter for something like 40 years and as far as I understand abolished slavery in 1827. Finland also has this in their constitution and does not have a slaves building homes for people. I think your model of reality is a bit off.
As I asked elsewhere, please don't be snarky. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was distinguishing between fundamental human rights and state entitlements.
I don't think laws in Finland or New York defines reality in all places and times. If you want to talk about reality, this means that people get a cot in a bunkhouse with a roof over it. These laws dont entitle people to own houses or live in other peoples property.
>If you want to talk about reality, this means that people get a cot in a bunkhouse with a roof over it.
>Maybe the most important structural change in Finland is that we've renovated our temporary accommodations in shelters and hostels into supported housing. For example, the last big shelter in Helsinki, run by the Salvation Army, had 250 beds. It was completely renovated in 2012. Now they have 81 independent, modern, apartments in that same building.
>Again, your model of reality is quite warped and off by being rooted in American cruelty.
You are right, we dont share the same model of reality, or even what we are debating.
I said it twice before, and this will be the last time. Im not debating what countries do and what services they choose to provide, but what their rights are. I pointed out early on that governments can and do choose to provide more housing.
Yes, Heliniski chooses to have independent units. Thats not proof that it is a human right in finland, and illegal to have combined units. They weren't violating rights before 2012 in your article. This is doubly true for new york, which you have conveniently dropped. Does every homeless person there also have their own unit? Is it an illegal human rights violation in NY to make homeless people share a roof?
the right to housing is part of the universal declaration of human rights. different countries implement that differently, but in europe generally this means more than just shelter, but an adequate private space with at least a private room, bathroom and cooking facility.
shelters are temporary solutions with the intent to get people off the street and give them access to resources and support to find a permanent home. they are not intended to fulfill the right to housing.
i believe finland has implemented a model where homeless people are moved directly to a home where they can stay permanently, and that is why they rebuilt a shelter for temporary stay into a place where people can actually stay long term
> Im not debating what countries do and what services they choose to provide, but what their rights are.
Yes, and you steadfastly refuse to believe what those rights actually are, despite my telling and showing you multiple times, because somehow that would result in slavery or for some other incomprehensible reason.
Article 19 of the Finnish constitution:
>The public authorities shall promote the right of everyone to housing
> As I asked elsewhere, please don't be snarky. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was distinguishing between fundamental human rights and state entitlements. I don't think laws in Finland or New York defines reality in all places and times. If you want to talk about reality, this means that people get a cot in a bunkhouse with a roof over it. These laws dont entitle people to own houses or live in other peoples property.
You might solicit fewer snarky comments by avoiding asinine comparisons between slavery and eviction regulation, and then admonishing people for not having a realistic take.
RE "...f it was that profitable then it would be cheaper? That doesn't even remotely make sense in the most superficial ways. I don't even understand how you'd think it does..."
It make sense , because more people will build rental accommodation. ( They will certainly not do it if it is not profitable. ) If more homes are built, the vacancy rate will slowly rise back to around 3% ( A 3 % vacancy rate is inferred to be a far number between tenants and landlords ) Rental rates have only been able to rise so much because there is a massive housing shortage - present vacancy rate is 0.9% in my area. At 09% Tenants have just about NO choice - I do not know about your area, there are lots of influences I do not know about.
> It make sense , because more people will build rental accommodation. ( They will certainly not do it if it is not profitable. )
Again, you're making a priori assumptions when there's gobs of empirical evidence that says you're wrong. In the places where this is the biggest problem, there's little room to build and many regulatory and local problems to overcome. At least in Boston-- the market worst I'm most familiar with-- contractors are regularly found bribing city officials with tens of thousands of dollars, free services, lavish vacations, and all of that sort of thing to get their projects approved. In progress construction sites are in every neighborhood. In my more reasonably priced city, and nearly every other US city, there are gobs of shitty 5 over 1 buildings being built but they're targeting the "luxury market" so they don't provide relief to market rate renters but you can get a place that costs 50k or 60k per year no problem! Rent maximizing platforms pressure landlords to let apartments sit empty rather than lowering the price specifically so they can keep the market high. The FTC just released a memo about it saying that price collusion is still collusion if it's done through an online platform.
