You got a raise? It’s my raise now.
i got rent increase notices immediately after every ‘covid check’ was announced.
Which is why I plan to never move. My rent has never gone up and I keep printing out and signing extensions. I have the laziest landlord ever. Guy can’t even be bothered to raise my rent since that would involve some level of work on his part.
He may just be satisfied with you as a tenant and doesn’t want to raise the price so you will stay. Not every landlord is a dick.
Or he’s just lazy as you said.
I’d second the “not every landlord is a dick”, some will even lower the rent price when the demand goes down even though I continue to rent, not start a new one.
But that’s relatively rare, unfortunately
that’s what we used to have here… stable and very reasonable rent for 20 years, through several ownership changes, even. then this last and current one is just your stereotypical greedy landlord,
Me too! My landlord didn’t even ask if I was impacted by covid, or if I was even still employed… He just raised the rent to a level I’ve never seen before.
Were you not on a lease? Lease contracts always lock your rent in for the time period they’re good for.
Some leases lock in yearly increases, though, as part of auto-renewal. The last house I looked to rent included an auto-renewal clause with a fucking 5% annual increase. I noped out even before getting to the part that made me as the renter responsible for replacing the sewer if there was ever a problem with it.
first thing the current landlord did when he bought the building is raise the rent for all tenants… despite everyone having leases–the terms and obligations of existing leases is supposed to transfer to a new owner. but they don’t care, and they 100% would have raised them further (and in addition to the other increases since), had anyone pursued any sort of action against them. we have very little in terms of tenant protection laws here.
How bad is it where you live? Where I’m from that would be a fairly easy small claims court suit for breaxh (or done in bulk, you’d get all the tenants together and do a class action for breach).
Man, I went years without a cost of living increase… I told my landlord this, and that same year he raised my rent over 10% with only 60 days notice. That’s illegal in my state on two different levels. I met with an attorney, and the was basically nothing I could do that wouldn’t result in me needing to move out.
At the time, the rent was really bad in the city. I could find a comparable place to live, but the moving cost and hassle was too high.
This is how landlords do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it.
It’s the free country thing. Typical rental leases renew every year (and typically, renters like that freedom). A landlord can simply decline to renew if you’re “too much trouble”.
So you could challenge the illegal rent increase in court and win, but then he declines to renew. You could refuse to pay the illegal increase (doing it the right/legal way) and/or even just stop paying rent. But then he eventually evicts you, or just declines to renew.
In the end, rent is supposed to be temporary. And when it is temporary enough that moving out can be your leverage, it works. If you are settling down somewhere, it really should be owned.
My landlord keeps getting violations from the HOA, and the HOA is straight up making rules up. I can’t sue the HOA for this (which is 100% what needs to happen to get them to stop), because there’s a legal layer between the owner and the tenant…
So yes, shit is broken. He refuses to call them out or take legal action against their harassment of my family. This is really obvious stuff, too. The latest violation involves them accusing me of having open flame torches on my patio. I own solar powered LED lanterns. They want to fine my landlord $100 for this.
I told him I won’t pay it. They are charging HIM, not me, and there’s nothing in my lease or the HOA’s CC&R’s saying I can’t own solar lanterns.
This guy has violated state, federal, and city laws over the last half a decade. He’s also a slumlord that never fixes anything. He once made me wait a year to get my front door handle repaired (sure, I could have fought that, but then he’d have just raised my rent.)
I hope he gets fined, and I hope he fucks around, because I’ve got an attorney ready.
I’m not saying to never take shit from your landlords, everyone… But at some point you have to stand up and tell them to fuck off. Rent is out of control in many cities right now, but that’s not an excuse for the often abusive landlord-tenant systems. Landlords should NOT exist.
I’m sorry you’re having to go through that. I’ve had a nightmare landlord before and it really fucks with your mental wellbeing. Best of luck to you!
I just bought a house from a guy who had been renting it out for thirty years and I’m now in the process of fixing all the shit he neglected during that time. I can’t believe that anyone was willing to rent this place for any amount of money, let alone the $1300/mo he had been getting for it. The kitchen ceiling was sagging down a foot in two places and held up literally only by the paint and caulk, thanks to mice - I got showered with mouse poop and urine-soaked ceiling tile material when I demo’ed it. The electrical outlets were all partially blocked by the baseboard radiators, which was probably a good thing because they were all ungrounded 1940s-era receptacles with the hot and neutral wires hooked up in reverse. One light switch caused the circuit breaker to trip as soon as I flipped it. Not a single door in the house could actually be closed (not even the front door) so I had to reset the hinges; one door looked like he had tried to fix the problem using a beaver with dental problems.
He sold the house as “rental ready” and I’m five months into the renovation now. I like to think the house appreciates my being here.
It isn’t in Charles Village by any chance is it? I’ve got some war stories with Ben.
Landlords should NOT exist.
There is the Georgism position where rent is discouraged with tax which is set to share out society’s share of the value of limited natural resources
It’s hard to run a civilisation without landlords, since some people are not in a position to buy land and need to borrow it.
since some people are not in a position to buy land and need to borrow it.
Some people have no desire to buy land, and want to borrow it. More than half the people I know (and I’m in my 40s now) have no desire to hold the liability of needing to sell a property to be able to move halfway across the country or world. They don’t “own” their, so they see having to literally own it as a problem. And they are willing to pay more in rent than a mortgage (which happens regularly in some areas around me).
