this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 185 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, baffles me when people think that they're doing people a favor by being landlords. Like dude, you are trying to get rich, nothing more. You're not doing anybody anywhere any favors.

[–] Darorad@lemmy.world 74 points 8 months ago (8 children)

To them the only kmaginable alternative is them still having the housing, but just letting it sit empty.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 18 points 8 months ago

I suppose we would need the government to step up with subsidized mortgages or rent to own programs or something to make things more fair?

The landlord in the OP should have sold their apartment but since they could’ve only sold to someone who could afford the down payment they should’ve also lobbied their representatives to make housing purchases more affordable in the future. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

Wonder what would happen if all landlords put their properties up for sale tomorrow. Should be a nice housing crash? And then the remaining renters who still cannot afford the newly reduced down payments, they need a solution prior to the houses closing, I suppose…

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[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 50 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As mentioned above this person actually manages to be worse than typical parasitic landlords. She expects them to move whenever she decides she wants to live in the UK again for a bit...

Money rots the brain and the morals...

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Money rots the brain and the morals...

Seems too yeah.

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[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 164 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

I like the unspoken part where the people who have lived in this home must vacate when she decides she wants to spend a few years living in the UK again. They should have to find new accommodation when it suits her, but she is not subject to such requirements.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 41 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Tbh that's the reason she bought and rents it out in the first place, so I'm sure she's aware

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 66 points 8 months ago

yeah I don't think she's unaware. just emphasizing that the asymmetric nature of the relationship extends past just profiting off a basic need.

[–] oce@jlai.lu 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I don't know how it is the UK, but usually there is a contract period and a minimum period to respect to break the contract.

[–] hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

I don’t know how it its where you live/the UK but there is probably a special clause/law that allows the owner to end the contract if they want to use the property themselves.

Edit: Downvote as much as you want but at least in Germany and France such clauses exist.

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[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 91 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Seems like there's a lack of understanding in this thread.

Someone who owns a duplex and rents half is not a problem. My barber, who moved to be closer to sick, aging parents, but did not sell their house in Asheville, because they want to retire there and won't be able to afford that if they sell now, is not a problem.

Corporations are the problem. They're buying up hundreds of thousands of properties, and why not? To a greedy corporation that only cares about money, it makes sense. If you sell a house, you make money once. If you rent a house, you have a subscription model and a revenue stream. Adobe did it with Photoshop. HP wants to do it with printers. Greedy Bastard Inc. wants to do it with housing.

Legislate big business out of housing. It's the only way to fix it.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 39 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It’s not a lack of understanding, it’s just that you’re omitting another huge group that is the other half of the corporation problem and also involves private landlords.

The person who owns a duplex and lives in one of the two units is not a problem. A business owner with a taxpayer above their storefront is not a problem.

But the large group of private landlords that buy up single family homes with the sole intention of turning them into forever-rentals are a huge problem and a much larger group than the niche private landlords you mentioned. These people don’t get a pass for doing the exact same things the corporations are doing but on a smaller scale. These people live in their own single family homes, which are financed by denying other people the chance to buy their own by removing them from the housing market and turning them into price-gauging forever-rentals.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 28 points 8 months ago

I think you meant "HP did it with printers" but all told well put. There are worse and better cases, and some victimisers are also victims themselves

[–] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

To be fair people like Mr Barber often are very supportive of zoning that prevents enough housing to be built and any measure which makes their property appreciate much faster than inflation is sufficient to eventually completely destroy the useful housing market for anyone who doesn't own.

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[–] The_Lopen@sh.itjust.works 90 points 8 months ago

The utter god-complex some of these people have

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 76 points 8 months ago (4 children)

The real question is- where are those people going to live when you get back and evict them?

[–] MalachaiConstant@lemmy.world 43 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

That's the fun part: you get to de-home them with the full support of the law.

[–] Weirdfish@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (11 children)

My landlord assured me I'd be able to rent this place for years.

A few days ago he tells me he's selling it, and that I need to move by June 1st, when my lease is until September.

I could fight it, but for what? A few extra months? No point in that headache.

I was hoping to rent a few years till I could buy it, as it is in my home town and near both work and family.

With the crazy rent prices today I'm going to have to move over an hour further just to find a smaller place at similar price.

[–] Thrashy@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

This is a situation where the landlord doesn't want you to know it, but the power is in *your *hands. Legally, your lease runs until September no matter who owns the building, but the landlord can get a better price for an unencumbered property, so you can ask (basically) "what's it worth to you for me to be out before my lease is up?" and negotiate something that will offset at least some of the pain of having to find a new place at a higher cost.

[–] liara@lemm.ee 8 points 8 months ago

Yeah, same thing happened to us. Landlord said he had at least 5 years. After 2 he starts grumbling that our rent is too low but he can't increase it to the level he wants to (BC rent control). We say, oh that's too bad.

After 3 years he decides he's done being a landlord and wants to sell the apartment and tells us he's going to kick us out and sell the place. We fight. BC has a policy that the landlord must actually live in the unit for at least 6 months in order to evict a current tenant and he's shown us he doesn't intend to do so.

There is more fighting, he finally consults a lawyer (he didn't seem to be aware of the law). He finally understands what he must do to evict us and we started losing ground. End of story we negotiated him for extra money, getting evicted on the same date and decided it was better than walking away empty handed.