You're just straight-up factually wrong.
> If more homes are built, the vacancy rate will slowly rise back to around 3% ( A 3 % vacancy rate is inferred to be a far number between tenants and landlords ) Rental rates have only been able to rise so much because there is a massive housing shortage - present vacancy rate is 0.9% in my area. At 09% Tenants have just about NO choice - I do not know about your area, there are lots of influences I do not know about.
What you're describing is price gouging. When people use the market leverage to charge vastly more money than it costs because people have no choice, that's price gouging. What you're talking about is not made ethical because that's the way the market functions. It's an unethical behavior that is only possible when the market functions like this. Maybe your market doesn't afford you this incredible opportunity to rip people off? If that's the case, we're not talking about that.
Lots of things are very cut-and-dried if you ignore context, evidence, ethics, the effects of your actions, and things like that.
Listen, there's a lot written out there about this if you're interested in really knowing rather than just reinforcing the conclusion you've already reached without that information. I'm not your research assistant. If you're even curious about the possibility you might be wrong, you could confirm it in a matter of seconds using google. In fact, you could have already done that but you haven't, so I'm going to assume you're not really interested in knowing what you're talking about and stop trying to convince you that it matters.
RE "...And since supply is low and prices are high....." What exactly is constraining supply of new dwellings.? What is being done to create supply? How did this low supply come about. Most likely a series of several events has existed to several degrees for several years to create the supply issue. In my area vacancy rate can be used to measure supply. A vacancy rate of 3% is regarded as fair supply balance between property owners and people wanting to rent. Currently in my area supply is 0.8% - this means there is many more people seeking to rent a house that houses actually available for rent. In my area , the housing crisis is attributed ( in my opinion ) to certain government policies ( federal , state, local government ) policies.
Nobody price gouges unless market forces let them. It simply wouldn't work. And they also didn't create the situation that allowed them to price gouge. Yet, it's still price gouging. "But the market" is not a defense against accusations of price gouging.
Come on downvoters: surely your super solid argument can withstand my accounting records. Tell me what I'm missing as someone who owns the very sort of building I rented in for decades under maybe 10 landlords– both good and bad– at 10 addresses! What haven't I learned from that and the many people I've known who've owned rental buildings for decades? Surely the family whose bar I cooked in that owned 4 or 5 buildings they maintained themselves (even illegally doing things like replacing gas boilers themselves) was somehow hiding the labor they put into it because they all spent almost all of their time running the bar?
Surely if you feel that correct, you've got solid empirical evidence that opposes mine, right? Expenses and labor are cut-and dried and any responsibile business owner documents them, right? This should be an easy argument to prove me wrong in.
As foolish as it is to think that bad people would create good laws, or that good laws don’t get used towards bad ends, it’s even more foolish to think that laws could ever be a replacement for good people. If everyone was good to each other, we wouldn’t need laws. If everyone was bad to each other, we’d probably be better off without them.
Landlords don't "need" to exist. They simply exist because for everything someone has to own something. Communism doesnt work, I hope that knowledge doesn't have to be relearnt
> They simply exist because for everything someone has to own something.
And for things like housing, that should be the person who lives in the house.
> Communism doesnt work, I hope that knowledge doesn't have to be relearnt
What part of our massive homelessness problem do you see as the current system working?
I'm not even proposing communism as a solution, but this absurd pretense that we have a working system needs to be crushed, and trotting out scare words like "communism" when you don't even know what they mean whenever someone criticizes the existing system is a big part of why our system is so broken.
It depends on what the hypothetical alternative is. If the solution is ban renting, then we would substantially increase the number of homeless. Prices would absolutely go down, but anyone unable to buy would have no option.
> Prices would absolutely go down, but anyone unable to buy would have no option.
Without numbers, which you don't have because no one does, that's total nonsense. Price determines options, not buy/rent. If the price of buying were lower than current rent, more people would have options, not fewer.