There are shit landlords, and there are decent landlords. I think half the problem is that while some areas have great protection for poor renters, they often don’t have great holistic renter protections. In my state, for example, government-subsidized rentals have the most apartment quality regulations. But after that, you’re expected to leverage your rent to force action… without actually withholding it in any way somehow. And small business rentals? Even worse. I have a buddy who runs a breakfast joint. The heating system in the building died, so the landlord said “well if you want to stay open in the winter you should fix that”. So he installed a minisplit and the other business in the building had to close for the winter. Ultimately, both businesses started withholding rent (against lawyer’s advice) and he finally caved and called his renters “cheap bastards” as he got heating installed (and it was like a comedy that the heating company walked out on him twice for his after-contract renegotiations).
I’m ok with someone owning and renting out a building. But it should be somewhere near the level of quality the renter would maintain the place if they owned it.
Nah, never take shit from your landlord. They’re expendable leeches on society.
They should abolish buy to let mortgages. How is it fair that a renter literally pays for the mortgage by proxy but doesn’t have a stake in the home.
I am not being snarky. Can you explain your comment? I don’t understand what you are saying.
A common landlord technique is putting a minimum down payment on a house and having their renters pay off the morgage. I think the above commenter is saying that it should not be allowed to get a massive loan on a house that you aren’t going to live in.
People (talking mom & pop) should not be able to purchase a home simply for the purpose of renting it out.
I agree with that.
The problem is the reason people do that is because of a few things.
- The ROI is absolutely retarded. My last house (I live in don’t rent) I made 800k in 10 years. That’s insane. Find me an index that turns 500k into 1.3mil in 10 years
- Passive income if you don’t do shit that landlords should be doing like regular maintenance.
The bourgeoisie loves this one neat trick: just let a few of the poors own a little something, and they’ll fight off the rest of the poors without even needing to be told.
Seriously though, anyone want to sell out a generation for a bit of land and monies? I mean, you’ll never be able to pay for unnecessary things with just values and integrity
I will go to my grave that society writ large is broken. It’s not just the rich. Everyone has become a selfish turd out to get a buck on the backs of everyone else. The difference is that some of us are self-aware enough to see it in ourselves.
It’s depressing if you don’t step back and laugh at it all.
I was literally just thinking about this on my way home yesterday. Society is completely broken, there is no us only ME. this is especially terrible in the United States where we fetishize “rugged individualism.” You don’t care for anyone but yourself. Look out for #1…
So when the choice is “money for me” or “consider my impact on my surroundings” the result is “lmfao consider others? It would be stupid for me to not make this money at the expense of others.”
Every shitty self serving decision made for ones own profit is the “smart thing” to do, even if it was literally destroying the entire town around you. I hate it.
This is just whataboutism thou. Are you a landlord?
Yes and I charge well under market value (like $500 under what I could get) and my tenant does not have to live on the street. Would you rather I kick her out or let her live in my house for free?
You are trying to pass the idea that society is already broken so everybody should just do what the fuck they want. Your are part of the side of society that is actually broken, so all your tirade sounds pretty hypocritical.
S&P 500 did better than that in the last 10 years. I really hate that housing has gone the way it has, because on average it’s not as insanely profitable comparable to other asset classes as people make it out to be, it’s pretty comparable.
I wish it wasn’t comparable though, because we’re just parking a ton of cash to do nothing with it.
Capitalism is dumb.
True except it’s a little different than equity investments because of the ease of leverage. No one is going to loan me a half million dollars to invest in the S&P500 but they’ll have no problem giving me a house to rent out (if I can prove income).
Yeah that’s true
I don’t think the mom and pops are really the problem (in fact, this is I think one of the few viable ways for regular people to actually get ahead) but all of the things surrounding housing. One can get place renting for $2k, but can’t get approved for that mortgage amount even with tons of history showing it’s paid. Corporations owning massive amounts of property are also a much bigger problem. Appealing to an individual (mom and pop) is generally a lot easier than to try to appeal to a corp in which you’re just Lessee #4949857 who’s spreadsheet tells them to squeeze you for more money because.
Past that, I’d also argue renters need much more support when it comes to their rights because quite a lot of the things that people are posting here as anecdotes to why their landlords are shitty are already illegal, it’s just extremely difficult to get anything done about it. I’d suggest also that there was some regulatory body (if one doesn’t exist already) responsible for certifying housing/landlords because then at least shit would get fixed once a year.
My only half-decent experience renting was a blue-collar mom and pop who leveraged their own home to buy a second home to rent, that they rented significantly under market value. If anything, we should be trying to setup more systems that allow this outcome (they fucked me on the deposit though, but that’s the part about renter’s rights.)
One can get place renting for $2k, but can’t get approved for that mortgage amount even with tons of history showing it’s paid
I think the issue there is that there’s more risk to mortgage companies than “tons of history showing it’s paid”. There’s a reason they use complicated equations instead of interviews to make decisions related to risk. Questions that don’t directly relate to someone being unable to pay mortgage:
- Will they take action that reduces the property value enough to put them underwater
- If they choose to walk away for some reason, what percent of our investment do we get back?
And with the rest of the equation, home ownership is higher risk than renting because a tenant isn’t responsible for damage and repairs. If, for example, peeling asbestos gets discovered and you have to move out to fix it to the tune of $10,000 or more, will that homeowner be able to afford it? Will they just walk out and start renting somewhere? There’s a lot of things not covered by homeowners insurance that can financially devastate a homeowner, and the mortgagee (bank) might notice an income disruption that a renter would not.
And #3 - redundancy so a family member doesn’t end up homeless. I have family that does fairly well for itself. When their first kid turned 18, they bought a rental house in case she needed it someday. When their second kid turned 18, they bought a rental house in case he needed it someday.