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[–] soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 17 points 8 months ago

In their 13th property they own outright from landlord profits

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 70 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I’m in this situation and I’m renting out my house while working overseas, where I am living in a rental property. Just because the market has been perverted by capital doesn’t mean there aren’t legit purposes for a rental market.

[–] endhits@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (29 children)

Not for profit, there isn't. Profit as a concept in contemporary economics already doesn't pass the sniff test, but housing especially doesn't.

[–] EatATaco@lemm.ee 10 points 8 months ago (18 children)

The person in the tweet doesn't claim to be making a profit at all. She's basically saying she isn't going to sell the apartment, so if she didn't rent it out, then it would just sit empty.

[–] ZMoney@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago (8 children)

The way the real estate market is currently set up, a property sitting empty still generates profit as a financial asset. This is the major issue with rentier capitalism, not your average middle class homeowner with an extra property for rent.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 months ago

You are so brave to post this on lemmy

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[–] Sharkictus@lemmy.world 56 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The only value landlords have is that is easier to be transient and move around for work and stuff, and not be tied down.

It should be for those in that niche, not because home ownership is too hard to obtain.

If you live in the same town doing the same job, the only reason you should be renting is because you didn't like doing the extra work homeownership requires.

If anything beyond these niche is your market, fuck off.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (7 children)

3rd paragraph is me. I rented the vast majority of my life. I didn't want to mow the lawn, shovel snow, clean gutters, fix/replace major items, eg: hot water heater.

Nope. Not interested.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I rented a place that had a small yard. I was excited to have a yard to tend. After cutting the grass once, I was done.

The landlord had the grass removed and a bunch of local plants put into a garden with a minimal watering system. Never needed to be tended. Was a well-loved upgrade.

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[–] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

lmao so retarded

"where would you live if I didn't own all the houses?"

IN MY OWN HOUSE, BITCH

thanks for trying to pass off you owning more houses than you can live in as a favour to me though, you fuckin fuck

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 14 points 8 months ago

Similar logic to "job creators".

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[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 38 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Tbh this type of landlord isn't really the problem. It is the people who intentionally buy up masses amounts of housing just to rent out. Middle class people who have a heart using it for their own security is the ideal landlord situation.

[–] nxdefiant@startrek.website 15 points 8 months ago

This was my mom. It was the house she grew up in, not worth much. She ended up renting to a bunch of people over the years, way below market, and eventually let a family living there save up enough for a down payment to afford a loan to buy it from her. They're still friends with them and the new owners take good care of the place. My parents are much happier knowing it's being used well vs being landlords.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 24 points 8 months ago

Landlords are the most delusional class.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

If I was a landlord, I'd make the serfs work the fields for even more profit. I mean, If I'm gonna be evil, I'm going all-in.

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[–] bblkargonaut@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago (5 children)

My family owns a few rental properties. It was the mechanism that allowed my grandfather who grew up in 1930s Mississippi working the same land his slave grandparents did to escape poverty and retire pretty well off. He moved to Chicago, worked as a garbage man, bought a 3 flat and lived in one unit and rented the other two. Eventually he invested his money in more properties and and had his lawyer buy his house in the racist suburb of Oak Park so my mother could grow up in relative comfort.

The company was never ment to extract unlimited profit, we actually had many unprofitable years due to demographics changes, recessions, maintenance, and poor tenants causing damage ( who flushes weave down the drain?). But in aggregate it's made enough to give stability, because being a landlord is always our side job.

During the pandemic my mother worked with all the tenants who lost their jobs or had limited or no income. Since none of our properties have a mortgage, she reduced rent to just enough to cover the insane Illinois property taxes and the shared utilities for the people that could pay. When the boiler went out she picked up a few extra nursing shifts with covid pay to cover it. When things returned to the new normal or when tenants found new work, she just had them resume normal rent without needing to pay any back rent in their lease.

You'd think we would be rewarded for doing the right thing and treating people with basic human decency, but no. When we applied for covid assistance, the money was gone. We then started to receive building violations for one of our properties is an up and coming area. The funny thing about these violations was that they were for items repairs 10 years earlier, and also for things we received city and used city grants and contracts to fix. Now we are currently in a legal battle with the city where they want us to take a $900k loan to fully renovated the building or have the city seize the property because it's a "crime den" in their words. Like how, we screen everyone, rent mostly to old people and single mothers, and have camera in public areas and around the buildings. We even routinely provide footage to the police when they request it, even though that means we have to buy a new DVR since we have yet to have one returned.

But ever since covid and this inspection bull, we get daily calls letters, emails from corporations expressing their interest in buying our not for sale property.

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Like how, we screen everyone, rent mostly to old people and single mothers, and have camera in public areas and around the buildings.

ever since covid and this inspection bull, we get daily calls letters, emails from corporations expressing their interest in buying our not for sale property.

That's why. Someone's asking a "friend" to lean on you and make you sell so that a corporate landlord can consolidate more of the rental market.

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[–] Hootz@lemmy.ca 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

If it wasn't for hoarders I'd be able to afford a house. Shit my parents bought in 2003 and paid 233k, the fucking place is about a million now. They only make like $4 more an hour than they did in 2003, but because they were able to get in before it got stupid they are set.

Like shit it's an entire house and they pay what I'd be paying to rent a two bedroom apartment.

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[–] chetradley@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

If it wasn't for scalpers, where would people buy concert tickets??

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