Landlords are parasites

Comments

• melonhusk@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  yeah, ‘protecting’ us from the very financial strain they create. truly the unsung heroes of our generation. what noble sacrifice.

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• notarobot@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I had a contract with yearly price adjustment that lasted 3 years. We updated the price on January and in February there was A LOT of inflation in my country so I did get “cheap” rent for that year. When the end of year was approaching we made the math and the new total was outside what we could realistically pay so we ended the contract (paying the respective fees) and she tried to guilt trip us saying how much she had LOST because we adjusted on January.

  Good luck with that. I’m not feeling sorry for someone who sits on her ass all day and expects money to just show up on her account. She didn’t even fix shit that was going to cause permanent structural damage to the house

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• jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I dislike personifying landlords just like I dislike personifying greedy corporations. It’s the system which is broken, and entities which act in greedy self-interest are merely a symptom.

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• Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Reality is worse than this picture though. The landlords are contributing to all thkse knives and grenades, intentionally.

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  • jsomae@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’d say that’s what separates a good landlord from a bad landlord, is if they are intentionally adding knives and grenades.

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• orioler25@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You can’t buy a house because $2.5k per story pays the mortage for the landlord and the rental property.

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• lemonwood@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Image

  Smith goes into great detail in “The wealth of Nations” about how landlords are parasites. He explains why theoretically and empirically and gives specific examples. He lacked an understanding of historical materialism, so he wrongly thought capitalism would naturally get rid of them.

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• rockettaco37@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Dead Kennedys have a great song about how to solve this

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  • return2ozma@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Oh yes

    youtu.be/MA3QWPXm9TU

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• Octavio@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You know how California got sick of greedy companies ripping off people for insulin so now they’re going to sell insulin themselves at a reasonable price? Yeah, they should do that with apartments.

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  • Batmorous@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This is a great idea. Multiple states should band together to make this happen as well

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  • ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I lived in a housing market like that. It was a college town dominated by a church subsidized school. The students had to live in on-campus, off-campus and registered, or unregulated housing. The only people allowed to do unregulated housing were those who had their stuff together e.g. married or living with family. Housing was cheap and any landlord disagreements could be complained against the uni housing office. The uni provided so much housing that prices were based on the uni’s low cost instead of anything higher. A friend from high school had her dad choose to “invest” by buying a small apartment building out there, but even with his daughter as manager, he didn’t make a good return because he didn’t have the scale to provide the minimum level of service. I think he sold it.

    Students there tended to get married and have children while still in school.

    Long story short, housing market regulation can be done via a dominating entity over demand, but non market forces are not common everywhere.

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  • SippyCup@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This literally happens in some areas outside the US. I can’t remember if it’s NotJustBikes or HappyTowns that talks about it on YouTube. But basically, the government offers affordable housing to force landlords to compete on quality and price. Shockingly in those areas rents are down and the quality of apartments is decent.

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    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s fairly standard for each municipality to own a landlord company that has some small fraction of the local housing supply and is explicitly for the public good, i’ve lived in such housing basically my entire life and it’s so hilariously superior to anything else that if they removed the arbitrary limit on how much housing they can own, the municipal landlords would utterly dominate and the total spending on housing would probably drop by 50%…

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    • lemonwood@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Vienna, Austria is a classic example. Don’t know about the current situation, though.

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  • PeacefulForest@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Batmorous@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It will happen eventually just needs more people doing and more proper usage of funding. Can’t wait for upgrade from 39.5 million people to 200 million. Making it a full fledged country with amount of people to back it up. If California can develop in same Japan and South Korea do that would be awesome

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    • Octavio@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      High speed rail such a great way to travel medium distances anyway it’s downright criminal the US hasn’t figured it out yet.

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    • titanicx@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s an idiotic take

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• ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That picture is incorrect.

  The landlord isn’t pictured inside a Porsche SUV.

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  • DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    mine has a gtr

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• hanrahan@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Adam Smith also pointed this out.

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  • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Vienna isn’t a bad model but it’s progressively becoming less significant because in capitalism you have to be constantly fighting to maintain the little progresses you make.

    We’ve had better, such as the Soviet Union, where housing was a guaranteed right, rent costed 3% of the average income, and homelessness was abolished.

