What are you talking about? Who is them? Why would anybody care about that little bit of carbon in your body when every single human “consumes” much more every day?
That isn’t what a landlord does. They’re supposed to keep the property maintained, help tenants with things that break, provide and maintain amenities, and handle macro issues like pest control and spraying.
There are absolutely shitty landlords out there who do nothing to earn their money, but there are also landlords who take their job seriously and maintain the property, and are genuinely helpful.
There are absolutely shitty landlords out there who do nothing to earn their money
That is because landlords don’t extract rent for services, they extract rent simply from owning the property and charging rent to use it. That there are some landlords that maintain the value of their property better than others is irrelevant.
It’s like saying “there were good slave owners, too!”. It’s not the treatment of the slaves that was the problem with slavery, it was the ownership and control of human beings. The problem isn’t the poor service of landlords, it’s the ownership and control over housing that someone else needs to exist. That landlords can still extract rent while doing nothing to maintain the property only serves as evidence that they aren’t being paid for any kind of service or added value. They get paid simply because they own something someone else needs.
No, serious question. Just wondering what world was being envisioned.
Not everyone wants to buy a house - if I know I’m only staying in an area for a year or two, I wouldn’t want to go to the hassle of buying and selling a place. Or if I move to a new area, renting for a while until I decide where I want to live longer term is a useful tool.
Making it illegal to rent property you don’t personally live on.
If someone wants to rent out their basement, or split their home into a duplex then they are creating housing and I have no problem with that. Someone purchasing a home they have no intention living in so they can profit off someone else requiring shelter to live is a parasite.
I can’t quite imagine how hotels would work then. Generally, you’d say “Oh, we’ll make an exception for them” but then many people would try to skirt themselves into the exception.
Last I heard, many urban landlords are getting out of that business and becoming hotel owners via Airbnb. It helps to make sure that those that do stay in the business have a healthy supply of tenants.
Why are we pretending different dwelling classifications don’t already exist? Hotels are an entire classification unto itself, same with homesteads, which is what op is referring to
Lol i like how both of these replies seem to concede landlords are like slave owners.
Do you consider mortgages to be the same as renting? They charge you interest in exchange for letting you borrow money to own your home, is that rent? I’m trying to figure out what’s tripping you up. If landlords “provide housing” to those who can’t afford to buy, banks do the same thing. If landlords provide maintenance to a property, maintenance workers and contractors do the same thing. If landlords manage a collection of related properties as in an apartment building, then a housing co-op does the same thing.
In all honesty, I have a really hard time understanding why you think landlords are somehow essential.
I wasn’t saying anything about mortgages equivalency to rent, or that landlords are essential. I’m just curious as to how a society without landlords would work, in your view.
Ignoring the hyperbole (I never suggested landlords were evil), are car rentals engaging in economic rent extraction? Are cars a scarce resource? If not, then it is not the same.
Jesus. The “absolutely shitty landlords” was in a quote block because it came from the comment I was responding to. That was their tone, not mine. In case you want it spelled out, landlords aren’t evil.
Did you look up what rent extraction was? I’ll let you look into it, I’m not a dictionary. Car rentals aren’t considered rent extraction because they aren’t a scarce resource. By definition they are mobile: someone can’t own ALL the cars in an area, because someone could buy one and bring it into town.
Land (and by extension HOMES) are scarce, especially by location. If someone owns all the land in an area, someone can’t just… Drive more into the area? A landowner could build more homes on their land (development), but the rent being EXTRACTED is by definition that component of its price beyond it’s costs of construction and maintenance.
Adam Smith took issue with rent [his term is rent, but it’s more specifically rent EXTRACTION] because rent is unproductive: it is defined and quantified by HOW MUCH MORE it is than what it costs to produce and maintain the things being rented. Whereas other commodity prices are determined by what it costs to bring it to market (wages+profit), rent is determined by HOW MUCH MORE. They extract their price simply by wielding their ownership over it, and the profit they derive from it is defined by that unproductive component of its price.
That’s capitalism, and that sucks, but it’s where we are right now.
Well fuck me, I guess, right? Guess we’re stuck with it?
Fuck off with your demeaning tone. If landlords disappeared tonight the world would be quantifiably better (those were my words that time, have fun)
Lol, it probably sounds like chatgpt to you because it is textbook economic theory.
It doesn’t matter how deep you stick your fingers in your ears and try not to hear it, rent and economic rent are very different for very good reasons. That you’re limited to just the one word “rent” isn’t really my problem. Economic rent is (justifiably) considered the most pernicious form of profit by economists of all types.