So they own two buildings “for the purpose of renting it out”. Building number 2 is now perma-“rented” to kid number 2 because he needed it.
Also, bullet point #1. The NDQ typical long-term return is approximately 11%. Due to recent bubble bursts, it’s down to 10.4%. Importantly, that’s almost exactly 1.3mil in 10 years from 500k. Everything I’ve ever read and learned from investing or investors repeats that rental real-estate is a stable investment, not an aggressive one.
Good points and I don’t feel like counterpointing a lot of it because I’m tired.
I will say though on the returns. I used the 10 years in my house as an example but recall that was not a steady increase. Normally housing should be well below an index. What happened say the last 4 years was that the price of my house went from about 700k to 1.3mil. the 10 year example masks what I was saying. Houses had to 100% be returning more than an index the last 5 years otherwise how do you explain the rampant greed? Corporations AND individuals have been drunk on overleveraging on the residential market. They’re not doing that for index rate returns otherwise they’d be in an RRSP.
Let = rent
That’s interesting. In my state, rental rates are just plain higher than mortgage rates. Maybe that’s why I’ve never heard of buy to let mortgages.
That’s normal. The idea is you buy the house with a mortgage to then lease (let) out to tenants. The tenants then pay you rent equal to the mortgage plus a bit extra on top, which you use to pay the mortgage and make a profit.
Around here, it’s not really linked. The heat of the apartment market is directly tied to the projected ROI, based on the demand of rental properties and the demand of rent itself. Like Bitcoin mining, sometimes the ROI gets really low or even negative in the short- or medium-term. The friction between the two factors tend to warm or cool one of the markets, but it takes times.
Consider/remember this. Many landlords aren’t paying a mortgage, and don’t need to tie rent to “a house’s value at the time of purchase”. They still profit when rent is below the average mortgage, or if rent is well above it. The only thing they care about is maximizing profits regardless of how full/empty their units are. Similarly on the renting side is lifestyle renters. They don’t rent “because I can’t afford a mortgage”. They rent because they don’t want to be tied down. They aren’t ready to settle and might or might not move 1000 miles next year.
Those two categories are fairly numerous, and both present forces that influence the rental market independently from the purchase market. It means that places with less long-term demand like Detroit, Philly, or Houston have ownership TCO far lower than rent rates. Flip-side, there are just as many cities on the other side of the spectrum. The average rent in Austin is $2000/mo cheaper than mortgage payments on a starter home. In San Francisco, that difference is almost $3000/mo.
The rent is rent. It doesn’t have to cover the mortgage all the time. It’s not like someone rent is locked in for 30 years. And some bigger businesses will take the hit knowing the appreciation of the house will catch up or know they will buy a majority of the houses in the area and then raise rent that way to eventually be higher than the mortgage.
I never understood this sentiment. For single family homes the market sets the price. It’s not like when you buy a house and use it for a rental all of sudden it’s cheaper or more expensive in some way. You could make a price/demand argument but then again the underlying demand is housing not money hungry landlords. If there was not an underlying housing demand, no one would rent and it would fail as an investment.
How does the community serve those who want to rent? Apartments? Now that is where we can agree. Apartment valuation is calculated on operations not on the market. The only way to raise value of an apartment is to raise rent (or reduce expenses in some way but at some point you can only do so much). At least with SFH you have appreciation that landlords can factor in for return.
Lastly, 2 of my rentals were foreclosures. If anything I’m performing the city a service by buying these properties and adding value. If you had to choose, would you rather live next to a vacant house or a rental?
To answer your question, it’s fair for a renter to not build equity because they don’t pay for upkeep or have the risk associated with the loan. You have to put skin in the game at some point.
Edit: there are some good points for the other side of the argument if you keep reading. I don’t know what the answer is but I’m not convinced that restrictions or to disincentivize rental operations is the answer.
never understood this sentiment. For single family homes the market sets the price. It’s not like when you buy a house and use it for a rental all of sudden it’s cheaper or more expensive in some way. You could make a price/demand argument but then again the underlying demand is housing not money hungry landlords. If there was not an underlying housing demand, no one would rent and it would fail as an investment.
Close. You’re right there’s no profit without demand. Now, consider what happens when certain entities with way more money than most of us comes along and decides they want to induce artificial scarcity by buying up and leaving empty a ton of houses.
Lastly, 2 of my rentals were foreclosures. If anything I’m performing the city a service by buying these properties and adding value. If you had to choose, would you rather live next to a vacant house or a rental?
They both kinda suck. I’d rather live next to someone who is invested in the property.
To answer your question, it’s fair for a renter to not build equity because they don’t pay for upkeep or have the risk associated with the loan. You have to put skin in the game at some point.
I could agree with this if rent was pegged to a percentage of the mortgage value. The issue is that the landlord makes a purchase and now owes, let’s say, 1k/mo for everything. Rent, taxes, fees, etc.
They want to rent that place out, great. Maximum rent should be LESS THAN that 1k, because the landlord is already getting theirs, they’re getting equity, and the only thing they have to do is upkeep they’d have to do regardless.
Apartment valuation is calculated on operations not on the market
Apartment valuation in my area spiked until the ROI crossed 10+ years. People stopped buying apartment buildings for a while except as owner-occupied with renters to assist. But in my area, none of those reach anywhere near a net-zero mortgage. The market absolutely still has an effect on valuation in most areas.
But two towns over, people are selling apartment buildings with 2-3 year ROIs, and they’re being swept up by one of a small handful of investors. Building maintenance is terrible, and there’s very little interest in the legal risk of being slumlords except those who are already slumlords over 40-50 buildings or more.
