The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.
“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.
It shows that “no rent control” basically means “your landlord can throw you out at any time without notice” by raising rent to a ludicrous amount. It completely undermines all other tenant protections. Even conservatives should be supporting at least modest rent controls to prevent cases like this.
Most conservatives are middle class small business owners and landlords, this is why they are always supportive of “small government” it’s just a dog whistle for unregulated market.
I saw a documentary that spoke to some Twump (sic) supporters who lived in a shithole building that they didn’t realize was owned by the Kushners. I can’t recall anything else about it that might help identify it.
They’re not generally cartoonish evil, I’m sure they agree that some tenant protections against sudden eviction are a good thing, and allowing unlimited rent hikes completely obliterates all that.
They’re not generally cartoonish evil
You really need to look at how they’re talking on landlord forums and such, the way they speak about tenants. Reality will remove this naive idea from your mind.
I agree they are not cartoonishly evil, in so far as that a cartoon villain usually is thwarted by good through the power of friendship. Real villains don’t have such opposition.
You mean, worse than you speak of landlords?
False dicotomy. People talk shit about landlords because of how they’re treated by them. Landlords talk shit about tenants because they’re pieces of shit which is the same reason they treat tenants like shit.
And how are they treated by them, exactly? Asked to pay for the space provided?
From my experience most people don’t care until they’re inconvenienced in some way, so they won’t have an opinion on it so they wait until someone they rely on and trust to tell them how they should feel. I think we all know which entertainment network is going to tell them all about why rent control is ruining Canada/America.
This is Canada do people even get that network here?
Yes
I read a study that showed they’d rather hurt themselves than help others, even if helping others helped themselves as well, directly or indirectly. It tracks, frankly
it always seem like a dogwhistle for slave labor at a local level
this is why they are always supportive of “small government” it’s just a dog whistle for unregulated market.
A “dog whistle” is something disguising the true message, while there’s no attempt to hide it here.
(I am in support of an unregulated market, but also of trade unions and consumer unions and anarcho-syndicalism, which are natural parts of it)
Modest is what we had before. Never vote Conservative.
I think last year’s inflation spike demonstrates that “2.5% per year regardless of your carrying costs or maintenance costs changing due to interest rates and inflation” is not modest. A reasonable rent control policy would let landlords gradually adapt to market realities without giving them the power to gouge or de-facto evict tenants with sudden rent spikes.
Yes, rent control, our panacea.
Negative Effects on Supply: Rent control can potentially lead to housing shortages over the long term. When landlords are unable to raise rents to cover maintenance and operating costs or to generate a reasonable return on their investment, they may have less incentive to maintain or invest in their properties. This can lead to a deterioration in the quality of rental housing and a reduction in the overall supply of rental units. In some cases, landlords may convert rental properties into other uses, such as condominiums or commercial spaces, further reducing the supply of rental housing.
Inefficiencies and Reduced Mobility: Rent control can lead to inefficiencies in the housing market. Tenants in rent-controlled units may have less incentive to move, even if their housing needs change, because they want to keep their low rents. This reduced mobility can make it harder for new renters to find suitable housing.
Selective Impact: Rent control often applies to older buildings or units built before a certain date. This can create disparities in rent levels between newer and older housing stock, potentially discouraging the construction of new rental units and leading to further imbalances in the housing market.
A short term band-aid that causes long term problems. Government price controls are a tale as old as time.
We have rent control in Paris, France. Appartments are still expensive, but I pay 1600 euros per month for 60sqm in the center of one of the liveliest cities in the world.
Rent control WORKS.
It’s inevitable that any type of price control will lead to supply/demand issues. That’s great it worked out for you but it is well documented that rent control harms rental markets long term. Anyone who disagrees is in denial.
And for the places without rent control with supply/demand issues…
Yes, multiple things can affect rental supply, not just government price controls.
Jesus, I’m getting it from both ends here, somebody else is dumping on me for suggesting that a rent-control system that’s a few points above inflation so that landlords could adapt to the market without abruptly bankrupting their tenants was somehow a reasonable compromise.
I’m not arguing for extreme rent-control policies, just that no rent control is bad because it lets landlords write their own eviction laws.
Peg it at like 2.5% or 5% per year above inflation and you can’t use it as a sudden backdoor eviction but you also let landlords adapt to market reality over time.
Capping rents might be stupid for all the reasons economists say, but putting a damper on sudden price shifts is just being humane.
The “humane” thing would be to make any and all rent seeking behavior very explicitly illegal, but that’s unlikely to happen.
So wait where do college students live in your world?
Before I took economics in college I would have downvoted you. Price ceilings don’t solve the problem.
Before I took economics in college I would have downvoted you.
Now that you have studied economics, what do you think he got wrong that keeps you from pressing the “This is factual” button now?
There are countless examples showing it works. Look up France for example.
It’s funny, somehow I managed to understand this before any college. Because supply and demand are supposedly quite intuitive.
I think your second point is valid, but the first is upside-down. Landlords compete with tenants for plots and bank loans. If they started leaving the market, more plots will free up and banks will be forced to start giving out loans to tenants. This will allow people who are currently tenants to build their own houses, rather than needing to rent. And your third point only applies if you exclude some properties from rent control, which is what Ontario seems to be doing.
Uh, part of the point of the greenbelt is to stop building detached houses because they’re actually environmentally quite bad. I mean maybe individuals could work together to put together a co-op but Housing Now TO says that municipal governments generally block any of those that would pencil out.
part of the point of the greenbelt is to stop building detached houses because they’re actually environmentally quite bad.
If we’re being honest, all housing is environmentally bad. And not just environmentally bad, but bad for society in general. A necessary evil for the individual, perhaps, but it stands to reason that they should carry a high cost to account for the negative externalities they place on everyone else.
Landlords compete with tenants for plots and bank loans.