You can gracefully exit this argument by admitting you don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t shame you for it.
The “absolutely shitty landlords” was in a quote block because it came from the comment I was responding to. That was their tone, not mine. In case you want it spelled out, landlords aren’t evil.
I noticed that after my initial post and went back and changed it, but I guess you were already replying to my original text in the comment.
Oh poor baby, everyone is so mean to you for buying houses you don’t need to exploit the poor and their inherent need for shelter. No one has it as hard you.
You were banned from all of reddit for having the prevailing opinion when it comes to trans men? Doubt.
It still doesn’t affect the idiocy of your original post. Maybe check before calling everyone bigots eh? They might just have information you don’t. :) x
No, when it comes to “trans women”. Someone needing to have “information” to know someones gender is the whole point. They’re trying to say you have to ignore your own eyes and intelligence and believe some made up story instead.
See any issue with your idea that you should let “what people tell you” override your own intelligence? Must not have too much of it if you are in favor of that.
I don’t see that point anywhere mate. I do enjoy the irony in your last sentence though, you’re so intelligent that you incorrectly accused a group of people of misgendering someone.
Anyway this clearly leads nowhere good, just try and have a think about it buddy :) x
You haven’t even answered a single point I’ve made, just whatabouted every reply. Surely you at least see the irony of pointing out the irony of me telling you to think?
Do take care though, watch out for pointy things etc. :) x
You could always avoid thinking about it and just defer to the dictionary definition of gender, common fucking decency, and the visual and social cues presented to you rather than making assumptions about peoples genitals and genetics - or worse yet, demanding to inspect them for yourself.
Putting aside the fact that the consensus of the experts in the fields of lexicograpy, medicine, science, sociology, psychiatry all disagree with you, I need to ask why you’re motivated to work so hard to be such a cunt to people? What does it benefit you? When was the last time you interacted with a trans person… or have you been beaten into a hateful frenzy by the scaremongering of your reactionary pundits of choice over an issue that has no meaningful effect on your life?
No, it’s got nothing to do with me. Disagreeing with the consensus of the experts to be a cunt to a marginalised group makes you a bad person. I’d present clear evidence from each of the communities I pointed to, but we both know I’m not reasoning you out of a position you didn’t reason yourself into. It’s not as though you have any credible evidence to bring in return.
…which brings me to what I’m more interested in - you didn’t answer my question, champ - why are you working so hard to be so wrong and such a cunt at the same time?
Edit…
Eh - in the interests of getting my question answered I’ll indulge you.
Cambridge dictionary - gender: a group of people in a society who share particular qualities or ways of behaving which that society associates with being male, female, or another identity
Merriam-Webster - gender: a subclass within a grammatical class (such as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (such as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms
Rather than putting you through the indignity of failing to provide evidence to support your position after being proven definitionally wrong, you can just answer my question (I bolded it to keep things simple for you).
Lol the “experts”. I’m sure you’ve never even heard of the “expert” who started this whole thing in the first place, John Money. A really nice man who only had the best of intentions. I dare you to look him up.
You’ve ignored the 3 dictionary citations, and my question (plus the consensus of those expert fields again) in favour of paedo-jacketing, and you have the stones to call me out for a lack of an argument? Why are you so afraid to answer my question - I hope you’re a woman - this fear of evidence and answering a simple question isn’t masculine behaviour.
Why are you working so hard to be so wrong and such a cunt - why do you care?
Of course you are. That’s why you like to defend the ideas of a literal pedophile, who made two people commit suicide because of what he did. And FEELING MORALLY SUPERIOR for it!!! ROFL. Get out of here, ignorant dumbass.
Like I said, paedo-jacketing in the absence of a point. Hitler, and Stalin agreed with you. So did the majority of paedophiles throughout history. You don’t have a point, you don’t have an argument, you don’t have evidence, and you don’t have the mental capacity to answer a simple question.
Soooooo… why are you working so hard to be so wrong and such a cunt?
I’m starting to think you are autistic as well as dense. You sound like a broken record, trying so hard to get me to answer a “question” which isn’t one at all. Very tiring. Bye.
We’ve eatablished you’re incapable of presenting am argument, let alone supporting evidence, but any moron should be capable of answering a question like why are you working so hard to be so wrong and such a cunt?
…but by all means - prove me wrong and present that argument and evidence without getting all triggered and running away… I’ll wait… and wait…
So you are saying you must constantly remind yourself and everyone you are talking to of someone’s genitals at birth in every conversation you have constantly or else what - you’ll forget?
Are you a goldfish?