I beleive housing should be a privately owned venture, at least for suburb housing where the entire plot is included. Outside of that social schemes should purchase/build properties for rental purposes.
Like you said, the housing market is in demand. But how much of that demand is manufactured by landlords purchasing more property to rent versus real buyers looking to buy-to-occupy?
Your argument for cost of maintenance is part of the equation, however the rent costs should be the cost of maintenance and upkeep with a modest margin for investment. However that’s not the case. Landlords want to take their cake and eat it. Rent is now the cost of the mortgage, AND maintenance/upkeep AND profit. Its a win for landlords and a lose for renters. If the renter is capable of paying the inflated rental costs on a regular, then they should be owning their own home. The current status-quo is unfair.
Just FYI, I am a home owner. I know the costs of mortgages, the risks that are involved and the maintenance costs of keeping a home running.
The system is
brokenworking exactly as intended.Just not designed to work for OP.
If by OP you mean literally any renter then sure. The term is landLORD for a reason.
Of course that’s what I mean.
I have seen the amount paid in property taxes in USA via Zillow and… It is HUGE. No surpries that rents are so high. Rent have to cover minimum taxes, maintenance and part of house value. These expenses set the minimum value of a rent. But why you have so high property taxes? Cause enterprieses and billionaires don’t pay taxes and cause they put their huge capitals also in real estate, raising the prices. The problem is that real estate is a right ( house ), but also an asset.
Or u know, live in California where the boomer who owns the house is paying 1200 in property tax.
Taxes are astronomical because prices are inflated because of buy-to-rent.
Taxes on single-family residential properties should be like 50% of land value annually for third-homes and up or homes owned by non-human entities. Make it so fucking expensive to own extra houses that they get unloaded cheap to people who will actually live in them, and at the same time reduce the taxable value of the land because it’s selling cheap.
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Property tax is like 2-3% of the property value in my area, the comment you are reply to is just suggesting making it 50% of the value of the plot annually for people who are buying their third property or commercial buyers.
They are saying that it should be for third homes to discourage owning houses in bulk
No, ey said that taxes should be 50% on the third house (and on, probably), not the first one
A 50% tax on land value would be cheaper than my current tax rate on my home xD
I have seen the amount paid in property taxes in USA via Zillow and… It is HUGE
A snake eating its own tail. Lenders keep cranking out cheap loans, inflating the money supply. Buyers keep bidding up prices, inflating the cost of housing. Municipal governments need the extra cash to fight the endless “crime wave” that mysteriously crests every election cycle, so they’re always ratcheting up their spending for larger and more comically overequipped police departments. And then we’ve got another big economic downturn, so its time to lower interest rates and send out a new wave of cheap loans.
Nobody can afford to have housing prices go down. Just look at what that did to the economy in 2008.
Cause enterprieses and billionaires don’t pay taxes and cause they put their huge capitals also in real estate, raising the prices.
The threat of capital flight (which would leave you with a large number of unpaid and extremely irate police officers) means you can’t risk upsetting the ultra-wealthy.
And besides, their job isn’t to pay taxes, its to create jobs. They employ people in your town and then the employees pay the taxes. The employees get to see their housing prices rise, so they grumble but don’t complain too much. And then you have more money to hire more cops to protect against the latest Crime Wave that just so happens to be paired with a wave of housing foreclosures from lay-offs. So its time to clear the streets, re-list the houses at a higher price, and issue new mortgages with another wave of subprime loans.
If you really want to spice things up, maybe we denominate all our accounts in bitcoin, so we can really start speculating.
Many states have tax cuts for living in the property you own. The high tax rate is the state saying “if you make money, we want to make money”.
The problems is that if you live in an house you rent, you have to pay indirectly full property tax. Cause you aren’t living in a property you own.
My city* only levies land taxes on investment properties
If you live in your own home, there is no tax
*Canberra, Australia
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You are right, taxes are a part of the problem. Home scarcity and the fact that real estate is THE asset are another thing
Taxes do not set the minimum price of rent, supply and demand do that. A real estate investment can still make money even if rental income is less that taxes and maintenance because land appreciates in value over time. This is why the rich invest in it, and why we should tax them where they can’t evade it.
the problem is blackrock
Is this 2/3s of income plus tip or is the tip included? Because if you want to save money, tip your landlord less!
Yeah, but they really deserve that tip. They work really hard, you see. Just the other year my landlord was hard at work promising to paint over a wall he ruined with repairs.
I bet he’s going to get it done any day now!
Gosh, maybe it’s because my last tip was too low… It’s probably my fault.
As a general rule, it’s always the renter’s fault.
And don’t underestimate the effort and work and emotional energy spent on postponing painting the wall, feeling bad about it, postponing it again, … they spent a lot of time and energy on that!
Give your landlord a negative tip.
I donno, is that even legal?
In my area it’s more like 13/12ths
The other 1/3rd goes to the feds, so they can pay for
roads,social safety nets, nukes, drones, unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs, and Israeli genocideIf you spend 2/3rds of your money on rent, you’re living above your means. You can’t change my mind. Move.
Where ?
USA? The Midwest. Mountain states. There’s a reason wfh folks are making bank out there. You can slowly turn those areas blue too with migration.
What are they making bank on?
Literally everyone that is WFH is employed by a tech giant with a high 6 figure salary intended for San Fran market standards, but choosing to live in a shack out in the boonies pocketing the difference. This is definitely stable, viable and repeatable for everyone in America. Go make bank y’all.