Not really. Landlords need tenants. If tenants would rather own, then there would be nobody for the landlord to rent to. Landlords serve those who prefer to rent. Of note, one reason people prefer to rent is a belief that the housing market is about to crash. With a lot of signs suggesting that is a real possibility on the near horizon, this is why rents have skyrocketed recently. Nobody wants to be the bag holder, so many more are, right now, opting to rent over buying in order to wait and see what happens.
banks will be forced to start giving out loans to tenants.
There is nothing that forces them to give loans to tenants. If landlords start leaving the housing market it is likely that credit offers will grind to a halt. The bank wants absolutely nothing to do with a security that people are running away from. Furthermore, the money leaving housing is apt to flow into productive businesses, which means that any credit that the banks are still willing to extend will go in that direction.
landlords serve those who would prefer to rent
If you honestly believe this then you are delusional. I’m sorry there’s pretty much no kind way to put it. This statement is that egregiously erroneous that it is so incongruous with reality so as to be delusional.
Oh, right. People only pay for things they don’t want. How could I have forgotten?!
For what it’s worth, surveys in my country repeatedly show that renters would prefer to own. But the market here is rough and banks are denying people loans even with a lower monthly payments than their existing rent.
I would think it is the same in the US, but most people here rent because they can’t buy.
surveys in my country repeatedly show that renters would prefer to own.
That does not mean they prefer to own right now. If you plan on moving to a new place in a few months, for example, it would kind of silly to buy only to have to buy again a few months later. You may prefer to buy, but the rational person would rent for a few months to bridge the gap, and then buy once they get to where they plan to stay.
And, given the current state of housing, with a high risk of it soon imploding, a lot of people would rather wait a few months, even a few years, before they buy to see what happens to the market. Again, preferring to own doesn’t imply right now.
The data shows a clear downward trend in price, especially in the traditionally desirable areas. If you have somewhere to rent, why would you choose to buy at this exact moment, knowing – with reasonable confidence – that a house will be cheaper in six months?
So the first point is simply false, the second point is symptomatic of the third point which is simply an example of a poor policy.
Also the second half of the third point is completely fucked off. If new construction were exempt from rent control then your ROI would be better on building units than buying units.
Nice ChatGPT copypasta, bro
It was a lot faster than writing it myself
Sure, but it’s irrelevant. There’s no economical rigor behind those statements. They could be true, they could be hallucinated.
I didn’t just type it into ChatGPT and copy/paste whatever it wrote without looking it over lol
I don’t know how this law passed but it should definitely be repealed
Ok, your rent is now $1 million. A month.
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Landlords are parasites on society.
You can’t afford to buy. If not for landlords who would you rent from? Where would you live?
The idea that if there were no landlords you’d be able to afford a house is absurd.
I agree corporations should be limited in how many single.family homes they are allowed to buy but this whole "all landlords are scum ". Schtick makes u look pathetic and ignorant of the facts.When people trying to purchase their first home are outbid constantly by investors (corporate or not) who later try to rent out that same space at more than the first time buyer would be paying on their mortgage then no, you daft idiot, they are not providing a service.
This whole lAnDlOrDs ArE oUr FrIeNd shtick makes you look pathetic.
I never said any of that. What are you talking about?
You wrote it. You can’t re-read it?
The idea that if there were no landlords you’d be able to afford a house is absurd.
Where did I say landlords are your friend? You’re not all there mentally are you?
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News flash dude. Way before all this increase when rates were low and there were tons of houses on the market I was trying to buy a first home and was outbid constantly by realtors who had more money and connections. It has never had anything to do with landlords per se.
If you dont think landlords are providing a service then you’re the idiot. No one is making you rent from anyone. I joined thought it was worth the space for the money no one would pay it.
News flash dude, it was wrong then and it’s wrong now, period.
If you think for profit renting is superior and less predatory to public housing, a successful model used in countries all over the world, and used to be successful in this country before the Conservatives and Liberals killed it in the 80/90s, then you’re an idiot.
No one is saying the empty nester with the basement suite charging an affordable price for the unit is in the wrong. The one’s that are in the wrong are the corporations and individuals who are buying up properties for their own personal gain at the sake of those around them who did nothing wrong other than being unlucky wth market timing. The ones in the wrong are the politicians who have lied to their voters into believing that for profit corporations are the solution to public services like housing, healthcare, and transportation, and the voters who have buried their heads in the sand and refused to listen to reason because they are scared of admitting they may not be right 100% of the time and would rather watch the world burn than change.
If you can’t understand this then again, you’re a fucking idiot.
I never said any of the things you claim I said…lmfao. who are u arguing against cuz I didn’t make any of the points u claim I did.
I never said anything close to what you assert in your first paragraph.
This is called a strawman. And you really beat him up…lol.
If not for landlords who would you rent from?
public housing is a thing, you know
No one pays taxes to support that tho. I’m all for it. Go ahead.
public housing doesn’t require tax money. It is often facilitated by it, yes, but don’t act as if the rent is necessarily sponsored by the government just because public housing isn’t designed to extract the maximum amount of money from the renters. There’s plenty to criticize about public housing without resorting to falsehoods
The reason so many can’t afford to buy is because so many houses are bought purely to be rented back out again, if no landlords existed housing prices would drop and more people could afford to buy.
For those who still couldn’t, as others have said - public housing
I mean this is patently false. Even when there were huge housing surpluses and rates were rock bottom people still rented. Sometimes even when they could afford to buy.
Sure now large corps have gobbled up the supply but even if they sold everything and tons of houses were on the market there would still be renters. And those renters need landlords.
Well yes, hence my last sentence - there will always be some people who have to rent (or just prefer it), and for those people, we could have public housing. Basically housing that’s treated as a public infrastructure - run not for profit, but for public good. It’s really not that hard to grasp - remove the landlords from the equation, and set the rent prices to exactly the cost of maintaining the properties.