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• stevedice@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Rant incoming. I’m trying to rent a apartment that is less than 1/4th of my salary but I might not get it because the landlord is too stupid to understand 80% of my salary is stocks so they won’t show up on a paystub. This is the people that love to label themselves as savvy investors. God damn it. Rant over.

  why don’t you just buy a house?

  My president just consolidated the three branches into one so I’m holding up in case I have to flee.

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  • ranzispa@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Fair enough, prioritise people who actually work and do things. They deserve housing before anyone else.

    Then also people who do not work and make money off of others people’s work may have a house.

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    • stevedice@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Sure? I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to add here.

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  • mechoman444@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I tired to rent an apartment once. I had 100k in liquid in my bank account. I showed them this but it wasn’t good enough. I’m 1099 and officially make very little money (it’s all above board and legal. I have a CPA.)

    They needed paystubs. I don’t have pay stubs. I don’t even get paychecks.

    It’s kind of a weird catch 22 for them. They’re ok with some bloke making 20 bucks an hours with nothing in savings as long as he can “prove” his income but someone with actually money is just too much of a risk.

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  • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    As off we’ll be allowed to flee, or that the dollar will be worth anything by then.

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    • stevedice@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Not American

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    • Nalivai@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Learn skills that will be easily transferable across countries. Look for a country you would like to live in, learn the language if necessary, research where they are hiring.
      Do it before Trump’s third term, there will be a lot more chaos then

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• BenLeMan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Not sure what the graphic is trying to say. Are landlords supposed to protect people from increasing costs of home ownership? 🤔 How are these ideas connected?

  Mind you, ownership implies that you are not renting your home, you own it.

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  • causepix@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    People say landlords provide a service that is providing housing to another person without them having to pay the full cost of homeownership. Yet, because the landlord is not only covering their costs but extracting as much profit as the market will allow, the cost of renting is pretty damn competitive with the cost of ownership. So to answer your question,

    Are landlords supposed to protect people from increasing costs of home ownership?

    Yes, that is the way most non-landlords justify the existence of landlords to themselves. The alternative is to acknowledge that landlords exist only for the sake of enabling the owning class to generate capital for themselves by exploiting the working class.

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    • BenLeMan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      O-kay. I can think of a myriad of other reasons than sheer cost why I might not want to buy a home straight away. But I see how the graphic kind of makes sense in the way you describe.

      I’m not a big fan of landlords, by the way, and the instant downvoting for asking a simple question is extremely rude. Doesn’t exactly foster community engagement, guys! 😑

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• BrilliantantTurd4361@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That the landlord is well out of the way of harm is the most accurate part of this meme 😂

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  • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The landlord is casting the grenade and knife rain spell on the child

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  • Hupf@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Image

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    • BrilliantantTurd4361@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ahahah thanks for clarifying 👍

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• Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Pretending that small landlords and corporate landlords are the same is like saying your local grocer is as bad as Walmart.

  Renting is an essential part of the housing market. Not everyone wants or can commit to home ownership and all it’s unpredictable maintenance costs. A plumbing failure can be as cheap as $200 to fix or cost you $10,000+ for a full replacement and restoration from the biohazards of black water damage.

  The reason why the housing market is fucked is because poor regulation allows corporate landlords to buy up tons of investment properties and control the housing costs and supply.

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  • mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    All landlords are parasites. Paying a landlord is not the same as having home insurance…

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    • Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Home insurance does not cover costs associated with maintenance and negligence.

      Your sewer line failing because it’s 50 years old and made of cast iron is not a valid home insurance claim.

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    • titanicx@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Nah. I’ve been renting where I’m at for over a decade. My landlord has been amazing. I’ve had times where I’m out of work and he’s allowed me to be 2 months late paying, I’ve had hard times and he’s helped out, he let’s me do what I want with the place and he foots the bill. He’s also only raised my rent in that 11 years by 125$. I’ve also seen his house, and it’s worse off then mine. My truck is better then his as well. Not all landlords are the same. Some actually do want to help as much as they can.

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  • ranzispa@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Rented a flat from a family for 3 years. The flat had not been renewed in over 60 years, but I was alright with that. The flat had several problems, they never wanted to fix.