Edit: Geez, do I need the /s? Most companies caught onto this shit like 6 months into the pandemic and do cost-of-living salary adjustments for WFH now. Damn near no one is “making bank by moving” any more.
Shit, here I am in the plains states with a WFH job for a firm the next state over, seriously considering moving my family to a more expensive state with less shitty politics. (Or Europe, depending on where I could get a digital nomad visa.) I’ve got some real concerns about what happens after the elections and I don’t feel particularly comfortable being here, with the way that my family looks and my politics are.
Farm subsidies to not grow corn.
No jobs and no culture and schools suck.
Pittsburgh. $1000 for a decent 1 bedroom. $2000 for a luxury loft apartment.
Ok, boomer.
This Was perfect
Yup, same here. System is broken.
Thank God I live somewhere where I can work 32 hours per week as truck driver. I don’t even spend a quarter of my income on rent, have a healthy weed addiction and manage to save about 500 euro a month and that while being single.
Where do you live? Many of us need to know
Lemmings: In reality it’s class warfare. It’s the ultra rich vs everyone else.
Also lemmings: Fuck Landlords, fuck the brainwashed Republicans, fuck police, fuck liberals, quit trying to take my parks away, fuck the homeless, I should be able to live anywhere I want, you can’t own property!
Yes, everything sounds stupid when you boil it down to nothing and then conflate it all together.
Read more. Talk less. For your own good.
Welcome to Lemmy,
I was hoping this community wouldn’t get invaded. I was wrong.
Leave then
Bye
It’s not so simple, my mom purchased a property with her divorce settlement and the return on the investment can be good, but it can also be not as good. She remodeled an Oregon property in Salem and sold it for less than cost later. While she did get rent for it before she sold, she could have saved a lot of effort just buying dividend stocks.
Real estate can be a good investment, but it can be a poor one.
It shouldn’t be an investment at all. It should be used. It’s like saying water is a good investment. Sure, if you make it artificially scarce and are okay with a ton of people going without… Nestle.
I really wish other better brands would step up in making more consumable products for people with cancer(protein replacement drinks) or children though. It’s really rough when better options are very scarce.
Oh yeah, to be clear I’m not blaming anyone for buying Nestle, it’s nearly impossible to avoid lmao. Sad but true.
Yup I get you. I managed to avoid nestle but I know I have a privileged life only because I don’t need particular things in my diet. I have vulnerable relatives where they cannot take such options to avoid nestle what with their situation. And I can’t judge them for it. But It’s not a pass on nestle. Nestle need to smarten the hell up. they have no excuses to be terrible.
I make an effort. The truth is there are s9 many things that are Nestle with no Nestle on the packaging due to the different layers of subsidiary companies. It’s practically impossible to completely avoid them without some smart phone app, database, etc (which may even be inaccurate) or a fuckin encyclopedic knowledge of the different brands lmao. Shits fucked, yo.
Right?!? I spend way too much time researching each product over actual use of the product. I had to deep dive to the level of “where is this product produced and who are their relatives and what is their mother’s maiden name??”
There used to be an app or site called “buycott” or something and you could set what you were trying to avoid(example: avoiding human rights violating companies, avoiding specific companies, morals of certain companies, etc.), and you could scan an item and it would tell you. I used it for a tiny bit years ago but didn’t stick with it. Not sure if it’s still around.
This isn’t relevant to the meme at all though.
Also if your asking me to feel bad for someone trying to make a profit off acting as a middleman to a basic human need you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Remodeling a house and maintaining it is actual work
Then let the people who actually need to work there do it.
But… She had money! What, do you expect her not to try to make her gold breed? People with money should get more money! It’s only fair!
/s
She had a few hundred K, she needs to make that divorce settlement last until she retires. Social Security is absolutely nothing
a few hundred k
That doesn’t really make me feel sorry for my comment. I make do with <25k a year. A few hundred k would last me over a decade.
She spends the same amount of money as you do, she just doesn’t plan on dying in a decade.
My mom is the landlord and remodeling houses IS her work. She was a stay at home mom until I grew up, that’s what she does for a living after she divorced my dad. She lives on the rent of her properties while she does each project
She lives on the rent of her properties
This is exactly the thing people have issues with. The whole “I am the breadwinner of my landlord’s household.”
That’s why I thought she should just buy stocks and live off dividends instead. I mean, any investment has a rate of return or people would not buy it
Yup, and housing shouldn’t be an investment. It can be affordable, or an investment, not both.
Then charge for work done on the house like any contractor would, instead of rent for simply owning any old plot.
She’s the one who hired contractors. You need someone who decides what work needs to be done, find the people who are qualified, and pay them.
Not all contractors do good work, she got scammed once by a guy who does crap labor and tries to upcharge to fix it. It happens
Even if she sold the houses, the person buying them would probably want a return on their investment and end up renting it out to people
The only way rent would be cheap is if there was a lot of supply of it, less restrictions on building like zoning, fewer fees on developers.
Look one of my siblings is doing the same thing. I’m happy I don’t have to worry about them financially, but I’m not going to say I wouldn’t prefer they made an honest living
My mom is too old to wash dishes in a restaurant, it’s really hard labor and she has carpal tunnel. She tried, it’s just not something a 60+ year old person is fit to do. So she can’t just sit on that money and do hard labor on the side. But drawing some plans and hiring contractors while painting some walls on her own time is something she can do
This is really easy… Housing should not be an investment.
Everyone here loves to complain about landlords without realizing that the majority of single family home landlords (not corporate landlords) are barely making it by too.