People aren’t asking you to ignore your eyes dude. They are asking you to allow people space to use their mental tools so they can more easily get through their day. They are legit telling their friends and the people they are around most what way to treat them will make them happiest to make them the most comfortable to be themselves. When you present yourself as a obstacle to someone else’s joy and/or wellbeing yeah, people treat you like an ass. You are not the arbiter of truth here. People know that trans women were born phenotypicly male. They are just able to prioritize more than “monkey see, monkey speak”.
The case in point here is a photo. I have no idea about their genitals, nor what they “identify as”. I see a woman, clear as day. I’m not talking to them, so “what they want me to call them” is not an issue.
Are you deluded enough to call Buck Angel a woman too?
I’ll give you some credit for choosing to use gender neutral pronouns rather than misgendering Page - even if it would have undermined your point to use gendered pronouns.
So you are afraid of doing any mental work. Not surprised. Also this particular person, Elliot Page, is one of the most famous trans men out there and even if he weren’t famous you are grandstanding about how you want to call trans people whatever you feel like.
When you are nasty behind someone’s back it’s still you showing off how much of a mean killjoy you are practicing up to be to somebody’s face someday and that you are proud of being a mean ass killjoy. Then you get upset because ta da - people treat you like a mean killjoy. How unpredictable!
Oh, the hard, hard life of the rent-seeker who is stupidly greedy and unwilling to lose a little bit of profit to pay somebody else - like an agency - to take care of all the work and manage their assets, so instead of making money purely from having money without lifting a finger, they have to suffer the indignity of actually working a few hours a week like poor people.
In Economics “rent-seeking” is seeking to receive a “rent”, but the concept of “rent” here is broader than merelly the kind of rent paid for a property (for example, when banks place themselves in the position to get a commission out of every small financial transaction out there, through “Touch To Pay” schemes, they are “rent-seeking”).
So whilst not all rent-seekers are landlords (probably not even most rent-seekers), all landlords are rent-seekers, which is exactly how I handled those definitions in my post.
Your post is like saying “‘Apple’ is not the same as ‘fruit’” when somebody else whilst talking about apples called them “fruit”.
Landlords aren’t necessarily rent-seekers (though some individuals conceivable could be) as economists use the term, and your lack of understanding of economic rent-seeking is something you can fix.
Rent-seeking is a concept in economics that states that an individual or an entity seeks to increase their own wealth without creating any benefits or wealth to the society. Rent-seeking activities aim to obtain financial gains and benefits through the manipulation of the distribution of economic resource
Providing a home is a benefit to the society.
Credit processors (what you’re calling “banks”) provide a service to merchants. They are also not rent-seeking.
The landlord just takes advantage of a superior financial position to sit between the builder and the person who actually needs a home, and get a periodic payment for that.
As you seem to be having trouble with that, I’ve done the google search for you, so here’s [some learning material](Wikipedia’s definition of Rent-Seeking).
An example of rent-seeking in a modern economy is spending money on lobbying for government subsidies in order to be given wealth that has already been created, or to impose regulations on competitors, in order to increase one’s own market share.[15] Another example of rent-seeking is the limiting of access to lucrative occupations, as by medieval guilds or modern state certifications and licensures. According to some libertarian perspectives, taxi licensing is a textbook example of rent-seeking.[16] To the extent that the issuing of licenses constrains overall supply of taxi services (rather than ensuring competence or quality), forbidding competition from other vehicles for hire renders the (otherwise consensual) transaction of taxi service a forced transfer of part of the fee, from customers to taxi business proprietors.
The concept of rent-seeking would also apply to corruption of bureaucrats who solicit and extract “bribe” or “rent” for applying their legal but discretionary authority for awarding legitimate or illegitimate benefits to clients.[17] For example, taxpayers may bribe officials to lessen their tax burden.
One would assume they would list… You know… rent, if it applied
You seem to have missed the whole part of that article (most of it) about how the expression had its origin in describing the activities of those using land ownership to extract rents.
You know, getting a “rent” for “land”, also known as being a “landlord”.
All that your quote does is confirm the point I made two comments above that “rent-seeker” is group that includes all of “landlord” like “fruit” is group that includes all “apples” - I suppose when you’re willfully blind it’s normal to run around in circles.
What you’re missing is they were literally lords, who literally owned land, and extracted rents from shit like charging to harvest kelp on their shoreline, or charging a toll to cross a stream, etc.
E.g. not contributing any benefit (preventing access to a natural resource/mode of travel otherwise possible)
It has nothing to do with providing homes, which is a distinct economic benefit.
