Jesus fuck the amount of limp noodles here. You're so dominated by the owner class that even your dreams are subservient.
People need temporary housing sometimes, yes that is true. I am not sure what sort of cosmic fucking roller coaster you get on in order to go from that to privatisation of land is good actually.
It's so sad. There are ways for things to be upkept, developed, innovated on whatever that don't involve private ownership.
Not everything has to be owned, even if something has a profit motive things can be held in common.
Capitalist realism is such a major bummer, people think they're being bold by asking for slightly more of the pie the baked. In a sense it is, because of how screwed we are, but like my friends... we baked the damn pie.
Being a landlord is supposed to be a job though. They're supposed to maintain the property and handle property related disputes between the tenant and the community. The problem is landlords aren't held to their obligations and are allowed to treat it as a passive investment. Liability for landlords and their property managers needs to be increased. Require a licence for landlording that can be revoked.
These things are tiring because renting a place is a job and has expenses. I have had some good landlords. Like these two sisters that owned a four flat and lived in the building themselves. Like any job though it can be done poorly. Like this other guy who owned several flats including the 6 flat I was in and did not live there but did live in the area. And then I had an accountant who owned an apartement complex and was great but in another corp owned complex it was aweful. The better ones had folks who were mostly trying not to lose money and were more concerned with having good tenants. The bad ones looked to maximize profits to the detriment of everything else.
Had an old landlord keep my deposit when I moved out just because they could. We left the apartment absolutely spotless and never damaged anything. In fact, we added value by fixing a couple small things. Didn’t matter.
We wet-vacuumed the carpets and everything. We were pissed. Never had any issues with the landlord and were always good tenants. They just decided they liked money over everything else.
Double property taxes on owners, but give back a property tax credit on owner-occupants, so that the effective tax rate on owner occupants falls, and the only people paying the doubled tax rate are investors.
Statutorily increase the tax rate and credit when owner occupancy is below 80%, and reduce the tax rate and credit when owner occupancy rises above 90%.
Based take. You kill parasites (ticks leeches lice) not try to manage them or give them rules that they wont follow anyway. I got downvoted in a different community with the same post by a bunch of landlord bootlickers by describing what a fuckin drain landlords are on society
A big reason this happens is because...they can do it.
Increase overall housing supply enormously through better zoning laws, and increase affordable housing supply by having ~30% of housing be government-owned at a reasonable cost, and it becomes much less viable to raise rent a bunch.
Defense in depth. One's a more difficult target and it'd be foolish to abandon a near term improvement because we want a better option 10 years down the road. Do both.
So long as you have blood, ticks will try to bite you. Increasing the taxes would be a good way to increase tax revenue, and we should do it, and corporate real estate investors will fight it like hell, but there isn't any reason to think it will discourage predatory behaviors.
If they can make more money selling and lending on the property, you get the 2008 bubble all over again.
Capitalists are going to capitalize. Regulation is the only weapon against abuse. Taxes are a good start, but it won't be enough.
Yes, and no. They are more likely to switch to a different strategy, such as a private mortgage or land contract. Large apartment complexes will likely convert to condominiums or co-ops.
Basically, if we raise the rate and credit high enough, the landlord will be able to get a better return with one of these other options than they could get from renting.
All of these other options are permanent agreements, with terms established from the start. The landlord can't arbitrarily raise rent every year. The tenant gains equity from day one.
Basically, I'm killing the concept of renting. It needs to die in a goddamn fire.
Landlord tax on additional home/unit. (Like vacation home).
Additional fee for vacant home/unit. Serious one like 20-50% market rate of unit per month vacant. This helps with company owned units and foreign bodies buying up real estate and hoarding it.
Additional fee/tax per extra unit owned. DISMANTLE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT FIRMS. This would cause them to sell off homes.
Use proceeds of these taxes and fees explicitly for rental assistance/home buying programs.
Yes, offsite landlords with traditional rental agreements will charge their tenants more. However, there are at least three options that are better for tenants and landlords alike.
Land Contract. A rent-to-own agreement, recorded with the county, much like a deed.
Private mortgage. Available only to individual landlords, not institutional investors.
Condominium. Deeded property on the inside, rental on the outside.
In all three, the tenant gains equity in the property over time. In all three, the terms are established at the time of the agreement, and the agreement is "permanent" in that it can only be canceled by the "tenant". The "landlord" can't arbitrarily increase the price year after year. All three offer considerably better return for the landlord after the property tax increase. The landlord and tenant convert their rental agreement to one of these options, and there is much rejoicing.
The only traditional rental arrangement that is likely to remain widespread is where the landlord occupies one unit in a duplex, triplex, or quadplex structure. That landlord can claim the owner occupant credit for the whole property while renting out the additional units.
I live in a housing org that has a relatively flat structure and there's no CEO at the top. Individual locations (often a whole block, not just one apartment) elect their own representatives and build their own rules. The central administration, the absolute top level, is a mere 2 hops away from the tenants and you can email them directly. It's not perfect, and is still subject to capitalist issues like land value being inflated, but I feel like it's alright given what we're working with.