Banks are really the ones making criminal amounts of money. 1/3 of rent is typically interest payments. 1/3 of rent then goes to taxes.
For instance, I make $2,900/mo. from rent, but pay $2,800/mo. for the mortgage. I’ve spent over $8k this year alone on repairs and maintenance. But please continue to complain how landlords are constantly raking in cash. It’s typical for a homeowner to pay 1% of the cost of the property per year to maintain it. I will never see a positive cash flow until the mortgage is paid off in 25 years. The only benefit I get by continuing to own the property is the appreciation in equity and principle payments to the mortgage. At the end of the year we will have a -$7k cash flow and $5k equity appreciation. In a HCOL area, that $5k on paper is less than 3% of the area’s median yearly salary.
I feel for anyone out there who has a landlord that didn’t consider the hidden costs and the fact they should expect to runa negative cash flow, because it’s those landlords that also can’t afford to fix the house you might be renting.
Sounds like you have a highly subsidized mortgage. That’s why you’re being downvoted. Investments are supposed to have risk. The risk of not making a profit is what you take on when you purchase real estate as an investment. It is not a renters problem whether you are profitable or not.
The only benefit I get by continuing to own the property is the appreciation in equity and principle payments to the mortgage.
Sounds like you’re still getting a sweet deal then. Once the mortgage is paid off you will own property outright that you paid very little for compared to it’s value.
Dude, someone else is paying your mortgage for you. You know what your tenant get for paying your mortgage? Jackshit.
You are complaining that the home that you rent cost you 7k a year instead of 35k a year. Cry me a river.
Oh yes, it costs me $7k a year for the pleasure of managing a property, responding to all the tenants needs, the risk of paying for major future repairs, trusting the tenant to pay on time and in full (collections is practically impossible to enforce), dealing with vacancies while I still pay the mortgage, paying real estate agent fees which amounts to a month’s rent every time I get a new tenant. And that’s all for a house that I am not able to live in, and that I have locked up 20% of the house’s value for a down payment. It’s much more profitable just to let that money sit in the stock market instead.
But please tell me more about how you know better and that’s it’s all sunshine and rainbows for a non-corporate landlord.
You get a building that is worth more than you paid for, so that’s your payment.
On 25 years, you pay a fifth of the building price for it. And that is not accounting for the equity that the house gains over the years like we’ve seen during covid.
Here, let me play you the sad song on the smallest violin of the world.
On 25 years, you pay a fifth of the building price for it. And that is not accounting for the equity that the house gains over the years like we’ve seen during covid.
So does every other home owner. That benefit is not for just landlords.
I don’t understand the hatred for the risk return of being a landlord. Let’s assume you can double your money in the stock market every 7 years.
Compare real estate and stock ownership for 20k (100k house). In the market, 20k becomes 40k in 7 and 80k in 14, 160k in 21, and so on. That’s 215 total over 25 years. As long as appreciation is close to 3% it’s almost a wash after 25 years. The difference is as a landlord you have the risk of capital expenses requiring you to hold cash and the value of your time to run a rental.
If you want to assume you’ll double your money somewhere else, sell up and do it.
The fact is you’ve borrowed against an asset, the bank took the initial risk on your ability to pay but it’s secured against the asset.
The tenant is in a position they pay more per month than your mortgage payment simply based on a deposit around 20% of the property value.
You get to take on 20% of the risk of buying a house, the bank 80% of the risk, and the tenant pays you both for it.
I’m going to assume the average landlord, just as you assume average returns. Sod all work and maintenance done, no time spent. A property initially bought in good condition coasting on for 10 years with little input required.
Then sold on at a profit after the tenant has paid rent, paid into the landlords mortgage and their equity. Just before the rental value starts to reflect poor condition.
It’s bought by a house flipper in poor cosmetic condition, tenants kicked out, renovations done to the lowest standard to last about 10 years. House sold on for a small additional premium as ready to rent to a buy to let landlord.
I really hope the buy to let landlords end up at a wash or worse. The tenant pays into equity, the house flipper adds value by actually working on the property.
The landlord in between just acts as an easy risk for the bank to charge their interest against while taking the tenants money. The bank makes a healthy profit and the landlord gets a cut of the tenants earnings too, simply for reducing the banks net risk to near zero by putting in their 20%.
Without the landlords banks would have to lend to the tenant directly or not at all. The lower number of actual buyers would lower the price, so they’d actually probably end up lending the same amount against the asset. But they’d have to do more work to ensure the value of the property.
Economically a passive landlord’s main function is to assess value and bet on the right property for the bank. Without landlords the postcode algorithm would be all that’s left as home owners tend to overvalue their potential home. And it’s not enough information.
Landlords could be replaced by banks employing decent surveyors allowing them to offer that 100% mortgage without crashing the market. But they don’t because landlords give them an out.
If, in the current system, real estate investment wasn’t profitable, no company or landlord would buy to let.
The problem is that there is a housing crisis right now where rent is through the roof, buying is out of reach for a big chunk of the population and its getting worse.
The commodification of housing fucked us over.
And then, you have people like the OP I was replying to, that whines because he has to pay the fifth of the value of the building, while the tenant pays his mortgage+ taxes minus 100$ and then get pissy when he gets called out.
Again, the saddest song in the world with the smallest.of.the violin.
So why don’t you? What motivates you to not take that money to the stock market or start a business, if it’s oh so hard being a landlord?
For us, it’s because work required that we temporarily relocate. But we plan to move back in a couple years and we really like our house.
For others it usually has to do with the fact that selling a home costs 10% of the home’s value after all fees are accounted for.