There are a lot of ways to make that happen. Government could build housing which would both provide jobs and housing, and act as a means of controlling prices (if prices get too high, the government undercuts them). This was done in the 50s and while the results in cities were bad (i.e. "projects", which were largely a result of racism), suburban and rural houses built in that time are pretty good--I grew up in one--and we can learn from the mistakes of that time. Government lending which is currently extended to banks could be extended directly to homebuyers--there's no reason for the middle man here.
Home ownership is part of the American dream and without it, the American dream is dying.
>Without numbers, which you don't have because no one does, that's total nonsense. Price determines options, not buy/rent. If the price of buying were lower than current rent, more people would have options, not fewer.
More people would have options to buys, absolutely. Those who can't would have major problems. There are millions of people who can afford rent, but not pull together a down payment, who would have their options reduced.
The purpose of banks is to discriminate good loans from bad. If you have a system where everyone qualifies for government lending, you will have massive losses. If you add restrictions to government lending, but renting is banned, the only option is social housing, which i don't think would be successful in the US. I don't think the GDP can support the losses.
> There are millions of people who can afford rent, but not pull together a down payment, who would have their options reduced.
This is a non-point, because deposits aren't different from down payments.
> The purpose of banks is to discriminate good loans from bad.
...a purpose which they fail miserably at without government regulation. If government can regulate this, they can just do it. Having greedy corporations constantly looking for loopholes in regulation and then requiring bailouts is not a necessary or desirable part of the system.
governments do not stipulate the action of banks, of 99% of their discrimination policy and process. Regulation operates at a much higher level.
In practical terms, this is all besides the point due to the credit issue.
Would you lend 500k to a drug addict with part time minimum wage work. If so, please go and be the change you want to see in the world.
Otherwise, note that this is the exact problem. prohibition of renting would adversely impact individuals who statistically would destroy value lent to them. Sorting these people is the entire purpose of the mortgage lending system.
Apparently you do need a lesson in housing crises, because pre-2008, banks absolutely would lend 500k to a drug addict with part time minimum wage work. I worked in the industry post-crisis, and absolutely nothing had been fundamentally fixed: the same people who caused the housing crisis were given bonuses, and the attitude was roughly "how can we cut it as close as possible given these new regulations?".
The incentive of individuals within banks is to lend to as many people as you can, collect the bonuses that ensue, and if by some bad luck the loans fail before you get promoted, move on to the next job. If the loans fail systemically, then your entire bank gets bailed out, you still collect a bonus, and you don't even have to find a new job. There is no level at which there is any reasonable incentive to perform any of the "discrimination policy and process" you think exists: the only reason that happens at all is because of regulation, which is why I say that if the government can regulate it they can just do it without involving people trying to find loopholes. Sure, some banks lend responsibly, but sans regulation there would always be some bank willing to lend to anyone, which would fail every few years and get replaced with the next bank with the same problems.
And when the banks got bailed out, who took that risk? Instead of trying to reason about how you think things would work in your ideological model of the world, why not look at what has actually happened?
Oh and just to circle back to the original point: landlords are far better than lenders at filtering out drug addicts with part time minimum wage work, because they actually have incentives to protect their properties from destructive tenants or tenants who might not pay and be difficult to evict. So let's not pretend you're deeply concerned about the plight of the drug addicted part-time minimum wage worker. There are very few places in the US where full-time minimum wage pays rent (and those minimum wages got that high against the wishes of people like you). If someone on minimum wage lives in an apartment it's because of housing assistance, so again I wonder why you insist that landlords are a necessary middleman to government-provided housing.
Are you saying that only physical persons can own a property and that only the owner can live in it? Good luck with that idea. And it does sound like communism when you unwind it.
I still believe that an oversupply of houses would crash prices. Make too many affordable houses so that they don't work as investments and really stay affordable. Spoiler alert: People who work and still live in a car need a house. But Homelessness is a mental health issue for the most part, so it isn't going away.
> Are you saying that only physical persons can own a property and that only the owner can live in it? Good luck with that idea. And it does sound like communism when you unwind it.