I have to agree with those others who suggest that banning landlords is not the way to go.
However, the power dynamics should be significantly shifted. And if those shifts mean some landlords decide to exit the market? So be it.
Tenants should not be able to be evicted for any reason other than: damaging the property, being significantly (maybe 6 months?) behind on rent, the owner or an immediate family member wants to move in, significant renovations are needed (with strong enforcement to ensure these last two are actually done, and not used as a fake excuse). No ability to use evictions as a reprisal for complaining about the conditions.
Tenants should be entitled to treat the place basically as their own. That means any minor reversible modification should be permitted, including painting and hanging up photos.
No restrictions on pets other than those which would normally come with local ordinances and animal welfare laws.
Rental inspections every 3 months is absurd. Maybe the first after 3 months, then 6 months, then annually after that at best.
Strict rules about landlords being required to maintain the property to a comfortable condition. Harsh penalties if they fail to do so, as well as the ability for the tenant to get the work done themselves and make the landlord pay for it, if the landlord does not get it done in a reasonable time.
And tangentially, to prevent property owners just leaving their homes without a long-term tenant: significantly increased rates/taxes for homes that are unoccupied long-term, or which are used for short-term accommodation (e.g. Airbnb). Additionally, state-owned housing with highly affordable pricing should make up a substantial portion of the market, on the order of 30%. This provides a pretty hard floor below which privately-owned housing cannot fall, because people should be reasonably able to say "this place isn't good enough, I'll move".
If a property owner is willing to deal with the fact that a home's first and foremost purpose should be to provide a safe and secure place for a person to live, then I have no problem with them profiting.
While I hate the current state of affairs around housing, some people do lose the plot and forget that some people prefer/need to rent and that rent cant just be the mortgage payment because they're on the hook for repairs, not you.
Landlords aren't inherently the problem, they're a symptom of ALL property owners completely shutting down new development for over 50 years.
I agree with these ideas but we also need to fund development of new housing, and if anyone wants to complain instead of shutting it down extend an offer to buy their house so they can leave.
Hells yeah. That's why one of the ideas above was that the government should be a significant force in housing. Part of that might be buying up existing homes, but a lot would be funding the construction of new homes.
I didn't mention it above because while related, I considered it out of scope for that comment. But I'm also a fierce advocate for abolishing low-density zoning entirely. What my city calls "LMR" (low-medium residential) should be the bare minimum zone for residential areas. That still permits single-family separated homes to be built, but it also automatically permits 2–3 storey townhouses and apartments. Plus zoning areas near (say, within a 400 m walk of) train stations for medium-density residential. (All mixed-use, of course.)
We also need to look at how mortgage applications are handled. Like if you can pay 3k a month in rent for 2 years (not saying 2 years should be the requirement, just that if you happen to have that history) and can prove it, you should qualify for a mortgage that costs 3k a month.
The idea that affording $3k also means you can afford a $3k mortgage falls under what I'm saying about people swinging too far in the other direction - affording $3k in rent =/= affording a $3k mortgage plus taxes/insurance plus upkeep etc etc.
That being said our credit system is 100% busted. Engaging in predatory lending to build a credit score should not be the only way to "prove" financial fitness. Just because I pay my credit cards off every month doesn't mean I don't still waste like $300/mo on doordash 🤣
Agree with everything but HARD disagree with #3. Pets are not a right and so many people are HORRIBLE pet owners. And when people are bad pet owners the damage they can do it unreal, like ripping the house down to the studs type of damage. Also anything that prevents people from being bad pet owners is a win in my book. That addition to the law would be AWFUL for animal welfare and it's just not needed.
If the damage they are causing is more than superficial, that would be covered under "damaging the property" (in #1).
The point of #3 is that it shouldn't be the landlord's business how someone lives their life. Their only role is the fact that they own a house. If it's bad for the animal's welfare, that's the State's job to deal with, not someone purely with a profit motive.
When you write legislation you must look at the consequences of that legislation, not just the principals of the legislation. Otherwise you end up with horrible unintended side effects.
With your rules on not allowing access for inspection an animal could have an entire year to do damage before the owner could discover it. And then what? They make a claim against their insurance? Who will then try and go after the renter who probably doesn't have the assets to pay for the damage. As a result insurance policies will increase and that cost will get passed onto innocent renters who are paying for the crappy pet owners.
Also what do you think the enforcement mechanism for this is for "The State"? How are they going to be able to look into the living conditions of these animals? There is no good way to enforce that and it will just end up with thousands and thousands of animals being neglected. You can't just ignore the issues legislation will cause because you only care about principles. That's just ignorant and neglectful.
the owner or an immediate family member wants to move in
Abso-fucking-lutely not. A lease is a contract. You don’t get to shove someone out into being homeless because Cousin Lou needs a place to stay. Either rent/sell the property, or keep it for personal use. Not both.