If you remove the landlords leeching away extra value for investment profit, and instead just charged what it cost to make the housing available, it’d be cheaper by definition. Providing essential services at an affordable cost is literally the whole point of civil infrastructure
You don’t need landlords to give people a place to rent, in the same way I don’t need to pay someone to bring water to my house, or haul my sewage away, I use the public utilities in my area. And I’m not even talking about subsidizing the cost with tax dollars (though I think that’s a good idea), you could give renters significant savings simply by not trying to make money off them
No one wants to pay for any of that ever tho. You’re talking about massive infrastructure costs which sure on average is cheaper but good luck getting any gov to agree to the cost and maintenance. Idk about Canada but public housing in the US sucks.
No one wants to pay for any of that ever tho
Pay for what? Again, I’m not talking about subsidized housing here, just at-cost rentals. The only people paying are the renters, they’re just paying significantly less because they’re not funding some random person/corporation’s no-effort-required retirement plan.
Idk about Canada but public housing in the US sucks.
I’m in the US, and idk where you live but public housing in my area is both high quality and super affordable (granted I live in a very liberal state, where such things are given priority). The only issue is that there isn’t enough of it, but that would be solved if we switched to public housing for rentals instead of landlords. If your area has “sucky” public housing, you should advocate for improvements in your community and vote for local policy makers who will prioritize it.
You seem to have this odd insistince that you can’t possibly have rental properties without someone leeching profits off the top of the whole deal
Do you not realize that buildings cost money? That has to come way way way before a single dime of rent is collected. You act like rents collected from tenants equal the cost of the building immediately.
So again, where is the money coming from in advance to build the housing??? You only have one option. You keep pretending otherwise by creating a crazy unrealistic situation.
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Pretty sure this is the other way around.
People want to rent. The market responds with a supply of rentals.
I am not a “free market knows all” person but pretty clearly these sky high rents are a function of demand.
The inverse of your suggestion is that, if people bought houses instead of renting, there would be no demand for rental properties and prices would crash.
In fact, if it is true that there are excess properties being purchased to rent out, that should push prices down due to increased supply and competition for the finite number of people wanting to rent.
Demand isn’t high because so many more people prefer to rent - demand is high because it’s the only financially viable option. Why is it the only financially viable option? Because landlords (both corporate and personal) buy up all the property they can and rent it out. Because so many houses are getting bought as rentals, the supply of houses that can actually be bought is low.
Seriously, have you spoken to anyone who has tried to buy a house in the last few years? Every single one I know had a myriad of stories like “I put down an offer, but some investment company offered $20k over asking, cash in hand”
And because housing prices are so high because of the above behavior, more and more people are forced to rent, who would have 100% been able to buy a house not that long ago. And so rises demand.
If what you were saying was true (that rent prices are high purely because people love renting, and no one wants to be a homeowner), then why are we seeing sky high home prices at the same time? You’re quick to pull out a half baked supply and demand theory, but you’re very quick to ignore the other side of that equation.
Also, more fundamentally the whole “supply and demand explains all commerce” thing has been thoroughly untrue for ages. Maybe in a world without giant multinational conglomerates, political corruption, and price fixing. But in the real world, things are wildly more complicated
It’s not that, it’s purely supply. Landlords are a proxy for tenants, whether willing or unwilling, in the housing market when it comes to demand. They are no more interested in driving up housing prices than owner occupants are (which is to say, the vast majority of both are interested in driving up housing prices). The catch is, you can’t drive up housing prices in a market where there isn’t a supply constriction. Build more housing where people want to live, and you won’t have to do anything else for the problem to fix itself.
If not for landlords who would you rent from?
If not for landlords who would suck all supply?
If not for landlords who would you rent from?
I wouldn’t be renting. Landlords solely exist to make profit, not to serve anyone.
You replied to wrong comment
You mean you’d pay the same amount for a house as a landlord pays? But you can do that now, why don’t you?
Has nobody ever informed you that growing demand leads to price growth only if supply grows slower? But if prices grow, then supply does also grow faster. These are feedback loops.
Which means that what a house costs now it would cost still, after a short transient process.
“Suck all supply”, my ass. You mean that you’d buy that house for 1/10 of what the landlord has paid for it, because it’d just be there, like a mushroom after rain? It wouldn’t get built, dummy, cause it wouldn’t be worth the money.
But if prices grow, then supply does also grow faster. These are feedback loops.
Except highers supply doesn’t bring prices to same level.
You mean that you’d buy that house for 1/10 of what the landlord has paid for it, because it’d just be there, like a mushroom after rain?
The only reason prices are 10 times bigger is because landlords ready to pay those prices.
dummy
Bad, bad, very bad boy.
It wouldn’t get built, dummy, cause it wouldn’t be worth the money.
Hahahahahhaaha. I’m not sure if you really think that way or only pretending.
Except highers supply doesn’t bring prices to same level.
If there are no artificial limitations to supply, and no demand growth, it eventually will. Eventually as in time of regulation.
The only reason prices are 10 times bigger is because landlords ready to pay those prices.
They are ready to pay those prices because their tenants are ready to pay the prices they, in turn, offer. Which means that they don’t inflate demand.
Hahahahahhaaha. I’m not sure if you really think that way or only pretending.
You are illiterate in economics. I really don’t get why do you think putting “laugh” in text would negate that.
They are ready to pay those prices because their tenants are ready to pay the prices they, in turn, offer.
The only reason their tennats are “ready” to pay the prices is exactly because corporate landlords bought everything. AKA sucked the supply.
Hahahahahhaaha. I’m not sure if you really think that way or only pretending.