The core of being a landlord is rent-seeking, or in other words monetising a superior economic position to extract a payment from those who do not have such a superior economic position.
You wouldn’t be able to rent that room if other people had a choice to just easilly buy a small dwelling in that area for as much as you charge for that room - the market is tight, there is a natural barrier to entry and you entered that market at a more favorable time that now so your present day tenants have to pay you for the priviledge of living there because they have no other options.
That said, landlords can and do create value - for example my first landlord bough a large house and divided it into 1 bedroom apartments, in effect taking a dwelling from a market with lower demand and creating 4 dwellings in a market with higher demand, which is a way to create value, especially as he spent money in the conversion.
However the rents charged by landlords at present are almost always significantly higher than the value they create (if any), which is why in many places they actually exceed the cost of servicing a mortgage, so the landlord is really just exploiting having a better financial position (or even just better creditworthiness) than the tenant, as if there was no such advantage tenants would simply choose the cheaper mortgage over the more expensive rent.
Also in my personal experience of 25 years and 4 countries, most landlords create little value: even good ones charge rents far above the little service they provide (basically maintenance, and often only because they’re forced to by law) and the depreciation over time of the dwelling they’re renting (which in the last couple of decades has actually been negative as even those houses getting older have gone up in price faster than inflation) plus a little profit.
Mind you, I’ve had mostly good landlords (sometimes both as persons and as landlords) and very few really bad ones, but that doesn’t alter the fact that their profit from that business only comes courtesy of the low liquididity and natural high barriers to entry of the housing market and either a superior financial position or first mover advantage - their quality as persons and fairness as landlords don’t change the inherent nature of the business they’re in.
Genuinely can’t believe you people that does hatred make you so dumb
All I see in this thread is vitriol towards real estate rental from people who don’t have a strong understanding of finance and economics. The dumb hatred you speak of is going the other direction.
Modern landlords to not “provide housing”. They extract rent from the use of a house that would otherwise be available to purchase by the renter if not for the landlord holding it for rent extraction. Worse still, since rent seekers compete with homeowners for housing they end up driving up the price, which prices out homeowners and creates the demand for renting to begin with.
Any other “service” a landlord provides would otherwise be levied as those services are provided (like a handyman or contractor being paid for work done to your house). In the case of the landlord, the rent extracted is maximally realized by providing the least amount of service (even none) for the most amount of rent. Rent is completely detached from any actual labor or addition of value.
Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition of the price of commodities in a different way from wages and profit. High or low wages and profit, are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent is the effect of it. It is because high or low wages and profit must be paid, in order to bring a particular commodity to market, that its price is high or low. But it is because its price is high or low; a great deal more, or very little more, or no more, than what is sufficient to pay those wages and profit, that it affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent at all.
I’m not sure what you’re going on about, but my point is exactly Adam Smith’s. In other commodities (according to smith), high or low wages+profit cause a high or low commodity price, because they are what is required to bring a commodity to market, but with rent it is exactly the opposite. The rent that is extracted is measured by how much higher it is than what it actually takes to produce and maintain it. In Adam Smith’s view (and in mine), the rent extracted from a dwelling bears no relationship with the cost of producing and maintaining it. It is exactly defined by how much more they extract than what it takes to maintain it.
Landlords are leaches even to the godfather of western capitalism.
Except I’ve acknowledged both the false interpretation (“landlords bad”) being your own belief I don’t care about and am not arguing with, and the real interpretation (“economic rent” is not your rent) for clarification to all the wrong people.
You’ve not argued the case for your interpretation of Smith, you’ve just stated I was wrong without justification. I think maybe you are confused by smith’s use of “rent” in this passage. He is not referring to the total charged to a tenant, he’s referring to economic rent.
Economic rent is contained within what a landlord charges for total rent. That’s why smith says it "affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent at all", it’s because “rent” in this passage is exactly how much more than what is sufficient to pay those wages and profit for its production and maintenance. Sometimes a landlord with charge exactly what it costs to maintain and produce the property, and in that case he is charging NO rent.
Smith’s critique is of the surplus charged by a lord, by nature of their ownership over the property, where otherwise that cost of economic rent would not be necessary.
Rent is economic rent, or maybe more precisely, what the landlord extracts for themselves from the renting of their property is economic rent.
Misplaced vitriol. What if you don’t want to own? I don’t. How do I rent if nobody can or will rent?
Rent and prices are directly correlated to the same things. Local economy, future outlook, interest rates, the usual stuff.
If you’re pissed off about housing costs that’s another story. If you’re pissed off because a landlord didn’t fix your ax or hot water then that’s another story too. But you just sound like an uneducated crazy person when you go around ranting like a lunatic about rent extraction.