Then there is the other set of people who genuinely think the equity in a property is more lucrative than money in the stock market (depending on the market and timing, it could be, but it’s ultimately a bet).
But I could ask the same question of every single person bemoaning the existence of landlords. If it’s oh so easy to be a landlord, why don’t they just become a landlord?
Probably because they don’t have the capital necessary to become a landlord in the first place. If you have enough money, being a landlord requires literally no work at all.
I guess getting that initial capital required no work at all either.
Why don’t they just get that initial capital if it’s so easy.
Unless someone was born with money, the argument against non-corporate landlords (97.5% of single family homes are owned by non-institutional investors) is nonsensical, because those owners had to work for the initial capital.
At the end of the day they’re still using that capital to exploit people by being landlords. Even if they earned that initial capital through hard work, the moment they invest some of it into a down payment on a house and begin to extract profit/equity via someone else’s labor, it becomes exploitation.
For single family homes, I disagree. Property management is around 10% and you’re not going to build wealth quickly by giving that much off the top if you only operate a couple rentals.
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“If you’re homeless, just buy yourself a home”
Sounds like you should sell that house, dude…
You know what your tenant get for paying your mortgage?
A place to live? If you need to move, all you have to do is break the lease? I agree that rental rates are artificially high, but to act like there is no value in renting is silly.
Lol you have to be trolling
Surely you must ignorant of the economic realities and risk of owning a home and how renting can actually be more lucrative depending on your circumstances.
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For everyone like you there are who knows how many dozens sitting on inheritances. To be clear I am not against people making money, I am against assholes.
Look a long long time ago a housemate of mine just vanished. Me and the landlord were talking and we decided to put all his stuff neatly in the basement. He shows up a few months later, turns out he was in the hospital. Me and the landlord help him get all his stuff into a new unit. A little bit of work to not screw over a guy.
I’m not against people making money, I’m against people making money hand over fist with the level of effort I exert taking my morning shit, off the backs of people trying to scrape by.
A regular guy who’s a landlord np. Once it becomes your primary investments vector and you’re NOT giving that little extra effort of moving stuff to the basement, once you stop being a person who is a landlord and just become Landlord, it’s shit.
That was very nice your landlord!
I agree, there are people who try to exploit the system, and those people deserve 100% of the hate. And I appreciate the nuance you bring to the discussion.
There are those that will villify small-time landlords for the gall to try to make an extra cent. Ultimately, small-time landlords provide a very valuable service, with extremely tight margins. Frankly, it is just barely worth it for us to keep that home. Because additional risks that go into it includes a tenant trashing the place, skipping out on rent, the property being vacant between renters, rental listing fees (which amounts to a month’s rent typically), and so on.
In return a tenant is able to enjoy a home that would otherwise be unaffordable to them, zero risk, and the flexibility to move without being stuck in one location. If someone is only going to live somewhere for less than 3 years, it will always be better to rent than to buy, and take the money saved renting and invest that into the market. The renter is this case will always make more money in return. Some markets around the country would require someone to live in that home for over 10 years before they break even over the advantage of renting.
The reality is building or buying a home is expensive and that cost has to be borne by someone. For this instance, sure, landlords can provide a service. Smaller landlords who are actually PEOPLE and not faceless corpos who don’t even show up for home tours anymore though? Fuck em, heads on pikes, all of em. Seriously I have not even SEEN a person I rent from.
There are some benefits to being a renter, for sure, but they need to be comparable to the benefits the owners are getting, and they’re not. It’s not worth paying more than you would to actually OWN a thing, just to be able to move at a moments notice.
From the sounds of your situation in another post, you’re making about 5k in equity and spending, after collecting rent, an additional 7k. This sounds about right TBH. I could see it going up until those numbers are equal, no more.
You are absolutely right on all accounts. I’m sorry you’ve had shitty landlords, I wish there was a better way to weed those people out, because as it stands, the balance of power is heavily in the favor of the landlord due to the micro-monopolistic nature of renting a place for years at a time.
Renting vs Buying is very dependent on your local market. I have friends in Ottawa that I’ve run the numbers for and it would literally never be profitable to purchase a home compared to continuing to rent. Some areas two years is the break even point. These days with high interest rates, the break even on buying vs renting is after about 5 or 6 years. I encourage anyone to check it out for themselves! :)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html
(For anyone stuck behind the paywall, install this chrome extension to get past it: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome)
I could’ve have been clear, but my situation has a very slight net benefit for me, and since my tenants only plan to live in the are for two years, they are getting the better end of the deal. In the end though, there is a mutual benefit and that’s what a competitive market should tend towards (as opposed to the monopolistic nature of corporate apartment housing which encourages the opposite).
My point is that the people who hate all landlords instead of just the bad ones don’t understand the economic realities of housing. It’s actually the mom and pops that rent out their homes for a short period that make renting cheaper on average for the market as a whole. Mostly because they are imperfect businessmen/women and don’t understand the full cost of being a landlord before it’s too late. Instead, most mom and pop landlords are just hoping to break even.
If it’s a shit business, they should get out of it, and sell the property
LMAO if you pay 66% of your income on rent then you really need to change something in your life.
While I agree, something needs to change, a lot of people aren’t in that spot. Raising rent got them there, and now they can’t leave because they’ll have to miss rent to have enough to move somewhere else, that’s either way too far or just as expensive.
You’re just out of touch.
Look at almost any major city in North America and then look at the average annual income vs average rent for a one bedroom. Rents have skyrocketed since COVID. Essentially doubled where I’m from. Think wages kept pace?