    One day the electrical system starts going out over and over again, fuses would burn every few days. I had to tell them that in case of fire they’d be responsible for everything I had in the house before they agreed they should fix the electric system.

    Since they were going to fix the electric system, they decided to do a bit more work and change the floor and a few things more. They wanted to increase the rent 50% to account for these improvements; even though that is illegal I accepted, since they were in fact improving the flat.

    I had to move out for two months while the works were going on. One week before the end of the works, the flat was really not done yet. I asked several times whether it would be ready, because I’d need to find and accomodation in the meanwhile. I asked for a discount of half a month so that I could cover expenses and because nobody knew when they would actually complete the works.

    The day before I was supposed to get back into the flat, they decided that I was posing way too many conditions and kicked me out. They decided to keep the safety deposit because a plastic floor old over 60 years had started cracking. 8 months later, they still have some boxes of stuff which is mine but never have time to meet me to give it back to me.

    Time has passed and I still have to go to a lawyer, because I the meanwhile I had a bunch of trouble to solve. I’m sure I can win a trial against them, but even if I do win the trial I’ll have gone through a bunch of trouble just to get my safety deposit back. I’ll be doing it just because they need to fuck off, but still…

    Now, most people renting places were I live are exactly like this. It is not big corporations, it people who got one or maybe a few flats on rent.

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  • Soup@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Renting is important to have available but it absolutely does not need to be at the level its at. The amount of people paying for someone else’s investment while wishing they could own something of their own is crazy and it’s insane that we’ve normalized that. And all the while they’re just hoping nothing goes wrong because it seems like even the “good” landlords are hit-or-miss when it comes to getting them to do literally anything. Mine’s usually pretty good but right now there’s a fucking hole in the foundation and getting them to properly address it is a hurdle I shouldn’t have to go through. In order for these buildings to be profitable the tenants need to not only pay for those issues you mentioned but now they’re also paying for someone else’s salary AND in the end that person gets to sell the building and keep all that money, too.

    The reason the housing market is fucked in the US and Canada is becauss there are very few rent controls and a lot of the power sides with the landlords. In Montréal you have to be worried about going taking them to court because future landlords can just look up if you’ve ever done anything and deny you a place to live even if the problem was your current landlord is dogshit. Oh, and there’s a new law that’s around landlords being able to use necessary renovations as excuses to raise your rent! They have all the power and it doesn’t matter if they’re big or small, it’s a “business” that attracts the kind of people who don’t mind making easy money off of making you pay for their stuff.

    Your landlord(probably) isn’t going to let you hit it because you’re glazing them on Lemmy. Stand up for yourself and others, even if you got lucky with a landlord who is considered good because they don’t throw a hissy fit when you ask them to do their fucking job.

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  • whoisearth@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You’re getting flack but you’re not wrong. When I moved into my current house I was a landlord for over 3 years adopting the basement tenant already in the house. Rent was well below market rate and I never raised it. We were both respectful. Ultimately I terminated their lease because I have kids that are getting older and I need the extra space as well as just not in the mental headspace to rent my basement anymore. I’ve since gutted it with the intention of making it a proper finished basement for us all to enjoy.

    I gave them over 3 months notice. First month rent back and provided references.

    Some of us just want to do good.

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    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m glad you’re a human with empathy and good intentions, but tenants shouldn’t be in a position that their housing (one of the most fundamental rights of people) relies on the good will of whatever landlord they happen to be stuck with.

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  • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Pretending that small landlords and corporate landlords are the same is like saying your local grocer is as bad as Walmart

    Your comparison is valid, but it works against your interests. Your local grocer, as a business owner, is every bit against rising minimum wage as Walmart is: both of them see reduced profits when minimum wages are increased, so the class relations between them and their workers make them support anti-worker-rights policy.

    In the same manner, your local landlord has every reason to be as opposed to measures such as rent caps or rent freezes as BlackRock.

    Yes, rent should exist as an alternative to home ownership, but the housing for rent should be publicly owned and rented at maintenance-cost prices as has been done successfully in many socialist countries before that managed to abolish homelessness. As an example, by the 1970s rent in the Soviet Union costed about 3% of the monthly average income.

