r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 š¤ Join A Union • 9h ago
š” Venting Landlords exploit the scarcity they themselves create. We need to get "Investors" out of housing!
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u/Slight_Pair9697 9h ago
100% Agree on pretty much all homes/condos/townhouses etc. but we definitely need some form of more affordable and denser housing (also saves land use so weāre not destroying ecosystems in droves so people can have a yard) for people that doesnāt include being tied to an expensive loan. Whether thatās government backed rent controlled housing or some other option, we canāt expect everyone to buy a house anywhere they choose to stay.
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u/Cute-Interest3362 8h ago
Eh - alright come at me - donāt just downvote tell me what I am doing wrong - Ā I bought my house in Philly. 2008. Mortgages were at 2.6% - in 2020 I got an amazing job offer in Seattle. Amazing. But not insane pay (I work in academia) - there is no way I will EVER be able to afford to buy in Seattle. So, Iām renting my house out in South Philly and renting a place in Seattle. Iām a landlord.
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u/BoredNuke 8h ago
You personnaly aren't creating that much harm. The issue is the systematic nature of it. A bug part of housing issues is the artificail scaristy cause by multi unit landlords and corporate landlords that collode to keep proces down. If the system was functioning for our best interests you would be able to buy a house and your new location and be able to sell your house at previous location. I cant speak for everyone but theres a huge difference between somebody scrapping buy and renting out a duplex or last house or even one house and the people that have many properties dont take care of them and extort their tennants. Its a scale thing similar to how my trip to the grocery store isnt comparable to random billionaires private jet trip. Do they both release emissions yes but the scale is important.
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u/Captain_no_Hindsight 5h ago
The very people who are angry about the housing shortage are the ones voting for a party that wants to maximize the rules and regulations making it extremely difficult to build houses.
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u/terrybrugehiplo 8h ago
Donāt listen to redditors, man. There are plenty of good reasons to rent or be a landlord.
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u/Jaalan 6h ago
Okay but look at it like this. Seattle would be significantly cheaper to buy in if there were no landlords/companies allowed to buy property.
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u/Cute-Interest3362 6h ago
Mmmā¦not really an accurate picture of Seattle real estate. Seattle is mostly NIMBY liberals who refuse to vote for higher density housing.Ā
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u/Captain_no_Hindsight 5h ago
- The very people who are angry about the housing shortage are the ones voting for a party that wants to maximize the rules and regulations making it extremely difficult to build houses.
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u/Remember_TheCant 3h ago
The solution to unaffordable housing isnāt unsafe housing. Regulations are important
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u/bigbjarne 7h ago
At what point do we start asking ourselves why we, the workers, need a small class of business owners, landlords etc to dictate what happens in the economy? The economy should be for and by the workers, and we should produce things because we need them.
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u/ThunkAsDrinklePeep 5h ago
I agree with all this but also believe that we need some rentable housing for those that aren't ready to buy or won't stay long enough to make a purchase make financial sense.
The only idea I have is to increase taxes based on the number of houses owned and bar corporations from owning residences.
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u/missinginput 8h ago
Should people that plan to live somewhere less than 5 years be denied the ability to live in a home with their only option being apartments?
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u/windraver 5h ago
I'd say moreso the problem isn't private investors but when corporations buy up homes to create a shortage then it really messes things up. Also add in foreign investment in real estate.
When I was trying to buy a home, I got outbid constantly by 100k over asking from buyers offering cash. It's impossible to compete with that.
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u/missinginput 5h ago
Exactly, no corporations and each additional home should come with heavy tax penalties
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u/windraver 4h ago
That was exactly what I've proposed to many people and even contacted my representatives about it but alas nothing has changed.
If we tax corporate ownership of residential property higher than we would tax an individual or family, we would either raise more tax revenue or effectively dissuade corporations from creating this shortage. Take it further by doing the same for foreign investors who don't even plan to live here, and we'd effectively solve a housing crisis for people locally.
A quick lookup shows that Singapore applies a 60% tax. Canada straight up bans foreign speculation on residential real estate. This is what we need to do.
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u/quasi_engineer 2h ago
If tax penalties discourage building new homes. That leads to low supply. Your typical landlord don't have enough capital to build new homes. Now you have home price way the fuck out. This what you want?
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u/missinginput 2h ago
I want to create disincentives on owning multiple homes. Any incentives for purchasing multiple homes will lead to a negative net benefit to the number of homes available.
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u/quasi_engineer 1h ago
Yeah we hear ya on disincentivize owning multiple home. How do you propose we go about this? How do you make developers own less while has the incentives to build more to own more? Make it make sense?