If we're worrying about how things sound, the total callousness with which Hacker News treats the homeless sounds like sociopathy.
I'm less interested in categorizing actions into your pointless capitalist/communist divide, and more interested in solving homelessness.
> I still believe that an oversupply of houses would crash prices. Make too many affordable houses so that they don't work as investments and really stay affordable.
Good. Crash prices. Houses are for living in, not for investing in.
> But Homelessness is a mental health issue for the most part, so it isn't going away.
Homelessness is more of a cause of mental health issues than a result of mental health issues. No mental health treatment can be effective for a patient experience the ongoing trauma of homelessness. The solution to homelessness is homes.
In countries that care about their people instead of housing profits, they provide homes for the homeless. As it turns out, effectively no one is so mentally ill that they choose to be homeless in those countries.
"Homelessness is a mental health issue" is complete bullshit used to justify not helping in ways that hurt some people's profits. Homelessness isn't a mental health issue, it's a lack of homes issue.
In countries that care about their people instead of housing profits, they provide homes for the homeless. As it turns out, effectively no one is so mentally ill that they choose to be homeless in those countries.
if that were true everywhere then those countries that do provide homes for everyone would have noone staying homeless at all. but yet they do.
some countries are doing better than others. finland among them i think. germany may actually have a lack of housing problem in larger cities, but even there you'll at least have access to a shelter, but i am certain that vienna doesn't lack housing at the rate they are building with 2/3rds of all housing being subsidized.
there is a difference to countries that do not provide adequate support for homeless people like the USA where thousands live in tents, and countries that do provide support, and countries where the chronically homeless are those few who do not have mental health necessary to apply for the necessary help to get a new home.
homelessness is a lack of homes issue until that issue is being addressed. homelessness that remains after that is a mental health problem.
of course once you are in that situation, the initial mental health issue that prevented you from seeking help right away is just a small part. the experience reinforces the mental health issues so that in the end you can't tell the difference anymore.
> there is a difference to countries that do not provide adequate support for homeless people like the USA where thousands live in tents, and countries that do provide support, and countries where the chronically homeless are those few who do not have mental health necessary to apply for the necessary help to get a new home.
The idea of applying for help to get a home is, frankly, idiotic; an invention of people who are trying to not help the homeless. If someone is sleeping on the ground that's their application. That's how Finland's housing-first programs work and that's a big part of why their homelessness is falling.
I'm going to reiterate: homelessness is not a mental health issue, it's a lack of housing issue. You don't get to blame mentally ill homeless people for being too mentally ill to fill out an application and pretend that's some impossibly hard problem. That's not their fault, that's the fault of people who refuse to help people without forcing them to do paperwork.
The idea of applying for help to get a home is, frankly, idiotic;
you are reading much more into that statement than it was meant to express.
regardless of what the process is, you still have to talk to a human and ask. that is all that "apply for help" was meant to say. maybe i should have said "ask for help". does that make it more clear?
if someone is unable to ask for help, then that is absolutely a mental health issue.
but also some people just do not want to stay in those places. that may be considered a housing issue in that the wrong kind of housing is offered (shelter instead of home)
if that is your point then, well, i concede that, because i do not know what kind of housing is being offered.
my point is that those who don't have mental health issues also should be able to get the help they need in order to get a new home. if i were kicked out of my home with no money and no friends, i'd walk straight to the next government office and ask for help. i may get the run around until i find the right help but i'd be stubborn until i have at least a temporary place. and then continue until i have a home and the necessary financial support. bureaucracy makes this a rough and undignified process. but anyone failing in that process so that they end up on the street is undoubtedly having their mental health affected.
in places where help is not given, this is neither a mental health nor a housing problem but a problem of broken bureaucracy and lack of compassion. because under housing problem i understand that help can't be given because there is simply not enough space to find homes for all the people who need one. that may be the case in some places, but it certainly isn't in vienna. this is why i rejected the idea that it is a housing problem. it may still be a housing problem in that the wrong housing is offered, but if it isn't a mental health problem with the individuals involved then it is a problem with the wrong help being given, help that is not considering the needs of the individuals.