Where I live, there are two types of leases. Periodic and fixed-term. Fixed-term is where you sign a lease saying you can stay for 6 months or 12 months. Theoretically longer, but those are the normal lengths. Periodic leases are indefinite, but can be broken with some notice.
That term would not be available in the middle of fixed-term leases, only on periodic. Where I live, our state government passed laws preventing "no grounds evictions", but they allowed a number of exceptions for what counts as "grounds", and one of those causes is "end of fixed-term lease". The main difference between my current state laws and the proposal above is to specifically outlaw that grounds. In fact, what's commonplace right now where I live is that you get your 6 month lease, and at the same time you get a "notice to vacate" (an eviction notice, effectively) dated 6 months from now. And if, after 4-ish months, both you and the landlord want you to stay, they cancel the notice to vacate and get you a new lease to sign. My main intent here is to outlaw this practice.
I think allowing this use in some form is important because I've seen cases where it comes up. People move elsewhere for a period of time that's long enough that it would be a bad idea (both for their personal finances and for supply of housing) to leave it empty, but not long enough that they want to sell. Think 2–5 years or so. I want to make sure that these people are as strongly incentivised to rent out their place as possible, which means removing obstacles such as "you might not be able to move back in once you return if you do rent it".
Ok, that makes more sense. Periodic I think would be the same as what I’ve heard called “month-to-month,” which does make sense to be a more tentative arrangement. I gotcha now.
Yeah month-to-month is another name for the same thing. Generally, you fall back onto a periodic lease if your fixed-term lease expires and you aren't given another fixed-term lease to sign. With our current laws where I am, a period lease is actually incredibly secure, thanks to the relatively recent "no grounds evictions" ban. The two types of leases have the same "grounds" apply to each, except that "end of fixed-term lease" is one which obviously doesn't apply to a periodic lease. So the current situation is that you get that immediate day-one "notice to vacate" because landlords desperately want to avoid you ending up on a periodic lease where you're better protected.
My changes were basically "hey, fixed-term leases shouldn't be less secure than periodic leases are".
Where i live if the owner needs the space for immediate family use, they must give three months written notice to the tenant.
Additionally the property cannot be legally rented again for three months after the tenant has moved out.
Oh, and the tenant doesn't have to pay rent for the last of those three months. And if they move out before the end of the three months, the landlord must pay the tenant an amount equalling the rent. So if you move out after 1.5months from the notice, the landlord must pay you 1.5 months rent.
And our tenancy board, usually finds in favor of the tenants in disputes.
"Owning things" is not a job, correct. Making a living owning property is not a service to society.
Doing the labour to repair property is a service. Doing the filing to keep records of usage and repair is a service. Taking a cut because your name is on a deed? That's just stealing from the people who did the work.
Playing the devil's advocate here:
Under capitalism, you could also see it as a provision of services where the landlord invests in the means of production (the building) and provides the service of letting people stay there for a certain amount of money. The offered services include the maintenance of the building. If a landlord is keeping a building poorly maintained and/or expects an over the top rent, then this is simply a bad service.
But well, this obviously doesn't work out as soon as you consider a safe place to live a basic human right that mustn't be commodified.
Well, I tried to find any arguments that could speak in favor of landlords. From the additional comments I got here it is pretty obvious that there isn't really any justification for housing to be in the hands of landlords.
It also assumes that the landlord is paying for the building with his own money instead of getting a loan.
The bank provides the money to build a house, the tenant pays the bank off and somehow at the end of this process the building belongs to the landlord.
This is the rub in some ways, but in others who risks their credit/capital and who also has the foresight to navigate the modern home building issues of financing a new home build for 2 years in many places without a shovel even hitting earth as permits and red tape are cleared? *It costs almost $100,000 just to get a permit in my North American city which the city keeps.
I chose to rent as I want to live where I want and don't want to deal with the issues of home ownership once the home is built or the taxes, however just the journey to building a home is no walk in the park and has changed a great deal since our great grandparents could just build any old house/shack they wanted on land they paid very little for as no one was living in the areas beyond the natives that once called these areas home.
I'm not even sure the cabin my grandfather built in the 70s on recreational property in a remote area that he ended up retiring to could even be built today.
In the cities where real estate pricing is through the roof due to demand, and occupancy is at record lows, those that can take the financial hit from delays and the costs to build a home are at present the only ones seeing homes being built in these conditions so the market in terrible ways have created a situation right or wrong of rewarding that initial capital investment as who else in their right mind would go through that just to have less than nothing in the end to hand it over to a tenant without a full refund of all of those costs in the first month by the tenant?
Without these builders I wonder how many renters would be able to fund paying for the land for 2 years, then the materials for building the home, and the labor, then navigate the city, and manage the builders and trades, while working at their job full time (not related to home building in many cases) while living somewhere else during this process along waiting for a close with city approval to occupy once completed which might push this to 3 years?
Paying both the bank and then your rent to live somewhere during this process isn't cheap either.
If the market relied on monthly renters for home building I suspect MANY more of us would be living in tents or campers... Which is also happening in the current system too but perhaps not at the same degree?
