No place in the US actually has the latter unless you've been letting them squat for half a decade or something, the issue is court delays and landlord's wanting to make their lot out to be worse than it is.
> No place in the US actually has the latter
Not technically, no. But there are areas (e.g. San Francisco) where getting a non-paying tenant out is close enough to impossible that it might as well be.
You absolutely can evict people in SF, unless you are discussing the recent eviction moratorium, which is not ongoing.
So a tenant might stop paying rent, a few months later you get an eviction hearing, but then the tenant pays the rent this month and promises to pay the back rent. Your eviction has just been denied.
Tenant falls back on rent again, but made a good faith effort to pay some of the back rent. Eviction denied.
Finally, tenant stops paying entirely and doesn't respond to you. You stand a pretty good chance of getting an eviction then.
Meanwhile, over the past 12 months the tenant made 2 full rent payments and a couple thousand on the $18,000 in back rent owed. They get evicted and you get to clean up the mess.
So yes, it's not impossible to evict a tenant, but it's really damn hard (unless it's for something like violence or failure to pay and no response when rent is demanded).
You're saying that it's totally fine for a renter to pay like one month out of every six months and keep doing that forever, just enough to defer evictions each time?
> The risk of being a rentier should be higher than the risk of an index tracker.
Risk and return should roughly correlate, or people will not do it. There is already very little return in renting out a house, so the risk needs to be fairly low, if society cares to have rental properties available.
> change the risk profile of being a landlord by increasing tenants' rights
What would you expect to happen as a result?
If the risk is too high to compared to the return, these rental units are simply removed from the market. Are you convinced that less available units make renters better off?
Yes. We'll need an LVT too. Adjust the market so selling is the rational choice, not hoarding.
Markets are just tools, and right now the market for property isn't serving the needs of society. So we stick our collective thumb on the scales until it does.
I think most landlords are pro tenant until they find someone who knows how to work the system. It costs them so much that they are skiddish to all renters.
It seems like it'd be obvious, but landlords don't actually produce land or provide housing. They roll in and take housing using their superior resources, then charge rent to access it.
In an ideal market, every renter would have the option of being a landlord just like every car lessor has the option of being a car owner. We just need enough housing supply to make investing in housing a risky venture instead of a government-guaranteed winner
https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e...
of course they do - they provide it by being part of the capital flow, which starts at construction. It might not be the same person, but it's a chain of financing that lead to the landlord purchasing the property.
Superior resources is just another name for capital. And you need capital to fund the construction. The landlord is just the last chain on this funding, and without them, the builders would not build (for who would be buying?).
Shelter is a cost. Everybody pays it, whether you own your own building or renting.
> every renter would have the option of being a landlord
they do if they had the capital. No one is stopping anyone from making a bid for a property - unlike back in the old days where people who were slaves were not entitled to own property as a right. The fact that some people have more capital and is willing to bid higher is how the current free market system works to allocate capital.
I bought a few shares of Pfizer, does that make me a healthcare provider?
I'm just trying to correct the mistaken view that providing capital is tantamount to doing nothing.
People are willing to take much more extreme action around housing (and food, medicine, ) than they are most other goods. They're also less likely to agree there is moral justification in profiting from these things. So even when entering these transactions (they must, after all), they may not respect the other party's profit goals.
_I_ take care of the house in this situation. The landlord doesn't shovel snow or mow grass, I do.
They do carry some of the burden specifically in taxes and liability, yes I know. I also know the maintenance responsibilities aren't inherently and legally mine, and so I can be blamed for entering a contract that requires me to do this.
Anyway though it even more shows that landlords don't inherently do anything. If they stopped maintaining it, the tenant is the one who has to live in the shitty house and will wind up fixing it.
What the landlord does is control access to housing. I don't respect or value that and you're not going to change my mind about it today.
Probably not worth asking the question in the first place, then.
There are landlords who absolutely take care of all of the maintenance - and of course there are landlords who are absentee landlords as well.
To say a landlord inherently doesn't do anything is the most ridiculous thing I've read today. Thanks for the laugh. As for your situation, stop doing work the landlord should be doing.
I'm sorry, but I am not sociopathic enough to profit from other people misfortune (not being able to to buy a roof over their heads). Not everything is about making as much money as you can squeeze from other people.
I also disagree with the silly assertion that landlords are sociopaths would you rather people be homeless? If someone is unable to afford to buy a house what should they do?
Also - are business owners sociopaths? Doctors? Farmers? Medical device makers?
I have seen some articles that it starts happening there too. For example buying houses in Detroit, through web of shell firms and sitting on them like some kind of slumlord dragon.
>I also disagree with the silly assertion that landlords are sociopaths would you rather people be homeless? If someone is unable to afford to buy a house what should they do?
I'm sorry, if you are using your economical advantage to outbid people in house market and then propose this people a rent that is higher than mortage on same house? With bonus points for squeezing them on rent so they can't save money to buy their own house(with or without mortage). Then use all that money to buy even more houses? So even more people can't afford them? Yes that a sociopathic behavior. Also word slumlord exists for a reason.