Or for more collective ownership of property, and cheaper transfers of ownership. Moving is already hard. Then we tack on loan origination fees, title insurance, broker fees. That's before anything is spent on actually inspecting the property.
> However, all humans listen to people that they think are like themselves. Naturally, we place more weight on people with whom we have a common reference point.
This guy is amazing. And JFC, that landlord was really trying to pre-file an eviction.
The best part is literally everything the OP is saying is right. I hate how adversarial small time landlords often are against their tenants (not that big ones are any better, but having a face to face just makes it hurt worse)
> (not that big ones are any better, but having a face to face just makes it hurt worse)
In my experience, big landlords really are objectively better. They are inflexible and bureaucratic, but generally fair and follow the law. Some small landlords will outright break the law and force you to deal with them legally. But some small landlords are great and a lot more flexible than a corporate landlord can be. If I ever were to rent again, I'd prefer big corporate landlords. Just my experience of course.
> In my experience, big landlords really are objectively better. They are inflexible and bureaucratic, but generally fair and follow the law.
They (mostly) follow the law, but the flip side is they will follow the law to their maximum advantage. They'll increase rent the maximum permitted each year. They'll do all the maintenance required by local law but not an inch more. And so on.
I've always had a more agreeable time with small-time landlords. I'm nice to them and their property, they're nice to me and don't push the law to the limits. They mostly never raise rents on me.
I haven't rented residential in a long while but still currently rent office and workshop space, both are on a handshake deal from small single-building owners. My rents are a fraction of what the corporation-managed spaces are in the area.
Small landlord = much more willing to work with you AND much less likely to screw you over. Lease for a couple years and then 10% raise (while prices in the city go up about 20%).
Big landlord = hey the apartment above you is now an Airbnb; we know about it; and we're going to lie to you about it. Oh and pay us 10% more rent every year or 13 months to live below the motel room (while prices in the city go up a few percent).
My son’s big landlord paid towing companies to scan the private parking lots of their properties to look for expired tags, presumably getting a split of the fees. Zero notice, btw. He noticed his car was gone and called the office and they told him. Luckily it was very soon after it was towed. What if it was a week later? Fees would have been in the thousands. In CA they can run into the hundreds before 24 hours has elapsed.
Big landlords can be better and worse. Worse ones can cause a lot of damage.
Further, the towing company was most likely also scanning for plates that aren't registered as it is a huge problem for renters where parking spots are a limited resource.
Car isn't registered as a guest or tenant? Tow it.
No, it is not illegal for a car on private property to have expired tags. SMH...
The stated purpose of landlord prohibitions against unregistered vehicles is usually to prevent eyesores but of course it's perfectly possible for a legally registered and/or inspected, road-worthy vehicle to be a complete eyesore.
My anecdata is exactly the opposite. The only objectively bad landlord I've had was corporate. All the small ones (own only a couple properties, or even just one) have been fantastic. Except for one, that was ... useless, but not actively bad. The corporate one was awful, and I couldn't wait to move.
Probably depends on where you're at; I found it's shockingly common even for larger agencies and landlords to just break the law in the UK. You can tell them "this is the law, you can't do that", and they will just brazenly unashamed say "I know, we're going to try it anyway". Never-ever make the mistake of anthropomorphising any landlord of any size in the UK. I strongly suspect that David Icke was right all along with his lizard people, but just got the wrong demographic.
That said, it's certainly true that with individual landlords you risk a lot more variety; you can end up with a normal friendly fella, or an absolutely crazy nutjob, or anything in-between. In general my experiences have been much much better with small-time landlords.
This really depends on if the letter of the law is favorable to tenants or not.
And big corporate landlords can easily slide into the same territory any big corporation is in: they break laws because they have enough lawyers and money that individuals basically cannot win a legal battle against them
Yes but small landlords don’t have the money to absorb certain issues - they have just one or two properties and some of the expenses and regulations really do threaten their ability to be in this business. Should various sectors like renting only be accessible to big corporate players?