How do we as a society trigger the removal of red tape, nimbys, and fund the building costs of higher density housing might be a better question to ask as these challenges need to be tackled to see more homes built. Getting around the reward paying for the large upfront costs of building homes needs to be navigated too.
Unfortunately moving further west is no longer an option due to the west having run out for many of us.
While the risks you describe are correct, it would seem that in some places the landlord expects an annual return of around 10%. That looks like an insanely high number to me and I don't think that the risk is this big.
Wait so is... uhhh how? Like you're literally not allowed to live somewhere unless you own it?? What about short term rentals and vacations? Or is the idea that we live in some kinda socialist utopia where homes are just idk assigned to people via lottery?
There are plenty of mechanisms that can be employed (as there already are in many countries) to ensure profit is not made from essential living. You either own or have strict rent control which tends to mean many properties are publicly owned. Recreational stay is different, it is part of a hospitality industry which provides an additional service on top of what fundamental housing provides.
No, all housing should be publicly owned to prevent landlordism and accumulation of capital, so where you will be moving from and moving to will all be owned socially regardless, the way you pick which housing you will use as your personal property for that period of time or any period of time does not have to change at all from how it is now: a website.
That's the ideal. For the time being, we should have more social housing and levy massive taxes on landlords, forcing them to either sell and turn that to social housing, taking it off the "market" permanently or pay enormous taxes that: 1) Fund socialized housing, 2) Make purchasing properties as investments unprofitable and 3) Fund building more (alongside nationalizing construction).
I used the words "socialize", "nationalized" and "publicly owned" interchangeably here. The answers differ on who you ask, but the above is what we should be doing, IMO.
I'll live in a soviet bloc flat and travel by cool green electric tram anytime over being a rentoid in some mcmansion in bumfuck nowhere and rent out a ford f-150 to go to my job at Walmart, lmao.
Fund building more (alongside nationalizing construction).
Fancy houses will still cost money as long as money exists, after communism it would likely be lottery or waitlists. The 8 bedroom with a coastal city view is probably turned into a short term vacation spot rather than a personal residence.
OoooOOOoooo democratic management of property is sooo tyrannical. The people who would have otherwise inherited a car dealership are going to have to enact a vengeful counterrevolution against the masses.
Sorry for pretending you were engaging in good faith at first.
I am, you're the one who is being delusional and thinking people inherently will work together to provide for each other without any sort of reward system. You seem to be under the impression that we would need a whole new system of gov. To accomplish this. When it can be done today already but isn't happening because no one wants to do free labor for each other. You seem to think everyone who has something nowadays hasn't worked for it and has inherited it...
Tankies? I don't see you posting any socdem or anarchist rhetoric, just neoliberal stuff and arguing against socialized housing which is as leftist unity as it gets.
The "human nature" argument is so old Marx literally debunked it before communism was even really a word.
But I understand feeling depressed about everything. The power of capital seems inescapable and it feels like oppression and fascism is human destiny. Perhaps instead of a cold dialectical analysis, may I suggest "Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution" by Peter Kropotkin instead? I think it's a more emotive and soulful piece of writing that may just for a moment restore your faith in the fact that there are at least some people out there who really just want things to be better, not just to be in charge, and that perhaps such a drive exists within all of us to different capacities. I don't want to run anything, I just want housing security.
Having housing is a worthy goal. But communism is not the way to it. Marx didn't debunk shit, because all tries for communism have failed because of human nature. Someone will always want what others have. Hell even the damn bible called this out.
Actually read Marx before you call people tankies then.
Someone will always want what others have.
Called trade, a feature of communism, not exploitation, a feature of capitalism.
Also lol "source: even the damn bible" and your, like, vibes about like, 'human nature', man (which isn't a real thing btw, there's no unifying human experience actually) isn't very convincing.
I have read Marx, and acting like people who subscribe to his trash aren't tankies is hilarious. You are a tankie if you do. And please show me where this perfect utopia has occurred in history. There is and always will be exploited people. The real world doesn't exist in your wannabe utopia, because if it could, it would have happened already. You can do exactly what you're talking about, but it requires force to get done. They did it in the USSR and people were miserable and still cleaning up that shit even 30 years later. Only people who have never lived through it, think communism is cool.
Oh okay so you're an anti-communist neolib shill lol. I guess actual tankies (auth-left as opposed to anarchists) were right and neolibs do use it as derogatory against all communists.
if it could, it would have happened already
Please show me where it happened
Yeah this is reasonable and normal to think about landing on the moon in the 1800s. Great rhetoric bud.
I'm from Russia btw, born in USSR. Fash/neolib post-western-shock-therapy Russia of today and Putin is cringe. USSR was mostly cringe. USA also cringe. Has nothing to do with leftism, anarchism or the works of Marx or Kropotkin or Emma Goldman or Rosa Luxembourg etc etc. Still being communist and criticizing the USSR is just being normal and having critical thinking, rather than treating ideology as football teams lol.
