• Draupnir@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Hard to feel bad for a fucking landlord. Get a real job loser.

    “I don’t have empathy for others who are better off than I am. Work hourly as a W2 like the rest of us instead of using systems, tax codes, and laws in place by the government to generate a better life for yourself while growing society.”

    • notannpc@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Ah yes, all I have to do is pretend landlords are “growing society” instead of buying up properties with the sole intention of making money off of people who cant for a myriad of reasons out of their control. One of those reason being real estate “investors”.

      And what about the squatters? They are doing what you said, using the local systems and laws(squatters rights) to generate a better life for themselves. So it’s fair game right?

      • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Sure, I’ll give you that. The squatters are also taking advantage of the system for gain. But then I ask, imagine your home, or your workplace. Do you possibly work in construction? In an office? Perhaps in a leased retail space? How would you feel if a squatter took residence in your employee break room? Could you honestly say you would feel the same way?

        • notannpc@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I’m not going to feel bad for my employer having to go through the legal channels to remove a squatter in this hypothetical because it would have been their failure to provide a safe working environment that caused it to happen.

          And I’m not here in support of squatters, simply to point out that this person is in a situation he created because he chose to become a landlord in a strained housing market with record high homelessness. The squatters are definitely still legally wrong. But in my opinion, buying homes with the sole intent of renting it out is morally reprehensible.

          • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I see, well I guess it is a legitimate risk of that business. Landlords should understand that by operating there squatting is a possibility. It seems that you might still be distancing yourself from the point in this scenario by placing responsibility on your employer to deal with the problem, which in this case is the squatter, and avoiding picturing how it could truly interfere with your life at home or at work. Either way for anyone, no one should have to deal with this. Perhaps it is morally reprehensible to purchase a home with the sole purpose of renting. Perhaps it is also morally reprehensible to facilitate the squatting of homes owned by others for personal financial gain.

            Maybe we can both agree that the system is failing in it’s total if there is need for squatting for this purpose. I invite you to consider the possibility though that there is a valid reason for rental homes in many situations and areas that are beneficial for the right people. Yes, there are scummy landlords and yes, the landlord intends to make a profit, but this is not always at the sole detriment society.

    • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They aren’t growing shit. They are leeching off of people who actually work qnd majority of them do as little to improve these as they possibly can.

      • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Explain to me who then takes responsibility to repair derelict properties into livable condition? The city? Local government? Would you take this on? What would you expect as compensation to take this on?

        • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Well the landlords certainly don’t. I don’t give a shit about people taking advantage of others to generate a passive income for themselves without giving anything back in return while rents increase and just pocket in and continue screwing others over. Also companies buying up everything to artificially increase house costs can burn to the ground with the CEOs and executives inside.

          • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Well, it sounds like you and I both agree that large companies like Black Rock, Zillow, and whoever else is involved in the alleged price fixing with that rent recommendation software thing are screwing society and yes, can burn to the ground.

            I don’t know enough to comment on rents going up outside of them, but generally, things like this come down to both inflationary pressures and a consequence of free markets. Some states have enacted regulations capping the amount that rents can increase, others have not. I may be wrong, but it seems that your perspective on the situation is simplifying the issue to mean that landlords are squandering resources (homes/units) and extorting people without providing anything. There is still a positive result to society in providing places for people to live. A profit is needed in these cases, though, as it maintains incentive for maintaining homes and investing in the creation and rehabilitation of additional living spaces.

            The primary issue right now from my best knowledge is that there simply isn’t enough supply of homes and living spaces available, leading to increased demand, and willingness to pay a higher price. If you ever take an economics class, you will learn the simple truth that the value of something is only up to what people are willing to pay. If demand is lowered, people, as a whole are less likely to pay for the price being asked, and the seller will need to continue lowering, and lowering their price to find what the buyer will willingly pay. This is part of the reason that we have the consequence of high interest rates at the moment as well.

          • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            So if the A/C dies in the summer making the home unlivable, you say you would be on the hook to repair it? It’s on the landlord or property owner.

            If you go back to my comment I am bringing in the idea of a derelict property. There is no tenant in a derelict property, aside from possibly a squatter.

            And how about if nobody can even live there in the first place because it’s so bad? Then who pays?

            • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              Where does the landlord get the money? Do landlords often rent property at a loss? Is being a landlord a charity, where someone takes their own money and uses it to subsidize a stranger’s housing costs?