>Also - are business owners sociopaths? Doctors? Farmers? Medical device makers? Are you trying to make argument for me?
Because under capitalism only function of business is to make money for shareholders(aka. owners, this include companies not publicly traded). It's as sociopathic as it can be. If your only goal is to make more money, you are not a good person. There are owners that don't do that, but in the end they will have more disadvantages when competing with ones that do. It involves breaking the law/shady behavior if you think you can get away with that. Leaving money on the table is a sure way to get yourself a competitor that will take it and use it against you.
Farmers: there are decent ones, but if they want to squeez as much money they can from animals/crops they have, they will do some horrific stuff. Just ask yourself why there are laws popping all over the US that make it illegal to film whats going on farms(including factory ones)
Doctors: there are decent ones, as always. But there are doctors that will just come by during medical procedures in, in-network hospitals as out of the network doctor and then slam patient with horrendous bill, just for being there(or helping in some small way). Shilling to pharma companies by prescribing/overprescribing their drugs? To have a fun trip to Hawaii/other perks? Dr. Wakefield, crooks that sell bleach as cure all drug, other scam artist in white gowns? Selling dewormer as a cure for anything but worms? As I said before there are decent doctors, but also a bad ones. It's only a problem if we allow them to do this stuff and don't take any actions to stop them.
Medical device makers: Have you read anything about EpiPen? P-value hacking? Pushing your do nothing failed drug as hope for sick people through FDA/etc.? This entities are businesses, their goal is to make money. Accidentally they can save some people, but it's not their goal. It's money. I have wrote some words about it earlier.
So sociopathy isn't who you are, it's what you do.
I'm not saying I'm a good person, I'm definitely not, but even I sometimes raise an eyebrow seeing things some people do.
Yes, that's right, they are legally the landlord's. And if they stopped maintaining it, they are breaking the law, and you can sue them. If, instead, you choose to live with it, or deal with it yourself and pay for everything, then that's a horrible mistake.
It's fine for that comment to make you see red, but it should be the slumlord you are angry at, not the guy who pointed out that you're being a doormat.
Landlords are one option for people who cannot afford to buy a home. Some of them are bad, some are good. They offer a service for a price, and if the price is too high or the service is too poor, then they are taking advantage. Plenty of them aren't like that. Your anger seems a little irrational.
I've rented places where that was my responsibility, enumerated in the lease. Also taking out the trash, keeping porches and exterior areas clean, etc.
These are common expectations when you're renting a full single-family house. I've also seen arrangements where a single tenant of a multi-unit property will accept grass & snow responsibilities in exchange for reduced rent.
I understand that you don't want those jobs though. If they are not in your lease, you are not required to perform them. (Don't take legal advice from me, but that's true everywhere I've lived). You might have trouble finding a SFH lease that doesn't include them, but multi-unit buildings will be easier.
The law will require that grass mowing and snow removal happens. The property owner will be fined if they do not happen. These services cost money, so if the tenant is unable or unwilling to do them as part of the lease contract, the owner will purchase these services and increase the rent correspondingly.
As someone who's moved around a lot (to London, then to Zürich) I definitely appreciate being able to rent, and hence landowners. Without them, I'd have to live 2-3 year homeless until I saved enough for a downpayment, then be saddled with 30 year monthly commitment (i.e. mortgage) and unable to move anywhere else.
Ofc, it might be better if everyone build their own houses like some slums around the world.
Yes they absolutely do. Sometimes quite a lot, and often invisibly to tenants.
But other landlords suck, yes definitely. Just like some business owners neglect their customers, and some parents neglect their children.
The problem is that the RE market is so distorted right now that it's difficult to select a new equivalent housing provider at a reasonable price. This is also what enables the bad landlords in the first place.
The blame for that situation is very well-distributed. The best response as a buyer might be to seek out other markets.
There isn't any reason for it to be adversarial, it's certainly not inherently so. Only if one or both sides want to make it adversarial.
It is supposed to be a win-win scenario. Some people prefer to rent instead of buying, so they need a supply of rentals and the owner needs someone to live there so it doesn't sit empty costing them money.
Fortunately I've never had one of the adversarial landlords. I paid them on time and took good care of the property and in exchange they have been super flexible and let me do whatever I want. That's a win-win.
> There isn't any reason for it to be adversarial, it's certainly not inherently so. Only if one or both sides want to make it adversarial.
Landlords compete with their potential tenants for houses to buy. When landlord driven price increase, it prices out people from buying a home/flat, but they still need a roof over their heads. So they rent. This gives landlords cash needed to buy more houses/flats. This also keep rents up as landlords pay more for buildings. So tenants are less likely to accumulate cash for loans/something else. From small owners to big corporations it is a vicious cycle.
The landlord also takes on risk and responsibility here. Like any business, if they do a shitty job they go broke. If they do a good job, they make bank and expand their business.