Landphobia on my Lemmy? It’s more likely than you think.
What do families do, that only want or need to live in a place or area for like a year or so? Buy a house, pay thousands in closing costs and inspections, lose several thousand to realtors, and then have to go through the trouble of trying to sell the place a year later?
We very much need landlords. What’s screwing everything up is corpos doing it as a business or individuals with like 20 homes instead of one or two. Renting a house is a viable need for some people and it would actually suck if it was an option that didn’t exist at all.
The only reason costs of houses are so high in the first place is because they are lucrative investment objects, along with the fact that the most important part of city (and rural) planning, building homes, is largely left to private companies. You are assuming houses would be just as inaffordable without landlords, which is a problem of the current paradigm and not the one proposed.
There’s no reason that local governments can’t do this job, there’s no need for middle men leaching money.
But you could replace just about any product with that statement.
Now, you’re getting it…
I love the theory of a really effective government that can produce things that are consistently better than private corporations. But that’s just never been my experience. In fact, it feels like the bigger a government gets the worst it operates. So how would you imagine a government that produces all the products and services for a society better than a free market?
Just look at most developed countries in Europe and you will find government operated services that are much better than what the free market came up with the in the US. Namely health services and transportation for instance. Postal services as well.
I just did a week long trip in the USA and all the National Parks were a joy to visit. I actually thought about and commented that it would be a totally different experience, read worse, if those things were privatized.
Honestly the whole argument that private entities are run better is bullshit. There’s nothing stopping any government from hiring the same managers and you just eliminated a certain % that would be the middle men. And now the main objective isn’t profit at all costs, so it will very easily be a better service for us, the consumers.
I don’t want this government running any new services until we remove the utterly fucked voting system.
While I’m writing a fantasy novel, let’s also get rid of all forms of gerrymandering. Including giving two senators to both California and Wyoming. You know what, no more Senate at all. The entirety of congress is proportional representation with more representatives than 1 per 600,000 citizens.
Some of the biggest law breakers and abusive landlords are independent landlords. They’re also the ones who don’t seem to realize that being a landlord is a full time job where you are the handy man, maintenance, property manager, etc. It’s not just collecting a cheque every month, you actually have to earn it.
Not really. I don’t have to fix things on a monthly basis at my own house. When my parents rented the landlord would have to do something maybe twice a year.
But OP just said it’s not a job in the meme. Which is it?
Yeah managing and up keeping properties. Dealing with taxes, zoning, and potentially HOA. Mitigating liabilities and complaints. Landlord is absolutely a job.
I’ve known a couple people who have inherited property that already had tenants and were excited for the extra income. I think both of them sold the property within 3 years because it was a nightmare to manage.
Housing as an investment should not exist as a concept. Housing is to provide shelter and comfort, not generate wealth.
So then should that be true about all the other necessary things? And if people are not incentivized to do things efficiently then why would the cost not increase?
Rental income is considered income, and taxed assuming reasonable tax brackets much higher than investment income (That is to say, caiptal-gains. Interest/Dividends are also taxed at the higher income rate)
The cost of maintaining a livable home, property taxes, insurance, property depreciation, and renter interactions eat into the supposed windfall that landlords make.
I’m not saying it doesn’t suck sometimes and that certainly these formulas are out of whack in some situations, but there are no easy answers.