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    • papertowels@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      both of them see reduced profits when minimum wages are increased

      But one doesn’t have to act in the shareholders best interest.

      My friends are renting in an apt from a mom and pop landlord who hasn’t raised the price in years - they roughly play half of what market price is at this point.

      So sure, the direction of Mom and pop landlords interests may be the same as a corporate landlords, but that are under much less pressure to leverage that.

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  • return2ozma@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Housing is a human right, not an investment. Nationalize housing

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    • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Based

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    • Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Socialized housing isn’t an overnight project. It starts with regulating the current housing marketing and prioritizing the take down of corporate slumlords. It starts with revising zoning laws, promoting higher density housing and multifamily homes, and creating walkable and accessible neighborhoods for all.

      I get the idealism from Lemmy, but this is also it’s pitfall. Anything less than a leftist utopia is not worth working towards, and so we sit in righteous inaction.

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    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Housing is a human right, not an investment.

      Yes and yes 1000%

      Nationalize housing

      Fuck no.

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• uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And how!

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• shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah, because the renter will have to pay $5,000 when the AC unit craps out.

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  • return2ozma@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    What AC unit?! 🤣

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  • IncogCyberSpaceUser@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So landlords make no profit at all? I guess they just rent out their properties out of the goodness of their own hearts. How selfless.
    (The tenants pay for that AC unit.)

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    • TeddE@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yes. If you’re not actively using the land you should sell it - if that were the general practice, many renters would be land owners themselves and an entire layer of middle management would evaporate.

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  • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    they’ve already paid for it

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• RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think sometimes renting is a good option if you’re just living somewhere temporarily and don’t want to have the hassle of buying and then selling the apartment. And of course people and companies building houses to gain revenue by renting brings in investment in developing land and real estate. It’s just that some ridiculous revenue expectations drive the rent way over what is reasonable. I think in many cases it would help to zone more apartment building.

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  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    the idea that renting isn’t a completely normal way to live your entire life is such a strange thing, here in sweden at least like a third of the population rents their entire lives and it’s perfectly fucking fine

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  • groet@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah the price for rent should be the amortized cost of upkeep/renovation + some salary to the landlord that is reasonable for the actually work done (which is usually very little).

    It should never be enough to pay back a loan the landlord took out to buy the property in the first place.

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    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You’re describing the Soviet model of housing. Flats were often assigned by the union of the worker, and the rent dues were about 3% of the monthly income, which paid for basic maintenance. Homelessness was eliminated and housing was constantly improved through the construction of literal millions of housing units per year, more than any country at the time.

      Urban planning was also cool, organized in so-called “Mikroraion” (microdistricts) with accessibility on-foot to basic services being the core of planning. Green spaces, health centres, childcare and social activities were all within a 15-minute walk (the neighborhoods in most Eastern Block countries retain these features with whatever services haven’t been dismantled in capitalism). Quality affordable public transit (e.g. Moscow metro) also ensured mobility.

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  • mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    companies building houses to gain revenue by renting brings in investment in developing land and real estate. It’s just that some ridiculous revenue expectations drive the rent way over what is reasonable.

    how about they build to sell??? Why do they need a stream of money in perpetuity for a one-time investment?

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    • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Companies do both. Whether it’s for renting or ownership can depend on municipal rules or some economics from the company, wouldn’t know that well. Renting might also be easier for the company, easier to find tenants than buyers in some situations

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  • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    If short term apartment ownership is unattractive because of the hassle of buying and selling, we should look to reduce that hassle, not replace ownership with a parasitic financial relationship.

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    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s only a parasitic financial relationship when the rented property is on the hands of a private owner. We could totally have collectively/publicly owned housing rented at maintenance costs, which would 100% remove the exploitation.

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    • piranhaconda@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No thanks. I’ve lived in 6 different US states in the past 6 years. I understand I’m an extreme edge case, but I’m a huge fan of renting apartments at this stage in my life.

      Now maybe in this hypothetical society with better housing and whatnot, I wouldn’t have felt the need to hustle and grind and work my way up the corporate ladder and move around as much as I did… But for my situation, yea I like renting

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    • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How would you reduce the hassle of apartment ownership?