You are illiterate in economics
We are talking about 100x profit vs 10x profit for developers.
corporate landlords
OK, maybe I was too quick to judge. See, in my country most landlords own 1-3 apartments which they rent out. That includes new construction. The idea of “corporate landlords” is not very common here.
If there’s no way a person willing to be such a 1-3 apartments’ landlord can buy realty to rent out in USA - then you may be right.
If there is, then my position doesn’t change.
We are talking about 100x profit vs 10x profit for developers.
You are saying that rent a landlord collects from an apartment in 10 years (you may make it 5 years or 20 years, should be the span of time in which landlord’s investment should return) is 10x the price for which the landlord buys it? That is, what you pay to a landlord in 1 year is the cost of the apartment plus utilities plus decoration plus furniture? I suspect this is not true.
Since we’re throwing numbers around, give me your best guess as to the cost of building an apartment block, per unit. Ignore the cost of land for now.
I’m curious to see if you’re going to notice a problem with your logic or not.
If not for someone to buy from developers would there be a supply?
If not for scalpers to buy tickets from LiveNation would there even be concerts?
Unironically no. Or, at the very least, the organisers of the concerts themselves would have to be the badguy charging giant ticket prices themselves. LiveNation is just a professional scapegoat.
I guess tickets going to connected people rather than rich and/or highly motivated people would be an option too, if artists could get funding other ways. Lots of societies have worked that way in the past; the Colosseum was free but you had to be invited.
Fundamentally there’s just less seats than people who would show up if it was cheap and open to anyone. Maybe you could build a bigger venue, if geometry allows, but then somebody has to pay for that too, and we’re back to real estate.
They are talking about scalpers, not the company selling the tickets.
Landlords are like scalpers: they go in and buy up the supply, so they can resell (rent out) for a higher price.
The people originally doing the selling (artists in the case of scalpers. Developers in the case of landlords) see nothing of the increased price.
So what prevents you from buying directly from developers?
This is the most illogical and flat-out wring thing I’ve seen in a while.
That’s damn impressive, in its own stupid way.
No u? There is only so many seats in a venue, and you have to exclude someone, that’s just mathematical. If I erred somewhere else point it out.
So you are saying if not fo scalpers, then organizers would charge the same? And why organizers aren’t charging same anyway?
As I’ve heard it explained, LiveNation gives a big commission to the organisers to resell their tickets, to the point where they’re really just taking a cut for reselling it under a different name, for marketing purposes. I guess the existence of the old-style in-person scalpers kind of undermines that, I honestly never really understood how those guys existed.
So you are saying if not fo scalpers, then organizers would charge the same?
Technically they could charge more. Clearly the market is willing to pay more, else scalpers could not exist. But it would require more work by the organizer to get the tickets sold, and that extra work would not necessarily be worth the added payoff. Organizers have way better things to do than to spend their days trying to look high and low for someone wanting to buy a ticket. It is beneficial to just get tickets sold as fast as possible, even if at a discount, and move on to more useful work. Those who have nothing else going on in life can justifiably spend their time looking high and low and capture the difference for their efforts.
And why organizers aren’t charging same anyway?
Because there is only so much time in the day. Same reason middlemen appear in essentially every industry known to man. They let people doing important things get back to doing important things rather than waste their time dealing with people.
Landlords provide housing the way scalpers “provide” tickets. The solution for people who need can’t afford to buy or who only need short term accommodation is public housing.
The CMHC used to provide funds to the provinces which would then build big public housing units with affordable rent. This provide a check & balance to the free market, keeping rents and house prices from skyrocketing. But then in the 80s and 90s, both Conservative and Liberal PMs successively defunded that aspect of the CMHC to solve budget issues, and those properties were destroyed as they reached their “maturity” date, regardless of whether the building was still usable or not.
I lived near one of them, located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SG2kkXeVsp3Nia2RA Check out the street view and click “see more dates” for 2012, that’s housing for 90+families. Then in 2014 it was closed for demolition. And today it’s still an empty grass lot. Almost 10 years as a Govt-owned empty lot, instead of affordable housing, because those Govts kept promising “market solutions” to housing problems.
But it turns out the “problem” with housing was letting the “free market” turn it into another Tulip Bulb craze, instead of keeping it an affordable necessity
How many tenants do you know wish they could buy vs needed to rent because they won’t stay long?
Like, all of them?
Sure bud
Most of my tenants wish they could buy. I always tell them they should just work harder and get good at capitalism.
Public housing. That’s where you rent it from. Landlords serve no purpose in society that can’t be solved in better ways.
For example, I would gladly purchase my apartment. The rent that I pay would be roughly equal to mortgage payments on the approximate value of the unit. But instead I’m stuck paying that amount so someone else can own it. Just cut out the parasite in the middle.
Sounds like you’re saying you can buy your own house. So go do it.
The bare minimum of research would tell you to qualify for a mortgage to buy an apartment is much more difficult than being able to rent.
I worked in real estate. I’m aware of how a closing works.
Apparently not lol
Ok buddy. Lol. I’m a certified abstractor.
Wow I never thought of that. It’s almost like people treating housing as an investment portfolio, corporate landlords, and greedy developers have made all the housing around me completely unaffordable.
On top of that, I wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage of that amount, despite the fact I’ve been paying the same in rent for nearly a decade.
Isn’t there another similar unit somewhere you could buy, then? You’re right, it sounds like your landlord isn’t serving much of a role here.
There is not. An equivalently sized apartment in my neighbourhood is on the market for $1.6M at least. Because the only things being built are “luxury” units made for investment, not housing people.
Also, I wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage equal to my rent despite the fact I’ve been paying rent at that rate for nearly a decade.
And you think your apartment is worth a lot less? I don’t know if I buy that, honestly, unless it’s an absolute tear-down. I’ve played with markets enough to learn that there’s never an easy shortcut.
Alright, I’m done being nice here.