No defense for landlords or anyone else for that matter but the trend of landlords being hostile to tenants is part of a larger trend I see all through society and its one of tunnel vision brought on through experience. This is to say that when one is engaged in an activity for a prolonged period of time that experience seems to cloud their judgment ie if all you have is a hammer etc. Anyone who has worked a cash register may sympathize with the observation that all customers are stupid assholes. Police officers only see the worst behavior, teachers who have taught elementary school for decades lose ability to communicate with adults, landlords who only rent to low income start to think everyone is a deadbeat. The list can go on. Are these generalizations absolutely and I’ve experienced them all enough times personally to generalize. The remedy is to change our activities and keep a critical and open mind. The older I get the more value I see in liberal education in the classical sense.
Seems more likely to me that the people on the ground see things accurately and the voters are the ones making unrealistic demands based on their lack of experience.
If you knew the tenant was not going to pay, wouldn’t you get the paperwork ready to be filed as soon as possible? It’s not a charity.
And the net outcome of having to deal with paying $1K to get the tenant to move out means that the next tenant will likely see a higher security deposit to cover that eventuality.
If an efficient legal system can’t be relied on to quickly move out non-paying tenants, costs are going to rise to compensate. There’s no free rent.
When bemoaning how landlords are awful, it's worth considering why they ended up that way. I don't think most tenants (who are 95% OK) understand how bad the worst 5%, and how much time and energy landlords have to dedicate to dealing with the worst tenants. It's a class of person you just don't have to deal with in your day-to-day life.
I get the general idea, but in this case I feel that isn't strictly applicable.
OP and the parent comment are focused on tenants that don't appear to have done anything wrong or unreasonable, they're just in a bind and the landlords in question are choosing not to be fair.
Tenants don't make money from the deal, they aren't running a business.
Let me explain:
A business, say a Walgreens, sells things. This is like the landlord.
A customer buys things, this is the tenant.
There are overhead losses incurred in running a business. At walgreens milk will go bad, cheese expires, people steal shampoo. Those things are "the cost of doing business" for the business. In the case if the shampoo theft, the government steps in (except in SF) and helps make it right.
The customer is not (necessarily) a business, and is being promised a good or service in exchange for money. If that good or service is not what it was promised to be, that needs to be corrected because anything less is theft. In this case, the government should also step in, as it's theft.
These are not the same thing. One is theft, one is the cost of doing business.
Put another way - you should never put the health, wealth, and we'll being of a business above the health, wealth, and we'll being of individual(s)
The other thing I want to point out in your response is "bad tenant". This term is often used to refer to someone who has had an unfortunate event, or series of events, could be medical, could be not their fault, that has resulted in them not being able to pay their rent, often for a short period of time.
These aren't bad people, these aren't "bad tenants".
I've been a landlord, I chose to get out of the business because I wanted to do other things with my time. I get it. But you don't get to be abusive to your tenants. In the end, I found ad I believe many will, that you get more Flys with honey. The answer is generally kindness. If a tenant is behind, give them a discount for one month, you will earn an ally for life and instantly turn a "bad tenant" into a good one. It worked for me.
> A business, say a Walgreens, sells things. This is like the landlord. A customer buys things, this is the tenant.
When there are many thefts, shops usually rise prices to cover the cost and stay operational, or they use measures like bag search or locking certain items.
Lardlords cannot do the same because reasons.
> The other thing I want to point out in your response is "bad tenant". This term is often used to refer to someone who has had an unfortunate event, or series of events, could be medical, could be not their fault, that has resulted in them not being able to pay their rent, often for a short period of time.
Not my problem, you can't just come to Walgreens "I'm poor please give me stuff for free BTW nice cart can I take it"
> I've been a landlord, I chose to get out of the business because I wanted to do other things with my time.
I've been a British monarch, I chose to get out of the business because I wanted to do other things with my time. AMA.
>Not my problem, you can't just come to Walgreens "I'm poor please give me stuff for free BTW nice cart can I take it"
Two things:
1 - Alas, yes it is your problem. You can't squeeze blood from a rock. You have two options. A - evict them or whatever or B - be compassionate and help to get them back on their feet. If you add up the costs to you for each I'm confident you will find that kindness is more profitable. I encourage you to do the math for yourself, you may be leaving money on the table.