Oh okay so you're an anti-communist neolib shill lol. I guess actual tankies (auth-left as opposed to anarchists) were right and neolibs do use it as derogatory against all communists.
I don't subscribe to any political leaning. I continually find myself to be more of a mutt of political ideologies than one thing. All communism ends with authoritarianism. Otherwise it would have worked by now.
Yeah this is reasonable and normal to think about landing on the moon in the 1800s. Great rhetoric bud.
Lol what the fuck does the moon landing have to do with a economic form of gov? Capitalism was around way before we landed on the moon...and so was communism.
I'm from Russia btw, born in USSR. Fash/neolib post-western-shock-therapy Russia of today and Putin is cringe.
Cool, i have tons of family from ex ussr block states. The ussr left them in shambles because of failed Communism that was forced upon them. They are still to this day dealing with it.
USSR was mostly cringe.
Mostly? Lol
USA also cringe.
Sure we have our faults.
Has nothing to do with leftism, anarchism or the works of Marx or Kropotkin or Emma Goldman or Rosa Luxembourg etc etc. Still being communist and criticizing the USSR is just being normal and having critical thinking, rather than treating ideology as football teams lol.
Sounds more like you're treating them as a football team... communism to you is your team, you've made that clear.
Are you silly, or just a child? Like people pre-wright brothers would say that about heavier than air flight. People used to say that about moon landing too, hence why I brought it up. I don't want to embarrass you by chewing that analogy further.
communism is your team
Yes and?
This doesn't prevent me from thinking critically and saying things like "Stalin bad on gay rights" and "holodomor is genocide" while also saying "Lenin good on gay rights" or that the USSR had great housing and public transport, especially when you consider it was just barely industrialised and fought through a brutal land war and would go on to beat the US to space.
I don't subscribe
Nah man, you're just ignorant of what you're talking about and that's why you think you're a mix of ideologies, even though ideologies exist for a reason as more or less logically complete systems of thought, you're not some enlightened centrist.
I can't fix this for you and you don't seem to want to fix it. Have a nice day.
Are you silly, or just a child? Like people pre-wright brothers would say that about heavier than air flight. People used to say that about moon landing too, hence why I brought it up. I don't want to embarrass you by chewing that analogy further.
Ah you're one of those tankies who thinks that because it's not the 1800s Communism will magically work....sure thing champ...so the people who are the GOP, where do they fit into all of this? Do you plan on launching them into space?
Yes and?
This doesn't prevent me from thinking critically and saying things like "Stalin bad on gay rights" and "holodomor is genocide" while also saying "Lenin good on gay rights" or that the USSR had great housing and public transport, especially when you consider it was just barely industrialised and fought through a brutal land war and would go on to beat the US to space.
Hahahahahaha holy fuck you're insane. The USSR had great housing....fucking ROFL, some of my family who lived through that shit show are still dealing with it today. You're so delusional it's hilarious.
Nah man, you're just ignorant of what you're talking about and that's why you think you're a mix of ideologies, even though ideologies exist for a reason as more or less logically complete systems of thought, you're not some enlightened centrist.
Lol sure thing champ. You're the type who wants this shit because you'd be the one thinking you're going to be running the show...got bad news for you, you're the one living in the slums while farming for the rich dickheads running the show.
I can't fix this for you and you don't seem to want to fix it. Have a nice day.
From each according to their ability to each according to their need. I.e. if you move to study at a university in a particular city, obviously you have more reason to live in the vicinity than someone who does not, same goes for work etc. It's really very simple.
Before you or some other poster ITT proceeds to go on about how this is limiting freedom and lack of personal choice, I will pre-emptively shut it down by pointing out that under capitalism most people have absolutely zero choice as to where to live, they can either afford it or they cannot, hence being "priced out" of even renting in cities if not entire areas of the country, and even if you argue that those people always have the freedom to switch to higher paid jobs, that leads to obvious societal problems where no one wants to work minimum wage jobs which are still valuable and need to be done, i.e. cleaners, teachers etc.
And lastly, I think that with all that idealistic theory in mind, the actual reality of the matter here in the UK for example is that there are more empty houses than people, and we could end homelessness tomorrow by simply letting people live there instead of having those be "lol line goes up" for Russian oligarchs to fund war.
I think that's a better use of assets, don't you? Hasn't capitalism failed us here?
The thought that homes don’t require upkeep is insane. I’ve lived in my home for just five years and have spent tens of thousands in just maintenance alone.
Yes, but you don't pay a landlord and a cleaner and a plumber the same, why?
Because they derive value not from their labour but from supply and demand, thus those who own assets derive value primarily from the rarity of such assets. This pressure for increasing rarity is why capitalism is a failure where the overall trend is downward, where the few hoard assets they get off other assets, and the masses who trade in their labour have that labour become increasingly less and less valuable.
Okay, I'll bite. I own a house. Now suppose I buy another house. It's empty. It's not someone else's home. Under the proposed rule ("you don’t get to own somebody else’s home"), I can't rent the house-shaped building to someone as a residence. So now instead, I'm turning the second house into a pig farm and hiring laborers to raise and slaughter pigs on it, because the state insists that I have to put the land to work. [That's what property tax is.]
