ID: A Sophie Labelle 4 panel comic featuring Stephie in different poses, saying:
Landlords do not provide housing.
They buy and Hold more space than they need for themselves.
Then, they create a false scarcity and profit off of it.
What they’re doing is literally the opposite of providing housing.
I don’t really want to pay for a house and experience all the expenses that come with it. Owning a house involves paying out of pocket for maintenance whereas when renting, you can have the landlord take care of that for you, and it doesn’t involve paying whoever comes to fix your stuff.
Additionally, owning a house would basically anchor me to one location, which gives me less flexibility as a digital nomad.
If you value home equity then buying a house is definitely ideal. But this isn’t the case for everyone.
…oh, sorry. I forgot this is Lemmy and that you can’t have a different opinion under any circumstance. My bad!
Your rent is quite literally paying for the maintenance. You think landlords are just losing money on maintenance out of the good of their own hearts? Of course not, it’s just all bundled up and averaged out into one price with your rent.
Cool, that’s one of many benefits of housing cooperatives. They can act similarly to a landlord in terms of you sharing the cost of repairs with the whole building, which reduces risk, and they don’t have a profit motive, since they’re non-profits, so rent is lower than with a landlord. Some even let your rent buy you equity in your unit, which you can then sell later to get some of your money back if you decide to move, much better than the for-profit landlord that will give you nothing. The only issue is, these cooperatives are repeatedly outbid by corporate landlords, which means there’s far fewer of them than would be ideal.
Additionally, I’ve seen some startups like Cohere that seem like they’ll eventually be able to give you even more flexibility, allowing you to move between units in various locations without having to sell the old one or file annoying paperwork to start a new lease, with at least somewhat cooperative ownership. (although, of course, this is a for profit company, which isn’t as ideal)
I can definitely understand wanting flexibility, but there are ways to get that which don’t involve overpaying to a for-profit landlord. I can understand not caring much about equity, but of course, that’s why non-ownership housing cooperatives exist.
But to actually make those things more widely available, you need to reduce the market power held by for-profit landlords. If they did not exist, these alternatives, primarily the cooperatives, could fill back in the gaps, but provide lower prices, better service, actual equity for those who want it, and still keep the flexibility you get from renting.
Those costs are almost certainly built into your rent. It’s not free. You also risk the landlord just not fixing things.
True, although likely spread over a longer period of time and over multiple tenants. You’re not paying for the new roof after just renting a couple of years for example.
Where I live, the break-even point is about 3 years last I checked where it’s cheaper to rent assuming you could buy if you wanted to (realtor fees are a part of this since they essentially run a cartel, speaking of parasites…). That’s assuming no major maintenance needed otherwise that changes the math.
however if a pipe freezes it’s (generally) on the landlord to fix and pay for the repairs.
You’re not wrong, you’re just not participating in the same conversation.
Like if someone says “Hey, Disney World is an abusive and corrupt enterprise” and you reply “But I like going to Disney World and I don’t want to close it down”.
There should be a way to address the problems without abolishing the whole thing.
But if we can’t even admit the problems because we’re afraid of where it will lead, we’re never going to improve anything.
You’re right. I suppose I should just read into it more. I was just frustrated that I’ve been seeing these frequently on my homepage and felt like I had to comment
I can understand that.
There are very real problems with the rental situation in the US, even for people who prefer renting, but the news seems to only talk about the frustration of home-buyers-in-waiting constantly getting scooped by corporate investors.
There’s significant overlap in these problems, of course, but it’s not fair or productive to paint all renters as “failed home-buyers”, even if it seems like it should bolster the movement by inflating the numbers.
It’s okay that you don’t want to own a house. Those are legitimate practical concerns that you bring up. Certainly renting comes with some conveniences, like being able to move, not having to worry about utilities, repairs etc. (although, if you have a bad landlord, you may still have to worry about that stuff)
But at the end of the day, you are still paying for someone else’s ownership of an asset and thereby increasing their wealth at the expense of your own. They are leveraging your need for shelter to increase their own personal wealth. It’s not about the pros and cons of renting vs buying. It’s about the inherently unequal material relationship between you and your landlord.