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• Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I never understood this brain dead obsession that Marxists have with landlords.

  Landlords own property like anybody else does or could, and they use their property to offer a commodity in demand a for a fee like any other service. You never hear anybody complaining about a car rental service or hotels or any other rental service, just this one. This is a strong sign that it’s not based in any merit, it’s just ideological brain rot.

  You could be nuanced and argue that certain types of landlords are bad or that certain practices are harmful, and that’s fine, but to say the concept of people renting out housing units is inherently bad just because is just stupid. Renting has it’s advantages even if you don’t understand or won’t acknowledge them, there’s are plenty of reasons why renting exists.

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  • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Marxist here. The reason why I argue and obsess about landlordism is that housing is a human right, whereas rental of a car isn’t and neither of a hotel room. It’s also important because of how much pressure it exerts on workers, very often 40% of a person’s income goes to rent, which is absurd and destroys the quality of life of many people, and perpetuates poverty cycles.

    You are right in that landlords offer a commodity in demand for a fee, but it’s not like any other service since landlordism essentially doesn’t require work: it’s purely an unnecessary wealth transfer from wealth-less individuals who can’t afford a home to wealthy individuals who could afford (or more likely inherited) one. We Marxists also famously have problems with commodity production, it’s quite literally the core of Marxism: that the labour of workers is unfairly appropriated by capital owners.

    As for renting having its advantages, Marxists don’t deny that, and are very much in favour of social rent, that is, publicly owned housing rented at maintenance costs. This way, there is no relationship of exploitation between a landlord and a tenant: you can just rent one of the collective houses without your wealth being used for anything other than its average maintenance cost. For example in the Soviet Union workers rented housing at about 3% of their income. We are not against the idea of renting, we are against the idea of renting from a private owner that extracts wealth unfairly from the tenant

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    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The reason why I argue and obsess about landlordism is that housing is a human right

      So is food and water, but we still pay for them. It doesn’t take an economist to understand that it takes a lot of capital and labor to get these things to us, and these require money. Therefore, they have to be traded for to cover the costs. In this case, it’s by paying a fee.

      It’s also important because of how much pressure it exerts on workers, very often 40% of a person’s income goes to rent, which is absurd and destroys the quality of life of many people, and perpetuates poverty cycles.

      This is ignorant because it assumes that rental market is static, when in fact, it is very much dynamic. How expensive or affordable rent is depends on things like supply, demand, and policy.

      it’s not like any other service since landlordism essentially doesn’t require work

      Who told you this? This is just wrong. This is the issue with Marxism as an ideology, it’s entirely a built on a house of cards. It’s entirely on baseless assumptions built on other baseless assumptions. Simply insisting that landlords don’t do anything without providing any substance is not a valid argument, that just the assertion fallacy.

      Landlord do actually do stuff. They’re responsible for their property. This means they have to put in the work in maintaining it, not only to preserve their property’s value, but also because they’re liable if their property causes harm to their tenants or anybody else. Landlords are responsible for things like

      • Repairs for any structural decay, damage, or malfunction (this ranges from changing light bulbs to changing the entire heating system)

      • General maintenance like snow removal, pest removal, the general appearance of the building

      • All the legal mumbo jumbo like drafting up the leases, following regulations, and meeting safety standards

      • All the finances of the building, this is especially true for multifamily buildings. They have to pay for the sewage and water, because they’re shared by the whole building as well as the common electricity (usually has it’s own panel). They also have to deal with the hassle of paying the taxes and house insurance on the building.

      • Tenant relations, again this is especially true for multifamily buildings. Landlords have to be able to settle disputes and complaints between their tenants, and they have to be willing to take legal action against tenants that are causing harm to the others

      This is all stuff that tenants would have to personally deal with if they owned property, but because they’re renting all of it get outsourced to the landlords. However, all of these involve the tenants actually being in the building. If there’s a vacant unit, the landlord is also responsible for inspecting the unit, cleaning it, advertising the vacancy, screening applicants, and signing the new tenants.

      You might scoff at this as nothing, but it’s actually really annoying time consuming. So much so that there’s an entire industry that revolves around property management. There’s a reason why even rich people sometimes opt to rent instead of just buying a new place. To some people the hassle of owning and maintaining a property is just not worth it.