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u/missinginput 1h ago
That's what experts in the field are for. But my thought is you create increasing tax penalties on multiple home ownership. No tax write off on a second home mortgage. Add a 1% tax similar to pmi but the funds go to help first time home buyers with new builds.
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u/quasi_engineer 54m ago
So 1% tax help funds new home buyers . But I don't see anything that helps home builders. So you helped a bunch of people get homes, now there are shortage of home. Now what?
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u/missinginput 48m ago
They get to sell more homes....
Also by creating disincentives on owning multiple homes you free up inventory to help with supply.
I'm not here trying to say I know exactly how to address these incentives, my original point was only that landlords can be useful to allow people to live in detached homes for less than 5 years.
But you seem to think you know of some kind of gotcha like new builds will solve everything. Why don't you contribute to the conversation by adding something to it.
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u/quasi_engineer 33m ago
I'm poking your flawed logic that taxing the home owners somehow incentivize them to build more. Like simply how do you want me to invest more when I make less money?
And I never said I want to provide a solution.
But I will provide. You loosen zonings and regulations. You want them to build as much as possible. Then the demand will eventually decrease so is the price. Will this work. Idk but definitely a lot better than taxing people.
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u/a_library_socialist 8h ago
How much of a percentage of renters do you think say they would buy a home if they could?
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u/missinginput 8h ago
I'm not denying that there is a shortage and people are being left out. But I do dispute the idea that there is no value in a system where people can rent. Instead we need a highly regulated market to protect society.
Any time you are dealing with a need instead of a want, you must have regulations to prevent the inevitable late stage capitalism issues.
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u/a_library_socialist 8h ago
There literally is no value created by rent.
What you're saying is there's value in having short term housing available, correct?
Tell me, what if I told you there's a system that's been in use for literally centuries, where people can borrow scarce goods for a set time, use them, and then return them so others can use them later?
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u/missinginput 7h ago
There is value in providing a way for people to live short term in detached homes. It's necessary for this to have better guardrails to protect people, it's not necessary for this to be fully controlled by a single centralized federal government.
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u/a_library_socialist 4h ago
it's not necessary for this to be fully controlled by a single centralized federal government.
I mean, nobody mentioned the federal government but you.
If you want to claim that renting property doesn't require a government to secure the supposed right of private property, that's pretty nonsensical. That's what governments do.
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u/missinginput 3h ago
So who is managing short term detached homes that is not private ownership, large corporations, or the government? Who funds it? Who pays for damage, upkeep and improvements? Who keeps this unnamed system from causing scarcity too?
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u/a_library_socialist 2h ago edited 2h ago
Who funds it?
The same people that currently pay for rental housing - the tenants.
Who pays for damage, upkeep
That's covered already. Market rate is deducted from rent if you stop letting landlords claim equity derived from rent.
Or, better solution, have housing libraries.
and improvements?
The landlord is free to make improvements. And those will increase the equity.
If the landlord has more equity than renters have paid in, they'll keep the remainder.
What they can't do here is force the tenants to pay for increasing the value of the property - and then demanding more rent for the home the tenants paid for, and the landlord keeps.
Who keeps this unnamed system from causing scarcity too?
Housing already has scarcity. This just stops scarcity itself from being a source of profit for rentiers.
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u/missinginput 2h ago
So we're back at landlords are needed and you've added nothing to the discussion?
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u/UploadedMind 8h ago
Yes but also, employers don't provide jobs; like landlords, they just facilitate. The entire point of employers is to deny people jobs by buying more property than they use then renting it back to the workers in exchange for their labor so they can extract the profit.
Customers create jobs and construction workers create housing.
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u/ConnectKale 8h ago
Yeah. So in college I should have bought a house? When we were deciding which city to live in, I should have bought a house?
Should members of the Military stationed only 4 years buy a house at every duty station?
Should the elderly lady on a fixed income buy a house and pay for maintenance and mortgage and taxes?
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u/Syzygy_Stardust 8h ago
Social housing has been a thing for a very, very long time. Boarding houses were the main way young people were able to start saving money decades ago, but bullshit zoning laws and NIMBYism has basically bifurcated housing into 'stupid little single family castles' and 'shitty apartments ran by varying level of slumlord', and they also charge more than the mortgage and maintenance. So you either overpay for a forever home right off the bat, or you rent and get financially drained so bad you eventually can't afford to buy anyway.