Yes, it is worth less. I know because they just did a valuation of it a week ago. A mortgage on it would be affordable for me. I don’t care what’s “believable” for you. Fuck off.
Alright. You’re either very lucky or wrong, but have a nice life.
The bare minimum of research would tell you to qualify for a mortgage to buy an apartment is much more difficult than being able to rent.
Yeah, I know, because the banks also have to make money. So then OP can’t actually pay a mortgage for the same price, if you include downpayment and all those sort of things.
Why do banks have to make money though? What purpose do they serve that couldn’t be served better by an entity that doesn’t need to make a profit?
Well somebody has to think of the shareholders.
/s
No reason, there are credit unions too, my riding association uses one, and I personally bank with my province. They still function like banks, though, and when they give out loans they expect interest in turn for not having the money to use themselves (basically), and various other things to ensure you can actually pay them back.
If you’re wondering why we can’t just give houses out freely, it’s because the construction workers have to do tangible work that sucks and will want to be taken care of in turn. The only convincing way I’ve seen to ensure that in a complex industrial society involves currency of some kind, and then you’re right back to banks.
Now, you could ask why landlords get to have so much more money than their tenants in the first place, and I’d say dunno, seems dumb. I never said I loved capitalism, I’m just not sure why landlords are worse than all the other Guys That Own Things.
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Please tell us more about how the types of people who decide to jack rent up to absurd levels when given the slightest push back are actually a good thing for society.
I never said this. This is the definition of a strawman.
I’m surprised you’re getting downvoted so heavily here, they’re literally arguing a point you didn’t make.
Lotta justified anti-landlord sentiment is overflowing the barriers of nuance and creating a flood of “everything should be free in a perfect society” quasi-marxism.
if not for landlords who would you rent from?
“We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”
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Decomodify housing. Like tax owning a home past like the 3th one so high it would destitute someone as rich as Musk in a month. Watch everyone who uses property for investment panic sell and crash the market into oblivion. The people who want to own a home can now do so and the rest can be bought up by the government for cheap to convert into public housing. Ez affordable housing and renting in one swoop.
Ok. I support this.
So I’m a big fan of reducing landlords (especially big corporate ones), but aren’t you worried about what happens to all the people that bought a house to live in with your plan? If my house halved in value I’d be well fucked, the house losing value won’t make my mortgage go down unfortunately.
Edit: I guess I crossed a threshold in that comment which puts me in the “landlord sympathiser camp”, which is far from the truth, I’m not too surprised about that though. Look, my preferred option is annihilation of capitalism, but just crashing the real estate market without doing anything else about the system itself would be devastating for a lot of common folks, not just through housing prices but all the other economic effects it would have.
I own my apartment too and if its value dropped to zero it would have no effect, I would still be living in it with no change.
Something should probably be done about housing bought with loans but even if it isn’t anyone who bought a home to live in will continue to do so, it’s value being pretty much irrelevant.
There is a change which is that you can’t move anymore, better hope you chose that house really well and never need to move ever again (which is extremely unlikely for us and I would think for most people). Not to mention the sheer insanity to be paying monthly for another 25 years for something with no value.
It might be frustrating if the value of my home dropped after buying it, but I don’t imagine it would mean I couldn’t move. I sell my current home for a lower price, but wouldn’t that be okay because the price of the house I’m buying is also lower now? (/gen curious, I don’t know a lot about this topic lol, just thinking out loud)
If you’re “underwater” (your mortgage is higher than the value of the house) then yeah you’re stuck unless you want to pay off that difference. That happened to friends of mine after 2008. If you own the house outright then yeah it matters less.
I’ve NEVER met a landlord who had low prices, just government subsidized low income housing. Even large real-estate companies/ banks tend to offer better prices. Landlords fucking suck. Investing in a house, is like “investing” in water. You’re just spending money to increase demand and make money, on SOMETHING PEOPLE NEED TO LIVE.
You can’t afford to buy
Because landlords are buying all the properties?
Found the landlord. If not for tenants, who would you and your estate agent squeeze for every possible cent, cutting every possible cost along the way so you can more horde wealth, buy more homes and get fat at other people’s expense.
Nobody that wasn’t bleeding renters would try and look reasonable by saying “corporations shouldn’t be able to own too many houses”.
The people complaining are not the ones who should be ashamed.
Yep, the house I got lucky on and am saving for my kid to move into in a year makes me scum of the earth.
Correct😎
Lol. What a shit take. What is my kid supposed to do for a house? Pay market price in a year? How does that solve the supply issue again???
I love how you guys are just reactionary and don’t ever think any steps ahead about what the result of your propositions would be…just landlord bad. Free house good.
I’m a huge supporter of social welfare programs and limiting the num of houses ppl can buy so if u think I’m the enemy, buddy you’re fighting the wrong battle.
Why can’t your kid just pay rent? You made renting sound so cool.
We don’t need Capitalism any longer. We can do better.
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They said, not even knowing where I’m from. There are people who would be dead without Soviet Authoritarianism.
And somehow that’s not what I’m advocating.
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Still not what I’m advocating.
Well, would I be very far wrong to say that you are from Canada? Perhaps people are less ignorant than you think.
I don’t disagree but what we need is stability. So far capitalism has given the US that. If you’re proposing a different system fine just make sure that while we move to it the perceived wealth of the country doesn’t take a hit and after it is implemented do the same.
I don’t think it is possible from here. What we really need is loads more regulation and Corp criminals going to prison to start.
The US was never stable, and I don’t agree either that Capitalism is.
What is your definition of stable? What has been moreso?
Largest gdp and arguably most stable economy of scale on the planet what are you talking about?
See this is what I’m talking about. Just devoid of realityCoal Wars, Conscription, Red scare, Segregation, Civil Rights Oppression, Violence, Drug War, international chaos and war.
What are you talking about?