      We Marxists also famously have problems with commodity production, it’s quite literally the core of Marxism: that the labour of workers is unfairly appropriated by capital owners.

      I’m aware, and Marxism is also famously well known for falsely believing that labor is the only source of value in an economy when that’s just not true. Labor is just one component in the economy, not the only one. An economy needs capital, leadership, entrepreneurship, specialization (education/expertise), and innovation on top of labor to function.

      As for renting having its advantages, Marxists don’t deny that, and are very much in favour of social rent, that is, publicly owned housing rented at maintenance costs. This way, there is no relationship of exploitation between a landlord and a tenant: you can just rent one of the collective houses without your wealth being used for anything other than its average maintenance cost. For example in the Soviet Union workers rented housing at about 3% of their income.

      It’s funny you say this because this show that you actually have no idea what you’re talking about. Three things:

      1. Soviet workers didn’t have a normal income like we do. Their incomes were centrally planned by the government, and they were distributed as a part of national budgeting scheme. Soviet incomes were not based on merit, demand, experience, or specialization but on administrative policy. This means that a doctor and a factory worker got paid a similar amounts, and Soviet salaries were notorious for being very low.

      2. The Soviet Union actually set the rents via policy. A part of the reason why the predetermined government salaries were so low is because so many things were heavily subsidized, including housing. That was the government’s grand argument as to why people got next to nothing, they argued that they’re getting benefits elsewhere. Now, the government decided they would impose a symbolic 3-6% (depends on the regions) rental fee to remind people that housing was allocated, not owned, and could be revoked and reassigned at any time.

      3. The Soviet Union solution to housing is one of the most historically famous examples of failure. They central government was very inefficient and ignorant in their planning. They allocated a lot of resources to build factories but barely any for houses for the workers that moved there, they set out of touch housing quotas that did not align with local needs, and they were rigid and uncoordinated in their execution which led to a lot of poor quality buildings and a lot of delays. The buildings that did get built were plagued with mismanaged, poor maintenance, and extremely long wait lists. You might not know this, but the Soviet housing model that you idolize actually had a lot, and I mean a lot, of housing shortages. That system collapsed for a reason.

      Keep in mind, I am not against the idea of public housing. I do think that government has role to play in helping solve the housing crises. There are some people who lack the means to ever get housing on their own regardless of how affordable the market is, and those people should get government subsidized housing. However, this means that public housing should only apply to a specific subsection of the population, not the whole population. Trying to centrally control and plan the housing market will just lead to a fiasco similar what the Soviet Union experienced. That’s a not a real solution, that’s just introducing a host of unnecessary problems.

      Our current system works, it’s been proven to work. What it needs is some tweaks and updates to get it back on track. It’s really not that complicated, we have a housing shortage, so we need to build way more houses. We want lower prices, so have to build so many units that the supply eclipses the demand. We want more dense, less car centric housing, then we have to update our zoning laws to allow it. We want to speed things up, so we have to remove obstacles standing in the way like unnecessarily long approval processes for new construction.

      We can’t cling on to failed ideologies like Marxism as some sort of new and innovative solution, because it’s not. Marxism is a proven failure, and that won’t change this time or the next. If we want to get anything done we have to remain practical, nuanced, realistic, knowledgeable, precise with our discourse and policy. That’s our only way forward.

      We are not against the idea of renting, we are against the idea of renting from a private owner that extracts wealth unfairly from the tenant

      You never explained why you think this is the case, you just insist that it is by constantly repeating it. Tell me the specific mechanics that you believe make private renting inherently unfair or exploitative, because I don’t see any legitimate case for this position.

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  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    1. Shelter is a necessity. A hotel isn’t.

    2. Property is a limited resource. When people scalp concert tickets they get vilified. When they do the same thing for something necessary for survival people like you defend it with “well there are pros and cons…”

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    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But this is a fundamentally flawed analogy. Renting is not scalping. If you want to criticize specific practices like predatory leases or speculative hoarding, that is a fair and nuanced position. But claiming that renting itself is inherently exploitative ignores how markets function.