I'm still profiting off of someone else's labor, the would-be tenant is homeless, and I'm destroying a neighborhood. Somehow this doesn't seem like a win to me--for anyone.
I am strongly in favor of protections for tenants: no one should be constructively evicted, rents should be controlled everywhere, and price-fixing by landlord cartels should result in prison sentences. BUT rental residences arise as a natural consequence of the freedom to contract. The solution to slumlords who fund entire generations of descendents by lucking into a valuable tower at the turn of the century is not "getting rid of landlords." It's just tax.
Full disclosure: I'm not a landlord, but I've both rented and am fortunate enough to own my own home now. I have also litigated both sides of evictions. I've seen bad landlords put the screws to impoverished tenants, and I've also seen spiteful tenants utterly destroy properties with essentially no recourse. This is not a problem you solve with magical thinking.
"Many" is the operative word there. It's not all--not by a manure-covered mile. If you ever want to do a deep dive down a fun legislative rabbit-hole, dig into right-to-farm law, agricultural zoning, and the history of nuisance litigation. I might not be able to put a hog farm next to a tenement building downtown in a major metropolitan (or I might be surprised to find that, in fact, I can, if I'm willing to pony up for the land), but there are plenty of places where I could.
In any event, the example is ultimately hypothetical. The point is that trying to exterminate landlords can have disastrous knock-on effects, foreseen or otherwise.
Rant warning (that's the end of the response; the rest is just venting about inequality).
It's no accident that the American Dream is about owning land. Land ownership is central to our national identity, born as we are out of generations of homesteaders, tenant-farmers, explorers, slaves, and frontiersmen who rightly made no distinction between the tyranny of the plantation and that of the feudal lord (and that of the modern slumlord). Everyone wants land, and who can blame them? For a hundred-thousand years, owning land has been the best, most reliable route to prosperity and, ultimately, generational wealth.
The problem isn't that landlords exist. It's that landlords are rich. And notably, it's absolutely not all of them. I don't really have any beef with a professional who does well, retires, and buys a little summer house he rents out to vacationers eight months out of the year. The fact that it's a profitable undertaking doesn't really unravel the social fabric, since the profit motive is the only reason vacation homes exist for people (like me) who want them and have yet to save up enough to buy one outright.
Ultimately the problem is, as always, wealth disparity. A vacation home isn't a big deal. A monopoly on an entire vacation community, however, is a different matter, because with it comes price fixing, capture of the local government, corruption, abuse, and all the worst consequences of gentrification--you know, capitalism. And again, it's a problem you solve by taxing hoards of wealth, whether they're in any individual's pocket or hidden in a corporate offshore vault or securities labyrinth. It's a problem we already solved a generation or two ago: Accumulate more wealth, pay more taxes, and continue to pay progressively more taxes until the profit motive is completely overshadowed by the societal benefit (via tax) of the new wealth generated. If you own a building in midtown Manhattan, you should get to pocket only the tiniest fraction of the rents it brings in. Not profitable enough? Then sell it. Plenty of the rest of us will stand in line to take it off your hands. Your corporation that hoovers up neighborhoods all over the country is suddenly in the red because a society-serving tax regime punishes you for said hoovering? Guess you better sell off some homes and watch the market correct itself.
All of that is to say that landlords serve an important function in an ordered society--providing the temporary use of otherwise unused land to persons who have not yet accumulated enough wealth to own their own land outright. We should not aspire to do away with that function, but rather simply to tax rent-seeking at a level that serves the society at large. It should be profitable to own a vacation home. It should never be profitable to own six.
Just because you can't rent it doesn't mean you can't use it as part of an investment vehicle. You can offer a private mortgage or land contract, for example. In either case, the occupant of the property is the deed holder. The terms of the agreement are permanent, and established from the start. You can't arbitrarily increase the cost year after year. They earn equity from day one. You earn interest on the value borrowed from you.
Oh there are plenty of ways to make a property profitable. Selling it--which is both of the examples you offered--is one of the worst ways, however, and that's why those fortunate enough to own land tend to pursue alternatives first. If you stop them from being able to rent by fiat, they're not going to sell as a result. They'll do something else profitable--and probably unsavory--instead.
Lending != Selling. You're looking only at the sale, and ignoring the loan. Lending is an extremely good way of earning a profit.
My approach does not stop renting by fiat. I would double property taxes, and provide a commensurate owner-occupant credit, so the tax rate on your dwelling doesn't increase, or even reduces. I would statutorily adjust that rate and credit, targeting an owner-occupancy rate of 85%.
The investment market is going to be focused on figuring out how to get a renter's name on the deed so they can get that credit.
Meanwhile, an onsite landlord, living in one unit of a duplex, triplex, or quadplex is able to underbid any offsite landlords for his remaining units.