Do we not have a stable economy? Are u kidding rn? Name one that is doing better.
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Yes, the only two options are capitalism and full on Chinese dictatorship communism.
So, this is a testy thread, but if you have a specific idea of what you do want I’m very interested. Capitalism is a weird solution but other than old-school communism (which was honestly a series of kludges masquerading as a solution) I’ve yet to hear another solution described in detail.
You should examine the social and economic structures of the Anarchist governed areas in Ukraine and Spain during their respective civil wars.
It wasn’t a given that Socialist movements should be Authoritarian. Lenin bears most of the blame for that (the bastard); Marx some.
I actually have looked into that. From what I can tell they never really had a well-defined economic structure, since building up the economy bigger isn’t a consideration when fighting for your existence, and used a market system for basic purchases of supplies. Modern Rojava is the same way.
The Republicans were pretty close to winning from what I’ve heard, and if I could see parallel universes what they would have settled on after a victory would be one of the first few things I’d be interested in.
There is also Soviet communism, Cuban communism, and North Korean communism. I’m sure one of those countries will happily welcome you with lovely high quality public housing.
I own my home. I’m just not a scumbag leech on society like you guys.
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You misspelled Chinese dictatorship capitalism
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The geniuses on this site think that if the government is your landlord then you don’t have a landlord. Basically they want a form of communism. Public housing has it’s place but as someone who has rented in the past it’s not the sort of housing I’d choose unless it’s a last resort.
In any case, VERY STRONG DISAGREE that the only rentals should be government run or co-ops.
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I disagree with you strongly but props for a clear policy and honesty. Too many centre-left liberals show up to scream “decommodify housing” but with no follow-through about what that means besides handwaving about the evils of moneyed interests. Imho, communists are wrong, but at least they’re consistent and coherent and unambiguous.
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Landlords were one of the biggest targets of the classical economists. Mill, if I remember correctly, had some choice words about them.
I mean I get the hate to some extent. I’ve been on both sides of this coin so I can see how both sides feel squeezed.
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My point is that large corporations are the issue not someone with an extra house or two.q
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Gobble Trump’s cock.
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Without landlords, nobody would need to rent in the first place.
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Nooo how dare you suggest solutions11!
Same thing is happening to me right now (UK). LL inherited a portfolio of mortgage-free properties a few years back, immediately jacked the rent up on them all. I tried to haggle what imo was an egregious rent increase (notified middle of the year after asking for a minor repair), we agreed on a price then he served me notice to quit; via the letting agent, not a peep or thanks from the LL after I’ve put ~£90000 into his familys’ accounts over 13 yrs.
Of course, I can pay someone elses mortgage, but when I apply to a bank for one myself, I can’t afford it.
I can pay someone elses mortgage, but when I apply to a bank for one myself, I can’t afford it.
But when you can’t afford it any longer, the landlord is free to replace you with someone who temporarily can. That’s the difference!
Bank can’t do the same thing?
This is what I don’t get. Where’s the risk for the lender? If I can’t pay, they get the house and can sell it. I guess there’s a potential cashflow issue but the underlying asset isn’t going anywhere.
Typically it’s pretty low risk in comparison to other loans which is why home loans are relatively low but there’s a risk that both the property value declines and the outstanding loan and selling costs is more than property value.
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non-artist-based pOrTfOlIos should be criminalized
Why? In a non-artistic sense it’s just a pretentious way to say “stuff you own”. (Unless you’re saying owning things at all should be criminalized, in which case… can’t really argue with you there.)
Here in Norway ut is illegal to raise rent more than once a year and maximum by the current consumer price index. If the rent isn’t raised a year you don’t get to raise for that years CPI.
There is a similar rule in Ontario, but it doesn’t apply to buildings built after 2018.
This exemption was put in place as an incentive for more rental units to be put on the market (or to enrich developers and landholders, depending on your political stance).
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A floating rent-control date
… is still a bad idea. Let’s not focus on what kind of bat we’re beaten with; let’s just get Ontario back on track.
I’m not sure that works. The idea was that if rent control was lifted, there would be incentive to build new units. Trouble is, the building didn’t happen as expected. New housing starts even declined after the change came into effect. Balance is not going to give more incentive to build.
Since it didn’t work, we may as well go back to a proper rent control system. A proper one, not the completely ridiculous one that sees young, struggling families subsidizing rich retires that we currently have on those <2018 properties.
Any date is a bad idea
There is no limit to yearly increases in the real world. You get a phone call from your landlord telling you that they want to sell/renovate the unit, you get the hint and tell them that you will accept a rent increase, then magically they no longer want to sell/renovate. Happened to me with an otherwise “good” landlord.
In the Netherlands they can sell, but the renting agreement stays in place, so you can just stay there. If they want renovate they can offer to buy of your contract or they have to find you another apartment with equal facilities and for the same price range. A lot of these excesses can be covered by good legislation.
Renter protection is very strong in the Netherlands, probably one of the strongest in the world.
Used to be that squatter rights were also very strong but I believe that has reduced now.
It always feels like the countries in that region go out of their way to put every roadblock they can in front of pathetic little schemer pricks who only want to rob everyone of every penny. Here in the US, the politicians go out of their way to make sure there’s every possible loophole for corruption and morally bankrupt pieces of shit to abuse.
A lot of these excesses can be covered by good legislation.
So we’re fucked, great.
It’s similar in Quebec. Unfortunately this is only enforced by informed renters, so landlords often raise it much more than the allowed amount when someone moves out.
In Norway you can set the rent as you wish when negotiating the initial contact. So it doesn’t matter what the previous tenants rent was. But the raise cap per year is set per year after that as long as the contact is valid.
That’s a great compromise imo
This exact same thing can happen in Québec with appartements less than 5 years old, the infamous F part, In Montreal a LL can increase your raise from 2500$ to 9500$ if he wishes.