2 - They do give away free food, medical supplies and even toys at Walgreens. I see people using their EBT card, donating to the toy drives and food banks there daily. Local stores are a key part of our system to collect and distribute resources to the under nourished and under privileged.
Not all handouts are theft. You seem to automatically equate handouts to theft. Perhaps do some self work to see where this connection started.
I'll sum it up for you:
You could be even richer if you were kinder. If you do so, you'll find other forms of richness as well (not just financial). To help you on your journey I suggest you read (or watch) The Christmas Carol, I like the Muppets one. It's not a religion thing (I'm not), it's a kindness benefits everyone, including yourself, thing.
While many of these groups self-select for people like that, it's still pretty shocking to see the contempt, disgust, and even outright hate directed at tenants on a whole.
Edit: Downvotes from spiteful landlords? And no, I'm not referring to the online fake landlord trolls: I'm taking about local associations.
having gone through small claims court with my clients before, I wish there was a way or a practice of pre-filing with every invoice.
its really shitty to have to wait for an invoice to go unpaid, for a very long time, and then file with the court, and then have your court date pushed out a couple times, and then win the case, and then go to the sheriff to try to collect
I would definitely like to remove a few months from that process.
I get the sentiment, but its a UX issue that can be improved, not really the parties involved.
There's an two potential avenues to fix this, one logistical and one relationship based. The logistical solution is to set up (depending on your services and client appetite) automatic payment through stripe + debit upon invoice at some T settlement period after invoicing, and offer a discount on services to compensate for the improved cashflow. This makes the "easy way" the way that is also best for you (and the client) and you may find that making the path of least resistance one which also results in you getting paid by default to be one that clears out this issue systematically for you with well behaved clients.
Of course, that is the caveat -- some clients are pathologically not "well behaved" and if you're in a circumstances where you're often having to go through small claims court with clients on a routine basis, it begs the question of whether you're selecting the right clients or not. Having been in your shoes before, I will say that I've been guilty of selecting clients who showed warning signs of poor behavior that ultimately resulted in my work not getting paid. I began to turn away certain kind of work that made me hesitant of such an outcome, even if it seemed to be lucrative at the outset. Without understand your potential clientele better, it's hard to say whether this would work for your issues, but it may be worth considering.
The OP says he "persuaded them to be better people" but only offers up one example of urging a landlord to offer a tenant money to move which he calls a "radical approach".
OP calls it radical because he knows nothing about being a landlord or probably even owning a house.
It's actually an extremely common approach, not radical it all. It's called "cash for keys" and every landlord knows about it and many of them are forced to use it, and there was probably going to be 2 or 3 people suggesting it below OPs comment.
He also says incorrectly "spare you the $3k" lawsuit. What lawsuit? Filing eviction with the sheriff isn't a lawsuit. Just FUD.
Just people lying on the internet and then writing a "please clap" blog post.
If you want to get involved and help tenants then volunteer at a tenant's advocacy group in your state or city. These places do a lot to actually help tenants from predatory landlords.
It's only natural - as soon as you have heavy regulation there, all the processes become very complex and time consuming, as anything involving the bureaucracy is. And people with certain inclinations very quickly learn to exploit this. You want to evict me? Fine, welcome to the 2-year process which will consume immense amount of time and mental energy, while I live in your house for free in the meantime (and maybe destroy it - if you want to go after me for that, see above). Or you pay me off and we part as friends.
The writer acknowledges being deceptive and manipulative. (Falsely claiming someone he's not, disingenuous wasting of others time to become a familiar name, SEO-like content for banking capital for the purpose of influencing.)
The reason I'm mentioning this is not to criticize the writer themselves, but to strongly discourage any impressionable people from assuming that behaving like the writer described is totally OK.
For example, one of my goals in being on HN is to "gain the trust of techbros, and destroy them from within", but I'm not dishonest about that.