              Of course not. Landlords set the rent such that rent - costs > 0. The money to repair a rental home ultimately comes from the renter. The landlord may pay up-front, as in your example with a derelict property, but that’s with the intention of making back what they pay and more in the form of rent. Like all businesses, the cost of doing business plus all the profit the market will bear gets passed on to the consumer.

              • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Yes, you are certainly right about that. The landlord or rehab investor making a profit was never part of my argument. Operating rentals or investing in real estate is a business like any other, and thus needs to turn a profit in order to continue operations. In order to address the point you are making, I see what you’re saying about the flow through and how that gets used to repair properties. However, you may agree that we would both look at a $10,000 capital expenditure on a new AC unit differently if we were renting a home, which is generally for shorter terms (perhaps 2 years in Austin, TX on work assignment) than resident ownership for life.

                If you are not someone who needs a rental home, or a rental apartment, then don’t use one. These types of businesses exist, however because they serve a need in society, hence their ubiquity. I invite you to consider the possibility that there is a valid reason for rental homes in many situations and areas that are beneficial for the right people. Yes, there are scummy landlords and yes, the landlord intends to make a profit, but this is not always at the sole detriment society.

                • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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                  9 months ago

                  you’ve abandoned your original point, now you’re just saying “not all landlords are shitty” when you started by saying “the money to fix rental homes comes from landlords”. it doesn’t matter how we look at buying a new AC unit for a rental vs an owner-occupied property, the money spent on that AC unit will come from the people who live in the property. The occupant always pays for everything.

                  • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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                    9 months ago

                    OK so you wanna go back to it then. Let’s say your three months in on a new rental home. Landlord may be averages $100-$200 per month profit, so reasonably they’ve only collected $600 in total profit from you. AC now breaks and needs a $10,000 replacement. Who pays? Have they collected enough money from you so that you are paying for it?

                    At that point, you might as well start arguing that every business ever pays for things because of money, they’ve collected in their patrons. Same reason how you, assuming you’re a W-2 worker, get paid by your business. They collect a profit from the service or product they provide.

        • ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          The people who own them? What do landlords have to do with derelict properties anyway? Once repaired they could be sold or rented, but landlords are not the ones fixing up old houses…

          • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            So then who coordinates the work to get old houses fixed up? Who organizes and provides the funding, sources contractors, makes design decisions about how to best rehabilitate a home for modern use, and holds the whole project accountable for its completion?

            Across the nation and most of the rest of the world both resident owners and landlord owners will fix up properties. Unlivable properties however are primarily taken on by investors and rehab-to-rent landlords. Yes, they are making a profit out of it (most of the time), but society then receives an additional livable unit in good condition, or possibly more if it is a multifamily complex.

      • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        edit below

        Not one yet, I just understand how landlording and real estate investing works. Sure there are scum landlords out there, but what good do we bring the situation by demonizing an entire group, complaining online and cutting ourself off from the greater understanding of how things work and interplay in a complex society?

        This could apply to any news or situation. Have you ever considered that maybe there is more to understand than what you currently know? Have you considered the strength of the force that the way information is presented upon you can have on your perspective, attitudes, and beliefs about a situation? News articles have a tendency to use this in an effort to weaponize your emotions against something or someone, or to distract you from other causes.

        In this case, perhaps it has succeeded in manipulating your emotions to blindly attack me without fully and coherently understanding the situation.

        Edit: take these arbitrary downvotes for example. They communicate what is called a “social proof” to you that I am wrong, subverting your own free thinking and making potentially yourself as well as others stop and simply shortcut to agree the same.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      9 months ago

      while growing society

      How is increasing the price of housing (by pulling houses off the market and renting them out to make a profit) “growing society”?

      • Draupnir@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Take the money from small projects like single family rentals and use them to fund larger projects by using leverage. That’s the only way cities and apartment buildings, or commercial spaces like shopping malls are able to be funded and built. Same as you taking money from a small thing (e.g working and saving a down payment) and using leverage to finance a new car. A profit is needed in these cases as it maintains incentive for maintaining homes and investing in the creation and rehabilitation of additional living spaces.

        The primary issue right now from my best knowledge is that there simply isn’t enough supply of homes and living spaces available, leading to increased demand, and willingness to pay a higher price. Investors partially solve this issue by funding new developments and high density dwellings like apartment complexes. If you ever take an economics class, you will learn the simple truth that the value of something is only up to what people are willing to pay. If demand is lowered, people, as a whole are less likely to pay for the price being asked, and the seller will need to continue lowering, and lowering their price to find what the buyer will willingly pay. This is part of the reason that we have the consequence of high interest rates at the moment as well.

        If rentals were useless they would not exist in a given market, but they serve a need.