Yes, just read a bit more about this. That’s insane
There is no limit on what you can change the rent by between renters. Only what you can increase while the same person lives in the unit. The moment they move out its perfectly fine to increase the rent for the next renter.
The landlord has to let the renter know what the lowest rent was in the 12 months before they sign the lease. If there is an excessive raise, you can ask the TAL to calculate a new amount. https://educaloi.qc.ca/actualites-juridiques/section-g-chien-garde-hausses-excessives/
In reality, landlords usually leave that blank, and renters are wary of starting on the wrong foot with their new landlord. There is a custom of leaving a copy of your lease in the kitchen drawer for the next person to find.
I would say it’s legal but not perfectly fine.
There is a vast difference between the two, esp when it come out of #DrugFraud 's office.
These laws exist to protect existing renters against exploitation of the cost of moving as a negotiation tactic (since the consumer cannot easily shop between renegotiations, it is not a free market).
These laws do not exist to implement fixed housing price policy. What you may be looking for is public housing.
In my experience, a lot of existing rental law tends to be a pretty fair balance between rights of renters and very small property owners, which we should totally encourage. The problems arise with medium and large (institutional) property owners, that don’t need the same degree of protection as small renters, and who leverage their size to bully. The laws should be updated to be stricter for large blocks of ownership. But defining that can be a challenge.
When I lived in Quebec they raised it like 8%, and my boss told me to appeal it. As an American it blew my mind I could say no. They ended up being allowed to only raise it 4%.
We need an official rental price registry, managed by the TAL so that new renters have access to the rental price of previous tenants.
This used to exist in Ontario but the Conservatives removed it for anything built or renovated after 2018. Canadians need to learn to never vote Conservative.
It’s pretty much the same in Denmark
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Don’t tell em. Let the American continent crumble under it’s own weight while we carry on enjoying our “freedom-less” socialism.
Name them and shame them.
Regardless of who is in the right or wrong here, please don’t post personally identifiable information if the source is not public.
While it’s important to push for justice and fairness, there’s a distinction between advocating for fairness and doxxing / calling for mob justice. We don’t have formal rules for this stuff yet, but use your best judgment and report any comments that veer into harmful territory.
I’ll try to post a discussion thread on proposed rules sometime in the future, but this seems like a good one to bring up in the meantime. Feel free to share thoughts, and thank you :)
Maybe not here, maybe not us. But that landlord’s name ought to be made public by the media.
That’s fair yes :)
Before mobbing the landlord, it would be a good idea to know what’s the real story behind this. Maybe the sisters were assholes. We don’t know that.
Found the landlord
Haha, I’m not! But I would be intrigued to know what’s the real reason behind the landlord’s move. I know we like to believe that all landlord are assholes but let’s love in reality where nuance is everything shall we ?
No landlord is a good person. The sisters, even if assholes, doesn’t excuse the fact that the landlord is also an asshole simply by being a landlord.
Are you like 5 years old?
I’m 5 years old because I think being a good person and being a landlord are mutually exclusive? What’s your reasoning?
Not that guy but: your reasoning in terms of economics shows the nuance and depth of a toddler, therefore you’re either 5 years old or a commie.
Answering their question clears up which one it is.
Plenty of capitalists believe that people like rentiers, i.e. landlords, are an abomination to an economy. You don’t know much about economics, do you?
I know no fucking capitalist would bring “being a good person” into a conversation about economics, which you clearly don’t, so…
Ok, no landlord are good person. What kind of argument is this ? Like, literally? I know some are asshole ? But some a very kind and appreciative too? What’s your point ? No one should be allowed to rent their property ever ?
You’re trying to pretend landlords only exist in a vacuum instead of in society where people can’t afford the necessities for basic survival. Landlords play a huge role in making sure housing prices are above a “natural” level, all while contributing no productive value to society. There’s a reason why plenty of capitalists are against rentiers.
My position is like the most nuanced in the world while.yours is the most radical. Landlord maintains their assets while the renter does not have to think about it. That’s the benefit of being a renter and that’s why there is a market. Stop being radical, it does not help at all.
Ya. It sounds like they wanted to raise the rent to $3500 which the landlord clearly thought was being reasonable for this building. They bitched about it so the landlord raised the rent high enough to get rid of them.
Sounds like the gambled and lost. Instead of going to the news, they should have tried to negotiate back to $3500 or something close. Good luck now.
Bumping the rent from $2500 to $3500/month is clearly not reasonable.
It’s so cool how you can lose your home for disagreeing with a landlord.
When escalation of this magnitude is your solution, you shouldn’t be surprised when your clients respond with violence.
This absolutely should not be legal
Why?
In both the Western countries I’ve lived so far (France and Italy, but my guess is the list is much longer), this wouldn’t be possible.
The landlord could at most adjust the rent to inflation.
The only wag he/she could ask for such a steep increase is by making a brand new contract with someone else, but for that purpose the current contract should be terminated, which isn’t possible if your occupants are paying their rent, unless he/she wants to re-take possession for selling the apartment/house or to live in it. If they fake the repossession and actually end up renting again to an inflated price, the new contract is deemed void and the previous occupants could be reinstated.
In my province on Canada this is illegal. I’ve taken landlord to the rentalsmen who tried pulling illegal rent increases and won before.
It makes any other sort of renter protections moot if they can basically be evicted whenever by saying the rent is now $1,000,000 take it or leave it.
Well they can just purchase their own property and not have to pay rent, right? If someone raised the rent to $1mil I don’t think anyone would live there, it’s a free market no?
The point of raising the rent to ludicrous amounts isn’t to actually get that amount, it’s to get rid of your tenants which usually have protections. This is just a cheap way around those protections and a loophole that should be closed.
No one should answer you seriously, because that the most braindead question I’ve read.