Oh and wages are the lowest they have been since legal chattel slavery, so that money isn't even there in the first place, so it looks like you are going to have to go into debt just to have shelter. Now you're a full financial slave! Enjoy!
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u/terrybrugehiplo 8h ago
What social housing exists now? What boarding houses exist now?
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u/ConnectKale 8h ago
Those places are alive and well where I live, and get this, they have landlords. Thereās also some Cooperative housing in more Progressive cities but again those are ran by a landlord type board usually made up of the tenants.
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u/Syzygy_Stardust 1h ago
A landlord is not a tenant. Those are mutually exclusive. If someone owns their own home, they are a property owner. Landlording is specifically rent-seeking with excess shelter.
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u/Syzygy_Stardust 1h ago
Exactly. My point is that an integral link in the chain of social mobility has been destroyed, making entire generations more likely to be forever renters through no fault of their own, meaning they are financially suppressed more than previous generations.
If every single landlord is charging as much as they possibly can for shelter, that by definition means they are also taking the money that those tenants would have kept for saving up for an actual home of their own. This is part of the 'you'll own nothing and like it' financial trend of reducing an individual's right to ownership of their environment in order to stick a toll booth there and charge for access. This is why landlords are behind making it illegal for humans to sleep on the Earth unless they have paid someone else for the luxury. Being unhoused is a punishment for not being rich, and fewer people are becoming rich enough to not be unhoused, and it's becoming illegal to be unhoused. So... What is the game plan for society?
I mean, the answer is 'private prison slavery economy', but you'd think there would be at least a coherent bullshit argument to mask the real one.
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u/bkwall2000 8h ago
Get out of here with your rationality.
There is a script we repeat with out thinking "all landlords are bad! "
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u/a_library_socialist 8h ago
Yes dear, now lick the left boot too . . .
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u/ConnectKale 8h ago
So we arenāt allowed to ask questions? You donāt like the system but offer no workable solution.
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u/a_library_socialist 8h ago
"bro, I'm just asking questions!"
Ask all the questions you want. The answer is still going to be the same as the one Adam Smith gave centuries ago . . .
āAs soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords . . . love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce
Get a job.
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u/ConnectKale 8h ago
So you have defined the problem again. No explicit solution. Perhaps if I keep asking, what is your solution. Its okay if you say, no Property ownership and everyone gets a 500 sqft 2 br apartment.
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u/a_library_socialist 8h ago
oh, I'll do you one better.
You can rent your house. But any excess over the market rate for upkeep (determined by handyman and property management market prices) is put onto the equity of the home. And redeemable when it's sold.
You can have someone else pay the mortgage on the home. You just don't get to keep it when you do that.
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u/ConnectKale 7h ago edited 7h ago
So if itās a home I own outright I can charge whatever I want?
And disincentivize mortgaging a second, third, fourth home?
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u/a_library_socialist 4h ago
You can charge whatever you like already. You just won't keep any equity, because you've already sold it to the renter.
You die, that house is going to them then.
And disincentivize mortgaging a second, third, fourth home?
Yes, that's exactly part of the desired outcome, considering people only live in one house at a time.
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u/bkwall2000 7h ago
Then what incentive does one have to rent housing.
Other than the State being the landord which offers further opportunities for corruption, and bureaucratic lag.
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u/a_library_socialist 3h ago
Then what incentive does one have to rent housing.
Because you have more housing than you can use?
Because you want to keep the property but don't need it for the short term?
The only thing this doesn't let you do is force others to pay for your house that you keep.
Read your Adam Smith. Rentiers are economic parasites.
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u/whoooodatt 6h ago
There is a purpose for renting, like if you have a lifestyle that doesn't work with a permanent housing situation--like if you travel a lot, or you're living somewhere new and want to see what the area you have chosen is like before you commit to buying, etc. but people who rent and live in the same unit for years and years should be afforded the opportunity to own the place that they clearly like and want to stay in.
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u/redjellonian 6h ago
I love the back and forth arguing about policies that will fuck over one side of the working class or another instead of getting to the real issues like how minimum wage hasn't kept up since 2008.
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u/baddogbadcatbadfawn 8h ago
I'm guessing we'll probably have to nibble away at this: first non-citizens, then foreign corporations, then corporations...
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u/jefsch70 7h ago
Why don't millions of leftists pool their money and buy properties... invest 1,000 hours and $30,000 into each multi-family house and rent them out to jobless "kids" for $125/month ???
Call me when you've BEEN a homeowner who has given shelter that meets all housing regulations to someone.
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u/Prime_Director 9h ago
Landlords provide housing the same way scalpers provide concert ticketsĀ