A land contract is a sale. So is a private mortgage. I don't want to be condescending here, but it's not unreasonable to expect that you know what those terms mean when you use them as examples. Your regime also expects that the seller carry the note (which in every or almost every jurisdiction is how a land contract works now--it's almost indistinguishable from a mortgage as a matter of law--and in any jurisdiction where I'm wrong about this, it's worse for the buyer anyway). If the seller is put in a position where you're trying to incentivize them to sell, demanding that they bear additional risk and cost isn't going to do that. I also assume you understand that this scenario increases the likelihood that the seller is the one left holding the bag if the bad credit purchaser defaults. Is it fair to assume the purchaser has bad credit? Yes, because purchasers with excellent credit and assets can already buy property now.
Doubling property taxes doesn't get you the result you want either. It just hurts the small owners, because property tax doesn't care how many properties you own; it only cares about the property to which it's attached. Large corporations don't care about a doubled property tax, because they can just eat it and raise the rents. They're already colluding to fix rents, and that's the whole problem. Tax credit for an occupier? Terrific. We'll put the CEO in the penthouse, put the rest of the C suite in our other penthouses downtown, and use the extra cash for stock buybacks.
What's actually needed is a wealth tax. Don't penalize someone for owning a nice house. Penalize them for owning thirty houses.
Now, I agree in principle that more people should be able to own land, and I also agree that the current situation in which land is being increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer ultra-rich entities is unsustainable (and heinous, besides). But the "if you're currently a landlord, you should be forced to sell your property to whoever you might otherwise rent it to" just doesn't work. You simply can't make it attractive enough, because you can't change the reality that most renters just can't afford to buy the property. If they could, the problem wouldn't exist. If I own valuable property, there's no magic hand-waving you can do that is going to make me want to sell to someone who can't afford it, because I know they can't afford it! All putting their name on the deed does is ensure that the property gets sold when they default on the note, and whoever's holding the note has to cry foreclosure (and guess what? That does cost money and labor to the mortgagee, since the defaulting buyer is probably bankrupt/judgment proof).
So I'll just turn the place into a hog farm instead. Now instead of renting the house I inherited from the last generation to another family while I wait for my kids to grow up (a situation I expect to find myself in within the next decade or two), I'm instead going to find another way to make it valuable. There's no universe in which I'm going to sell it. I feel like that kind of scenario accounts for a lot of the upper middle class in the next fifty years, all else being the same. Putting those folks in the same boat with the corporate landlords is shooting your agenda in the foot.
A private mortgage involves a sale, but a private mortgage is the loan associated with the sale, and not the sale itself. The sale of the property may not be particularly lucrative, but the loan certainly can be, especially with subprime loans that commercial lenders won't touch.
also assume you understand that this scenario increases the likelihood that the seller is the one left holding the bag if the bad credit purchaser defaults.
Buyer/borrower defaults, lender/seller forecloses and sells the property again. Seller isn't holding the bag. Seller is holding the house.
Hog farm
You keep talking about a hog farm. Under my scheme, to avoid the higher non-occhpant tax on residential properties, you would have to rezone. I've never found anywhere that will allow you to rezone from residential to agricultural, so you'd have to go to commercial or industrial to avoid the residential tax hike, but the property taxes on commercial and industrial are considerably higher than residential, and both are currently declining in value. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Doubling property taxes doesn't get you the result you want either. It just hurts the small owners, because property tax doesn't care how many properties you own; it only cares about the property to which it's attached. Large corporations don't care about a doubled property tax, because they can just eat it and raise the rents
Tax rate isn't just doubled. It's statutorily increased so long as owner occupancy rate is below 85%. To keep their margins, they will need very high rental rates and very high occupancy rates, and those two are inversely correlated. The higher the rent, the more pressure they have to buy. Meanwhile, all these former landlords are looking for someone to put on a deed so they can save on their taxes.
Such a tax will decimate returns on institutional investors. They'll jump ship quickly, throwing their dollars at the next highest return.
No, the investors who stay in the industry will turn to private lending, or convert their rental units to condos, which can be sold instead of rented.
The hog farm is a hypothetical example. Getting hung up on it doesn't change the reality that there are alternative uses of property that don't require new zoning. In places where they don't exist they will be made to exist, because people will sooner burn down their properties than give them away.
And you're now suggesting that instead of renting, property owners should hold the notes on subprime mortgages? Your position is "If you're creditworthy enough to own a second home, you should be forced to sell it to someone who can't afford it and carry a note yourself at tremendous risk that an American bank knows better than to hold." You were alive in 2008, right? You want a Depression? That's how you get a Depression. When you find yourself advertising subprime mortgages in order to make your scheme work, don't you think that might be a good time to reevaluate?
The seller isn't holding the house when the buyer defaults. The seller is holding the house, the buyer's damages to the house, the cost of the foreclosure, and the cost of deficiency litigation against the defaulting buyer who is probably judgment-proof, and that's assuming the seller doesn't also lose the house at foreclosure, since a foreclosure is a public sale. So the seller carries all of the risk while the unqualified buyer gets the equity. I don't even own any land to rent, but fuck that. I'd sooner let it sit empty. The only people making money in that environment are real estate lawyers.
