My previous landlord shutdown his Electrical business because it makes less sense to funnel money into keeping a business operational than to just use it to buy more property. When we have small businesses shutting down so people can join the landlord class is it at least worth considering that something is askew in our economy?
If the political will existed then we could tackle monopolistic property ownership through regulation anyway. In the event we get politicians to legislate against their own cashcow then having them legislate against lobbyists shouldn’t be that hard.
redwattlebird@lemmings.world 10 hours ago
In a housing crisis, there shouldn’t be any landlords.
TheHolm@aussie.zone 9 hours ago
If there were no landlords, who would pay for these houses? As has been stated many times, people cannot afford to buy a house with their own money. Landlords give them a chance to get a place to live by investing their money. The problem is that the housing crisis is mostly a creation of current policies. Too many restrictions, policies, and commissions. All of these are sucking money. It is hard to afford to build a house, even if you already own the land. Building something cheaper is not possible because it will not comply with current regulations. F$%it, Australia is not same as it was before, we can’t afford licensed plumbers, and shit build by the code. We need to give people a chance to build houses, and then the crisis will go away. (But this will drive property prices down, so the government will never allow that.)
redwattlebird@lemmings.world 7 hours ago
The building codes are less stringent than they were decades ago, hence the drop in quality of housing compared to those built many decades earlier. It’s never been easier to get a home built. There’s a significant rise in remodeling homes at the moment because those who can afford it are doing it. I know because I do work with architects for these very people.
The hurdle is equity imbalance. The more houses you own, the more you can borrow. The more you own, the more you can rent or put on Airbnb and run as a hotel without having to pay corporate tax.
That and a lack of protection against people who do decide to build because if you get shafted by a builder, there is literally no one, no authority to turn to I’m order to get any deposits back. Much safer to build it yourself but can’t if you’re working to pay off your loans etc.
shads@lemy.lol 9 hours ago
If we weren’t competing with Landlords driving the cost of houses up to astronomical levels by buying up stock and living on the speculative investment value who would be buying houses… Hmm that’s a toughy we might need to get back to you.