Because people need housing to live in, so it’s in the interest of the vast majority of people to make sure the few that own property can’t increase rent by 100s of % for no good reason. Additionally we live in a democracy so usually the interests of the majority are supposed to guide policy making even if it upsets the minority that control access to resources because they won’t profit quite as much as otherwise.
Is there anything holding them back from buying their own property and not having to pay rent?
Yeah they are not rich you asshole.
Didn’t know you had to be rich to buy property, my bad
You do in Toronto. Average home is over a million dollars.
Found a landlord
It doesn’t really help the case that they show a picture a sky line dream apartment, but still that price is ridiculous and obviously there to drive them out.
The top 0.01% laughs as you nibble at the heals of the top 1%
Does that mean the landlord has to charge the next tennant that rate, or was that a special rate just for them? Can they charge different rents fir different people based on whether they like the tennant?
I was wondering thia too. Without control, they can probably just lower it again once the tenants leave.
They must have really pissed off the landlord. It doesn’t say what they asked for in the lease agreement changes… Or what they said to him when they “complained” when he raised the rent initially by a smaller amount.
Still ridiculous that it’s legal to raise rent by that much, but oof, if you’re in one of those buildings, be nice to your landlord.
Edit: i think people are taking what I said the wrong way - I’m saying with the way things are, if landlords can get away with this, they hold all the power!
Edit2: I guess I’m the bad guy here, but I recommend you focus your rage on Ford who set this shit up in the first place.
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raised the rent initially by a smaller amount.
You write ‘doubled’ funny.
Source on doubled? There’s no mention in the article of the initial rent
Edit: For all we know the initial rent increase could have been $50. But sure, I’m the bad guy for pointing out lack of info
Sisters Khadeja and Yumna Farooq say a Toronto landlord is raising their rent by $7,000 per month
Which means an initial rent of about $2500? So not doubled.
Good catch. And yet I’m getting downvoted 🤷♂️
Witch hunts on lemmy are even more indiscriminate than they were on Reddit. There’s just no in between.
You said there is no information on the initial rent, but there is. So why should people not down vote you?
Yes, let’s ignore the guy who made the inaccurate claim, which is the entire reason I asked for a source
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I didn’t catch that it doubled. Jeez. Landlord is a tool.
yeah they probably wanted their broken toilet to flush and the landlord was so aggrieved at the insult that they actually have to do something they flew into a rage
If the landlord cares about something then they should have put it in the contract and then kicked them out due to that. Raising pricing is not necessary.
Yeah agreed but because of the lack of rent control they don’t have to. That’s my point. They hold a lot of power being able to do what they want with rent changes alone.
#DrugFraud 's legacy.
?
He removed rent control from units less than 5 years old back in 2018.
Sounds like they’re living in a high demand luxury apartment with a great view from the looks of it. Landlord just told em they fucked around and are going to find out now. The price is clearly because they don’t want to deal with them anymore.
God damn, no sympathy at all eh? Yes they’re yuppies, but you’re going to bat for a punitive rent hike because “they probably deserved it” or something like that? That’s cold.
These women are losing their home because they argued with a landlord over raising rent. That’s some Dickensian shit right there.
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Their rent jump from 2500/month to 3500/month before they complained, which is still absolutely insane. Once they complained, it jumped to 9500/month to get rid of them.
Wow. You can take the Redditor out of Reddit but you can’t take the Reddit out of the Redditor.
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what the fuck are you even talking about dude
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if you had your largest expense increase 40% you would “complain” too. anyone would. the landlord turning around and making it 400% instead is a dick move in any language
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Exactly the same problem in Québec, buildings 5 years or less have no law nor rent control, so it’s free for all for the landlord to raise a rent from 1500$ to 4000$ as he wants.
By the looks of it, Toronto might get worse than Vancoucer for rent prices very soon.
I wonder if there are information or anonymised statistics regarding the portion of elected representatives, senators and members of the judiciary from municipal, provincial and federal bodies/institutions that own more than a property (principal residence).
How many properties? What type of properties (from residential single family to high rise residential appartments/condominium, from empty/rundown/abandoned farmhouses/buildings to unused farm/land, etc…) What purpose do they have for those properties? Do those properties generate some kind of revenue? If so, how much? How is the revenue generated?
While thinking about it, how much of all properties in Canada are tied up behind a corporate veil by companies/fondations/trusts and various legal entities? Are there statistics on that?
There are too many unknowns and legal protections behind those unknown to be able to make a clear picture of the housing crisis.
I don’t want the scapegoat excuse of too much RED TAPE to build new housing or that IT’S THE IMMIGRANTS and the FOREIGN WORKERS or FOREIGN INVESTORS/SPECULATORS took all our housing. That’s too easy of a excuse to avoid the real and difficult work of understanding this whole mess.
I want real data, not proxy data. Full information on every transfer of property; from whom to whom, by which financial institution, for exactly how much, timespan elapsed between transfer of ownership, who is the mortgage holder if a loan is involved, renovation details if there has been any, every inspection report and details should always be public and attached to the property for the life of the property as a historical snapshot of the property, etc…
It’s not that hard to implement these data gathering services but there are always deeply vested interests that would do everything in their power to discourage such endeavors and make up any excuse to avoid providing it.
Anyways, sorry this became a long rambling rant on my part.
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Only if the place you are renting was built before 2018.
You should read the article
Not sure why you are down voted. If people know why this limit is not viable in this case they should tell. Us.
From that person’s link:
The guideline applies to the vast majority – approximately 1.4 million – of rental households covered by the Residential Tenancies Act. It does not apply to rental units occupied for the first time after November 15, 2018, vacant residential units, community housing, long-term care homes or commercial properties.
Because they can’t bleed their tenants dry otherwise.
It’s not enough to have someone else paying your mortgage for you, you need to be cashflow positive each month as well.