      Just because something is a necessity does not mean it can be free. Food, water, electricity, heating, and medicine are all essential, yet we still pay for them. Not because we should, but because we have to. These goods and services come from complex systems that require capital, labor, infrastructure, and logistics. Every step costs money. To keep these systems running, consumers have to pay enough to cover those costs and allow for future investment. That payment can come through taxes in public systems or through private transactions in the market. Either way, the cost is real and unavoidable.

      Housing is no different. Building homes is expensive. It requires land, materials, skilled labor, permits, and time. Buying a home is a major investment, and renting exists as a practical alternative. Not everyone can or wants to buy, and renting provides access to housing without the upfront burden of ownership. There’s a huge luxury rental market for wealthy people, even though they have the means to buy houses. This means that there are real advantages to renting that go beyond just not being able to buy a house.

      Like any market, housing is shaped by supply and demand. When supply is low and demand is high, prices rise. That is not exploitation. It is basic economics. If you want to make housing more affordable, the solution is not to vilify landlords or pretend rent is evil. The solution is to increase supply. Build more homes. Reform zoning laws. Encourage development. More housing means more competition, and more competition drives prices down. We know this formula works. We’ve seen it work countless times. Actually we’re seeing it work right now. Take a look at Austin and how they’re rental and housing prices have been dropping considerable over the years. That is how you fix the imbalance. Not by attacking the existence of rent, but by addressing the root cause of scarcity.

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  • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s so fucking dumb. Landlords aren’t the problem, corporations owning hundreds and thousands of homes is what’s driving rent through the roof.

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    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s definitely a factor, but our housing supply is largely self inflected with outdated and poorly thought out zoning laws. Developers can’t build anything because the process to build anything takes years (sometimes decades), a fuck ton of money before they even break ground, and the law requires literally requires them to dedicate a certain ratio of their property (sometimes half) for parking. Not only that but so many projects get easily killed by NIMBYs for dumbest reasons. It’s no wonder we have shortage.

      If we look at places that are building a shit ton of units, like Austin, the prices are actually going down and have been for years. Both the rent prices and house prices have gone down in Austin because, for whatever reason, they’re the only ones that figured out that the way to solving a housing crises is to pump the supply to the point where it exceeds demand, thus causing prices to fall. That’s what we need nationwide.

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  • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You don’t understand the problem Marxists have with pure capitalism? That’s like their whole thing. An ownership class hoarding resources, and passively generating income from idle capital while not actively contributing is like the greatest sin in their ideology.

    I personally think it’s a bit melodramatic. There’s a world of difference between renting your spare room, or the 2nd floor of your house, and a hedgefund buying 20,000 single family houses.

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    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I understand what their ideology is, I’m making the point that it’s stupid and illogical.

      I personally think it’s a bit melodramatic. There’s a world of difference between renting your spare room, or the 2nd floor of your house, and a hedgefund buying 20,000 single family houses.

      I agree with you, but that’s also kind of my point. I don’t have an issue with nuanced takes like this. There’s clearly a difference between mom and pop landlords who own duplexes or a second house to help them out and Blackrock buying up entire neighborhoods to purposefully manipulate market prices. We can agree that the former is fine, and the latter isn’t. But at the same time we can also acknowledge that the issue is not inherent to markets, private ownership, or renting, these bad practices are a byproduct of poor policy.

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    • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Just wanna point out that both BlackRock and your average landlord gramma have exactly the same class interests in fighting against rent control, rent freeze, or construction of affordable social housing.

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• kingofthezyx@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think it would work better if the weapons were firing at the sleeping kid directly from the soldier

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• hansolo@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I once rented a house from friends that were out of the country. We paid exactly their mortgage payment (plus utils and I did and paid for handyman level stuff, they covered big stuff), which was $600 a month less than the market rate for places a step down in quality.

  Once we left I told them to increase the rent by $200 for higher insurance and a real handyman and whatever else and it’s still a huge favor to anyone they get by word of mouth only. The next couple thought they had won the lottery scoring a place for almost $5000 a year less than the rest of the area.

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• huquad@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’ve seen a recent finance bro fad saying renting and investing is better than owning. My brother in Christ my rent was much higher than my mortgage for a shittier spot and I didn’t get equity.

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