Meh; I don't think people need to declare all their motivations, (possible) conflict of interests, long-term plans for the community, and so forth before commenting on a Facebook group. Reality is tons of people have complex motivations, interests, and such.
And mostly, he just seems to be giving decent advice. Not spamming, not abusive or disruptive behaviour, just decent advice.
> [...] So, the first move was to convince them that I am in fact a landlord 2.
> So, when the question was posed “do you own a property?” when I applied to join the group, I chose a random 2-flat at the other end of my street and said “yes”.
> 2. Once again, I am not a landlord.
> # Asking Questions to get your name out there
> When I was still new in the groups, I asked some questions about common landlord issues to win cheap interactions.
Please don't be a lying manipulator.
Just as importantly, don't advocate and normalize it for everyone else.
Presumably, most kids through new grads don't realize that tech became a go-to career for those upper-middle who don't value ethics, when that became the easy money. You don't want the impressionable young people thinking that being a lying manipulator is what people should do. Venues like HN and blog posts will significantly influence some of them.
I found it! Finally, after all these years, maybe 40 in all, I have the answer to the question that was posed on a t-shirt I bought years ago.
The t-shirt question simply asked "Who cares about apathy?" Yeah, I know you're all thinking - Who buys those t-shirts anyway? I do of course and finally I know, after reading the author's byline, that the answer to this question is Luke.
>Luke A man on a crusade against apathy.
The topic is also close to me as I have a bit of experience being an actual landlord. I also joined a landlord group a long time ago to get access to useful forms, to understand landlord/tenant laws in my state, and to get a feel for how to handle issues that may arise.
I didn't maintain that relationship because the site seemed dominated and poisoned by landlords who felt like slumlords in the advice they gave and the posts they made.
I have a single family property in a nice neighborhood positioned so that I can advertise to a wide range of tenants and then pick the best candidates. I do all the maintenance myself except those things that require a licensed professional and I have local contractors that I call on for those things.
For the operating forms I simply bought a couple of NOLO books and a copy of Texas real estate law and bookmarked the landlord/tenant parts for my state online so I could refer to them if I needed.
I do all the tenant screening myself and offer the neighbors and opportunity to meet prospective tenants. I originally offered the place for lease with no pets allowed. All of that changed one day when I was comparing notes about prospective tenants before offering it and the best couple needed to bring their two dogs. That caused me to put myself in their shoes and ask myself what I would do with my two dogs and a cat if I needed to find somewhere to live.
I decided that the best way to handle the pet question was to consider them as family members since that is the functional relationship that pet should have with its owner. With that in mind, I searched around and found a site to help me formulate a reasonable pet policy. I include the pets in the interview process so that I can see how they interact with the owners, I require a non-refundable pet deposit for cleaning and up-to-date vaccination records to satisfy state requirements, and I require photos from front, back and both sides so that if the pet gets loose or bites someone I can help identify it should the local animal control pick it up.
With nearly 30 years behind me as a landlord I can say that I have only had problems with two tenants. Most tenants have stayed there past the term of their original lease, some more than twice as long. I have leased to a couple of people who just needed a comfortable place to stay for a short time so we worked out a short-term lease that lasted less than 6 months before they were transferred from the area. I have a couple of former tenants who still drop by to visit when they are back in the area.
Being a landlord is not hard if you only have one property. Most people are good people.
Sorry. Capitalism requires that we automate and scale up everything, everywhere, all the time, as much as possible, until the oceans boil and the skies burn. The shareholders expect nothing less.
> Landlords won’t listen to tenants. In the same way that Republicans won’t seriously engage with Democrats and vice versa.
As presented, this interaction looks like a completely standard negotiation where both sides get something they want. It is a little unusual in that one side is being represented pro-bono by a neutral party, but stranger things happen.
So although I agree that landlords wouldn't listen to tenants in these circumstances, it'd be interesting to explore how much this is underselling this "Luke" fellow simply having good negotiation skills. If a landlord is presented with a choice of losing $1,000 or $3,000 and everyone is reasonably polite I suspect a vast majority would choose $1,000.