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You can kindly take your shit opinion elsewhere. Most people who live pay to pay cannot get their life in order because they work 2 jobs.
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Exactly! Flipping burgers is meant for KIDS as a first job! But also if I can’t get a speedy meal during my noon lunch break while the kids are at school I’m going to be PISSED!
If everyone who flips burgers gets a “better job” are you going to stop having burgers?
The issue is that while there is work that needs to be done, then there will be a need to pay people to do it. If you’re a business owner and you have work that needs to be done, and you can’t afford to pay your employees enough for them to pay their bills and lube decent lives, and you can’t personally take the hit to your own income to cover the difference, then your business should fail.
Right now, the arrangement forces people to work more than 40 hours a week – which is illegal, but companies get away with it because they don’t work at the same company for the whole time. In fact, many people with multiple jobs don’t even have full time jobs – they have 3 part time jobs, all working them less than 40 hours a week, so they don’t have to give them the benefits they’re required to provide for full time employees.
(Personally, when I was young I had multiple places scheduling me for 39.5 hours a week. Now I’m a white collar FTE and I work 35 hours a week.)
So, next time you call someone who’s flipping burgers “lazy,” think about how lazy a person must be to work 100 hours a week. Is that what laziness looks like to you? How many hours a week do you have to work too not be considered not lazy?
Because, the thing is, you know they aren’t lacy. They’re working their fingers to the bone, and have much shittier and shorter lives than middle class people. Calling them lazy (or stupid or unlucky or whatever) is how you rationalize the fact that you’re unwilling to accept any inconvenience it might cause you to help them.
In this scenario – aka, the real world, the world we are in right now – they are working harder than the rest of us are, for less money.
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Why can’t they just flip burgers from the age of 16 till 65? What if they don’t mind the work, they have a full and fulfilling life outside of work, and their job is just what they do to make ends meet? Does that mean they deserve to live in debt and working 100 hours a week? Are you so ignorant that you don’t understand that, in any economic system, capitalism or otherwise, not everyone can move up?
It’s literally not possible. There have to be people flipping the burgers. That’s a fact of the system; there’s no way around that. And it’s ok – not perfect, but acceptable – as long as we treat those people with dignity and respect.
And that means paying them enough to survive – and thrive – on 40 hours a week. No one’s saying they should have enough money to buy megayachts – or even regular yachts. But they should be able to buy a shitty canoe – and still be able to pay all their bills, and not have to work more than 40 hours.
If you’re concerned about the possibility that, if they earn more, you’ll earn less, that’s just not true. There’s no scenario in the USA where a company is charging customers any less than the most they possibly can, and paying their workers any more than as little as possible. That’s literally the law. There is plenty of extra money that can be used to cover the needs of our poorest people – and to raise the salaries of more scarce labor who would otherwise turn to flipping burgers if burger-flipping salaries went up.
Literally every business that’s even a little successful has extra money. (“Extra money” is also known as profit.) There is no reason why one person should have to work more than 40 hours a week while another person has more money then they can possibly spend in a lifetime; it’s illogical and irrational, and cruel.
Well obviously because burger flippers are only detrimental to society. These people should be THANKFUL we’re paying them at all to play around behind a stove all day!
In all seriousness, lad has some screws loose, you’re wasting time and effort if you expect to change their opinion. Dudes a slave to the system he’s defending. Sad.
wtf are you talking about? Do you think we don’t need plumbers? Nurses? Get a job loser
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See here the man not only a slave to the system, but placing the shackles on his own arms and legs! Capitalism is wonderful!
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Kinda a chicken and egg thing ain’t it? System sucks, I was born into a shit system, and learned from it, so now I’m a slave to it. What if I told you people are, on average, doing absolutely everything they can to not be paycheck to paycheck? Even the “welfare queens” I’m sure you’ll bring up next are a product of the fucked up system were born into. And also what if I told you people can be working on bettering their own positions while also pointing out that the system they are forced to take part in is absolutely rigged? Get the fuck outta here.
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The system can be abused, sure. I also have a working brain and choose not to, because every person who has abused the system and gotten fat off it has done so off the suffering and legitimate work put in by those who are in less fortunate spots.
The simple reality is that the system only works if you were born in the right spot, or if you’re one of those lucky enough to be pulled up, simply so some dumbass on a forum can go “see? See? It works sometimes! Use it to your advantage instead of complaining!” Fuck capitalism, not because it can’t be used to ones advantage but because it necessarily screws over anyone who isn’t frankly a psychopath, and fuck anyone who thinks it’s a good system.
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That may be the case, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t point out the flaws of the system and work to make them better. I’d probably be complaining about the aristocracy then, too. Hopefully in the place that fuckin beheaded them.
I also don’t know why you seem to believe that someone can’t be bettering their own life while also complaining about the flaws of the system they’re in. You have problems walking and talking too?
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George Soros
“Soros, who was born into a prosperous Jewish family…”
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Hmmm, which source is more trustworthy? Britannica with their biography, or Business Insider with their click-bait article? Hard to say…
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>If you had a working brain you would totally “fuck capitalism”
What change do you propose? Being born ultra rich?
If you work hard and become a professional you can make 100-120k in your 30s. Maybe as much as 150 if you get lucky. Those jobs exist in places where rent is 50% take home and ownership is completely off the table.
Do you suggest working a Denny’s in a rural area? Fuck that and fuck you.
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How many people are born ultra rich
All the people who are ultra rich
how many people get rich by hard work
0%
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So I need to do your research for you? I thought mister “Provide an answer and educate yourself while researching it” would have, you know, researched it and would have a source for his bold claims.
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