If there are alternate options for renting a place, then I’m open to hear it. As of now, though, simply walking up to someone and asking to rent their place seems like the easier and more straightforward option.
I am only speaking from experience here. I understand the situation varies from person to person. I’m not personally concerned with my own wealth. I have found apartments with comfortable monthly rent, and I have found places that don’t seem to have a fair rent that I’ve quickly moved out of. I can afford groceries and save a bit for some personal expenses. So far, I have had no negative experiences with any landlord I’ve rented from despite the rent pricing.
If it’s the idea of landlords owning places and offering them for rent that people here are bothered about, then I’m not sure I understand their perspective. I respect it nonetheless, but I suppose I am just not as frustrated as most people are with the situation
Public housing. Well funded, well run, public housing. Rip out the profit motive.
You probably have to remove all the conservatives from power first because they ideologically do not want a government that does good things.
Also probably repeal faircloth, which arbitrarily limits how much public housing there can be.
how does public housing work? will is shove some standard rules down our throats? will it prevent alternative payment methods such as food?
Yeah, we’re speaking on different terms here. I have also had a good overall experience renting, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with crux of the issue, which is that landlords exploit a renter’s need for shelter at their own personal gain. We rationalize this by claiming things like “well, the landlord offers a service,” but not really, because for the most part the landlord does not need to do any work, they just need to invest money, which in turn increases the value of their property, anyways. Everything they do increases their own personal wealth. That’s not to mention the concentration of wealth and power that landlords perpetuate.
This isn’t to say all landlords are bad people. We are all taught to make our money work for us, to try to achieve passive income, etc. in order to get out of the rat race. That doesn’t change the fact that the relationships that landlords and renting creates are inherently unequal and therefore wrong.
I don’t think I agree with your conclusion here. Some relationships are going to be inherently unequal, and that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong. Take the doctor-patient relationship as an example. If I’m in need of life saving medical care, the doctor has far more power in that relationship. For me it’s “buy or die” while for him, not treating me has essentially no negative consequences. This relationship isn’t “wrong”, it’s just unequal due to its nature.
With landlords (and with the medical industry), it’s not that the relationship is inherently wrong, it’s just extremely open to abuse due to that unequal nature. It’s the abuse that’s wrong, not the relationship itself.
I’ll have to think about that…you may be right.
Although, the doctor-patient relationship does come up fairly often in anarchist thought. I think it falls under “justified hierarchy.” In this case, it is justified because the relationship is meant to end equally (ie the patient is cured, and the inequality between doctor-patient ends). Similar with parent-child, teacher-student relationships.
But your point about unequal relationships not being inherently wrong still stands…gotta think about it! thanks
I understand the issue. I suppose I’m just not as concerned as the people in this forum are. When I saw this meme I was only thinking about the practicality of renting vs owning a place. I can see why most people are upset about my view of things, but then I was already aware people would be downrating me for showing my perspective. Regardless I felt like i needed to express my opinion nonetheless. I see a lot of these on my homepage
I think people are just upset you don’t align ideologically with them, even if you’re not necessarily ideologically opposite. Plus we’re in Lefty Memes, so I think many of them probably expect you to be ideologically in-line. I wouldn’t take it to heart. But if you find yourself interested, The Conquest of Bread by Pyotr Kropotkin has some really good thoughts about land ownership, and kinda pushes back against many of the ideas we are brought up in today.
Edit: Oh! here it is online http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/ch6.html
Yeah, I expected this to happen so I’m indifferent about the negative replies. Thanks for the recommendation though, I’ll start to give it a read on my break.
Ok, I’m genuinely confused. Without some kind of landlord, how can people live in homes they don’t want to own? Would the state or the federal government own, maintain, and rent out unowned homes? Or would there be a free-for-all of free abandoned homes and if you want to live in one, you’d be responsible for making it livable? Or…?