And none of this even considers that currently, a creditworthy seller statistically has given her own mortgage on the rental property in the first place, and that means the seller can't finance the house herself because she can't transfer good title to anyone without paying off her own note first. That's a problem that doesn't exist for, you guessed it, landlords. That scenario exists to currently enable people to buy second homes and generate wealth for their families, and it's impossible in your regime in which apparently the upper middle class should not exist at all.
The bottom line is that your scheme is a disaster. I don't say that to be mean. It's just out of touch with economic reality. People can't afford houses, and forcing landlords to sell their land doesn't make people able to afford it. Credit and lending isn't made up. It's based on actual risk assessment, and forcing landlords to bear that risk while also losing their land isn't a transfer of wealth to vulnerable populations or younger generations. It's an erasure of wealth by procedure, bureaucracy, and waste.
And the owner-occupier thing? You know people can lie about their residency and building occupancy, right?
Your scheme, if implemented, would not solve the housing crisis. It targets the wrong people, it's economically indefensible, and most importantly, it destroys class solidarity thay would otherwise exist between small landowners and renters. The only thing you might accomplish is a tremendous wave of violence, because I think I can speak for a lot of Americans here:
I have been tremendously, exceedingly fortunate and privileged to buy land. I wish everyone were so fortunate. I worked very hard for it. Other members of my family have also, and as much as I dread it, eventually I may inherit a second home that has been in my family for generations and was paid for by decades of backbreaking labor by my ancestors. When that day comes, I may rent one of these properties until my son is old enough to live there with his family. That's the entirety of my retirement and investment strategy. My savings will simply not be enough on their own.
And your scheme suggests instead that I should be forced to sell to someone who may well fail to pay for it. No thanks. That's a nonstarter, and it's a nonstarter for everyone whose story even remotely resembles mine. In my part of the world, that's the story of every house in the county. Your scheme doesn't work for the simple reason that people here would sooner overthrow the government than let it stand.
I will never deed these properties away. They are paid for with my family's blood. If you want to take the land from me or anyone similarly situated, you're going to have to do it with guns.
That's an attitude that can only exist for small landowners. Maybe we should try a scheme that doesn't put them on the same footing with institutional investors. I really don't like being on the same side of an issue as an investment bank. --but I like it a lot more than your plan to set the middle class back a hundred years.
And you're now suggesting that instead of renting, property owners should hold the notes on subprime mortgages?
By and large, renters already have subprime credit. Landlords are already taking the risk on renters who would be subprime borrowers. That's how they are making their money: exploiting people who don't have the savings or income to qualify for lending.
Landlords aren't taking on any additional risk by lending to them vs renting to them. They are actually reducing their risk, as the same person as a buyer has more to lose than they would as a renter. Further, a stable mortgage payment becomes more affordable over time, as the borrower's income increases.
and that's assuming the seller doesn't also lose the house at foreclosure, since a foreclosure is a public sale.
That's the stupidest thing you've said. Yes, it's a public sale, and the beneficiary of that sale is the lender. The first bid at a foreclosure sale is always the lender, who bids what they are owed, including the foreclosure costs.
The only way the seller loses the house is if someone over bids them (or they are too stupid to bid the full amount they are owed) But if they are overbid, they receive the proceeds from the sale, and are made whole.
You don't get to talk about damage to the property: landlords have the same risk. The cost and process of a foreclosure is similar to that of an eviction, and the higher interest rate the buyer is paying more than covers it. Further, you're ignoring mortgage insurance that buyers would have to pay for as well.
And the owner-occupier thing? You know people can lie about their residency and building occupancy, right
Sure. That would be tax fraud. Property taxes are public records. Anyone can look up who was claiming what. Including the actual occupant of the property you say you live in, or the neighbor you pissed off. And when they look it up, you're on the hook for all the credits you claimed.
I'd sooner let it sit empty.
That attitude is a problem. You are contributing to the problem. You should be financially discouraged from this problematic course of action.
, it destroys class solidarity thay would otherwise exist between small landowners and renters.
There is no class solidarity between renters and landowners, nor should there be. The relationship of landowner to renter is the same as the relationship between tick and dog, fly and horse, mosquito and human.
Much like "impoverished child" or "battered spouse", "renter" is a class that should not exist, and for much the same reason.
Solidarity between the people you describe is best achieved by converting the renters into landowners.
Even without going full 'free housing for everyone' utopia, it would be nice if the rent students currently pay to landlords was recoverable when the space is no longer needed. The same way people paying mortgages can just sell their house even before it is fully paid off.
We wouldn't need to drastically reshape society in order to allow people to invest in their own futures rather than shovelling most of what they have into a landlord's pocket.
Even in a Socialist system, it would not be "utopia" or other such idealistic nonsense. It would be similar to current housing markets, just without a profit motive and thus a desire to satisfy needs over gaining income. Much lower rent costs (maintenance and building new housing), but you still apply for housing based on availability.