There are other, communally-owned options that would fit that exact function. Housing co-ops are a perfect example and avoid the tempting coercive relationships with private landlords. You can live an apartment that isn’t owned by a landlord. Your inability to see beyond your own direct experience isn’t my responsibility, except as to slap you in the face with it when you decide you don’t want to think about it.
Rent and prices are directly correlated to the same things.
If you’re pissed off about housing costs that’s another story.
Huh, weird, that sounds like two, contradicting statements to me. Yup, rent and market price are absolutely tied together. You buy a house to rent out? That’s one less available to purchase to live in from the housing stock. You buy a bunch of land and build apartments on it? Sure, you just created a bunch of homes to live in! Congratulations. Too bad they aren’t for sale, and now that person owns all the stock in that location, allowing them to lord over those in need of a home.
you just sound like an uneducated crazy person when you go around ranting like a lunatic about rent extraction
Funny, because from my perspective you’re the one in need of an education, otherwise I wouldn’t be ranting about something you don’t understand. If you’re gonna simp for capitalism, at least fuckin’ read something written by the guy who first described it.
Ie. not contributing any benefit (preventing access to a natural resource
So a company builds a house. Instead of selling to the person who will live in that house, a Landlord purchases it at a higher rate (preventing acess to land + shelter) and then rents it to the person who will live there.
The Landlord in this scenario has provided nothing of economic value, and is restricting access to shelter necessary for survival.
You’re so concerned about people using a term incortectly, but you’re failing to follow the conversation. What was said was:
So a company builds a house. Instead of selling to the person who will live in that house, a Landlord purchases it at a higher rate (preventing acess to land + shelter) and then rents it to the person who will live there.
So I don’t know why you’re bringing up apartment buildings. Looks like you’re the one that needs to work on comprehension.
That isn’t clear at all because it seems like all the vitriol in this thread is about the very concept of owning real property and renting it to someone who wants to rent. This thread is not at all about landlords not fulfilling their contractual obligations. All I’m seeing here is “fuck landlords and big bad mean rich people” and it’s really childish and immature. Nobody has suggested a viable alternative yet to that, including you.
I don’t know if this is the right place for it, but an idea I’ve had:
Charge a high tax penalty on home ownership if the home is fully functional and livable, but spends over a certain percentage of the year unoccupied by any person as their primary residence (and a steadily accumulating tax for any home that spends too many years in an unlivable state)
This might put pressure back on landlords to put their homes on market for reasonable prices, instead of inflating their rents based on MBA recommendations long past what people can pay simply to “keep the property value high”. It would severely devalue the idea of owning homes the same way you would own piles of gold, as long-term investments people are hesitant to actually use.
How does one prove occupancy to show they aren’t subject to this tax?
How would the tax authority determine the same in order to prove noncompliance?
Does this effectively prohibit second and third homes? Am I allowed to put real property in a holding company?
I’m not trying to start a ruckus here, just asking questions. It’s a big problem but I’m not sure if tax is the solution. Usually when people suggest solving problems with taxes it isn’t fully thought through and doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
I can’t claim to know the benefits of state, local, or fed taxes. Like a lot of things, I imagine it’s better trialed on a local then state level, and might never reach federal.
Like a lot of tax claims, it may just be reliant on claims, and would not always require proof. You file for taxes, you report 3 homes, you state which one you occupied; or you state that you had a tenant in that home. If you’re audited on your taxes, they may find you falsely reported a tenant, which would be tax fraud. The IRS could find reason to audit someone if, for instance, they’re freely posting on Facebook “Yeah, just say you have tenants who do not wish to be named, they can’t do anything about it”. Many tax rules already work by self-reporting, and/or finding conflicts in prior documentation.
It would not prohibit third homes, but you’d have to pay a hefty property tax to hold onto an extra home and require it to stay empty while people are out there homeless. So, you’d have to be rich and not care that simply owning these properties bleeds you money (which is the opposite of how being rich usually works - your properties generate so much value by “existing” that you can simply persist a high quality of life just off residual income)
Pretty sure a tax like that at the federal level would be unconstitutional. The 16th amendment authorizes an income tax, not a real estate tax on empty houses. State and local level attempts to do that would be a prieoners dilemma situation. Good for everyone overall if everybody cooperated, but too much incentive to be the one county or state that doesn’t tax the shit out of rich people for their third home, thus attracting the wealthy there.
Again I agree in principle but idk if tax is a feasible solution. (I’m a cpa btw for whatever that’s worth.)
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