Well, I can’t summarize all the possible alternatives, because I don’t realistically know all of them or all their pros and cons. Certainly one of them is communal-style state-owned housing. Another would be the more free-for-all style you describe, with an emphasis on mutual aid, I’d imagine. That’s probably the one I’d go for, because I tend to think the state is generally an oppressive force. Ultimately though our idea of private ownership of land would probably have to go out the window.
You should check out Pyotr Kropotkin’s chapter in The Conquest of Bread on Dwellings, really good book overall: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/ch6.html
EVERY capitalist thing exploits your need for something you don’t have.
Don’t have a big enough car to move all of your stuff? You rent one.
Don’t have your own lawnmower? You hire someone to provide the service.
Don’t have a tool to repair your car? You rent it.
Literally, that’s the whole point. They’re leveraging something they have (that might have some difficulty to obtain) - to make money from it. We do it with everything.
That’s literally what services are too - you renting someone’s knowledge to do something you don’t have the expertise or tools to do. It’s literally the founding center of trade.
When I say need, I’m talking about hard needs. Food, shelter, medical care, etc.
I don’t consider any of the things that you list as a need (yes, a person may need those things in the moment, but they are not human needs. Those are where the moral argument, for me, comes into play)
But you are right, capitalism is essentially the interaction between a buyers demand for something and an owners supply.
Those are human needs, sure - but those things still take resources to make. Take away all of civilization, and everyone since the dawn of time has had to put in effort to be able to attain those things. I agree with, and understand the need to ensure that housing is affordable – but I don’t think scapegoating landlords is the way to go about doing it. It’s the same thing the right does with blaming immigrants for takin’ der jerrbs.
I’d much rather blame the government for not putting guardrails on the practice, or not spending our tax dollars in making affordable housing. If we can have HOAs, surely we can get the government to build housing, and sell it to single-families with stipulations that ownership can only ever be put in a single-family’s name, etc. That would drive down demand, also driving down prices.
That’s the whole deal with abortions now too - LINE MUST GO UP!! – they don’t care about children, they care about making line go up. If line keeps going up though, things are unaffordable.
Hell, remember $15/hr min wage? If we carried that with inflation, everyone would be making $25/hr MINIMUM today. If everyone was making $25/hr minimum, houses would look a lot more affordable to us. There’s a whole plethora of abuses we need to be tackling.
Its true that shelter, food, and health require some level of labor, but I don’t think that justifies small numbers of individuals controlling the means of producing those things or the ownership of the things, themselves, and then withholding them from others unless they are compensated. I don’t think its true that everyone has to put in effort to attain these things – I mean look at the very young and the very old! They shouldnt have to be put to work in order to be housed, clothed, fed, cured. I’d argue, in fact, the exact opposite of what you said – that humans have collectively worked together since the dawn of time to ensure children and elderly are taken care of, and people are fed, clothed, sheltered, etc. and in many cases, those societies had no concept of ownership or money, at all.
I do take a bit of umbrage with your wording about scapegoating landlords and comparing them to immigrants. I’d be really hesitant to compare those who have a high amount of power with those who have almost no power, at all. Scapegoating would imply that landlords do no damage to renters, when they in fact extract wealth from them for the enrichment of the landlord, while also wielding power over them in the form of eviction.
We are talking on two different planes, though, so I do understand where you’re coming from. I think you’re looking at things from a very practical and real-world standpoint, whereas I’m thinking more in theoretical, or maybe philosophical sense. I don’t think we agree ultimately but I appreciate you taking the time to write that
I guess part of my viewpoint stems from my mother starting off as a real-estate agent when I was a child - having a stroke at 32, and being unable to truly work. By racking up credit card debt, she was able to build a house and start renting it - it was a lot of work and she took a lot of risk in doing so. She rented it out in order to sustain our family - and eventually ended up giving it to my sister. You’d be surprised at how much power renters have over a house, and the difficulty in actually “extracting” anything from them. Over the years that house was destroyed by tenant after tenant, with basically no way for us to recover funds from them for the damages.
Renters can drag out the eviction process for a good 8+ months or longer, dodging service, etc. Then they live in your property and destroy it before they leave - with the landlord holding the short end of the stick. It’s not all butterflies and daisies.
On top of that, because she owned a rental, our family was ineligible for any kind of assistance programs - no food stamps, no childcare credits, etc.
Corporate landlords, are the ones who gobble up massive swaths of housing and raise prices. But landlords is a pretty broad brush to paint with, and I’ve seen the flip side of this coin.
Landlords themselves have taken some risk, or used their own savings to be able to build a house that ends up giving someone the ability to ‘digital nomad’ like they want. It’s a service in trade for money, like everything else. If it weren’t a service that someone wanted, they’d just buy a house. Many states have first time homebuyers programs, and there are still some very affordable homes that can be had on a somewhat meager wage. But - the catch with that is that you’ve gotta be willing to live below your standards for a while. That’s how I ended up in my home. Well and septic were fucked, didn’t have a kitchen, half the walls weren’t even there – And I bought it because it was still a house. Over 15 years or so I’ve put money into it here and there, and now it’s worth a lot. But I put a lot of work into it too. I basically lived in a garbage heap for the first 2 years. About 8 years ago, I got cancer. It’s difficult to work now after all the treatments. If I wanted to go take a risk and rent this out - after I did all of that work, why would that make me a bad person for wanting something I could live off of?
The renter loses a lot of the risk by renting. I take on the risk and the house provides someone with a place to live. I’ve gotta find a price to put on that to guard against a bad renter, repairs, etc.
You don’t need landlords for non-ownership and temporary housing solutions to exist.
The problem isn’t Lemmy, the problem is your insistence on remaining under a boot, and clear unwillingness to explore options beyond your existing and narrow (E: and indoctrinated by capitalism) view of the world.
For example…
For what its worth, they are not speaking on the same subject as you and I doubt they have even thought about material relationships in the same way you have. They just see buying vs renting and the practicalities of each, but not the implications on the relationship between renter and owner.
I doubt they see themselves as under a boot (I mean, I know I didn’t think that when I started renting) or that they are indoctrinated by capital. We all gotta start learning this shit somewhere. I mean I get it: Once you realize that the rat race is bullshit, it’s easy to get upset at others who are still running as if it is legitimate. But most of us were running at one point. When you lead people out, it’s gotta come from a softer place than “you are indoctrinated and live under a boot.”
That’s exactly my point. Thank you for understanding.
We all are, and that you think some people aren’t is something you should really consider with yourself.
And while I can agree with the first part, you’ve really got to check your privilege on the second.
I have all the time in the world for people who actually want to learn and know more, this person doesn’t strike me as being there, and I currently have better things to do with my time and emotional labour than spoon feed them information they’re not interested in hearing. I have no issue being blunt with people who need a slap in the face from reality.
If you have the free time and energy to bang your head against a brick wall, you be my guest, but you don’t get to decide how I spend mine.
You make a lot of assumptions for someone who is apparently willing to patiently “spoon feed” information, lol.
What a mean-spirited comment! Why would anyone listen to what you have to say when you talk to people this way? Its a shame, but hey, if you enjoy talking to people like that, I guess be my guest. I’d rather meet people where they are. Have a great day
Fuck off, landlords don’t do shit and look for every opportunity to screw you out of your deposit. sounds like you’re defending your own scummy kind.
Correct, how dare you! Landlord bad! They want something in return for providing something, how dare they!
Providing what?
Yes, landlord bad for invariably doing a low quality repair job repeatedly, the money they make off multi tenant units is way more than they pay for a lowest bidder service call.
That’s some low quality thinking, @[email protected]