Comment by EngManagerIsMe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EngManagerIsMe | Hacker News Reader

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> I think many of these ideas are sound but IMO your hostility towards “landlords” is misplaced.

I see landlords like ticket scalpers -- they have the money up front to buy a product, and provide 'liquidity' and 'free markets' by selling that product at the market rate.

For some reason, we generally view ticket scalpers as negative, and landlords as "just what you do when you get wealthy enough".

And, to be clear, I have been a landlord. I know the challenges in maintaining a unit, finding tenants, chasing down rent, dealing with legal challenges, wondering if I would need to evict someone because they were destructive/loud/etc.

(Ultimately, I paid back all the rent I had collected that contributed to my principals on the unit, keeping only the money I used to pay for maintenance. My feelings about landlords come partially from being a landlord and realizing that I was profiting off of people only because I was rich enough to afford a house in the first place.)

That’s an extreme take, don’t you think?

We have issues with housing availability and we have issues with wealth concentration but renting a property to tenants is often a service to to people. And services are generally provided for money.

I’ve owned homes and I’ve rented homes. Owning can be burdensome in many ways: geographic and capacity friction, unpredictable capital risk, etc. Whether or not I have wealth, I may prefer to rent than by for valid reasons. It’s okay (and good) when someone in my community can provide the service of selling me shelter that suits my current needs for a reliable price. I’m willing to lay some premium for that.

Now, I don’t know what your relationship with your tenants were and if you have other reasons to feel like you were being exploitative, but please don’t toss out the valuable market role of landlords because there are some (and perhaps increasingly too many) that might be playing an unfair game. And certainly think carefully before you include yourself among them! You seem like a thoughtful and well-intentioned person — landlords like you are the kind that do good for communities!

I appreciate you expanding your thoughts. You are certainly free to feel how you feel, but I want to offer you one different angle:

For the sake of my career, I have moved a lot, six times as an adult. The first time I moved, I was able to buy a house in a cheap city. When I needed to move again it was a nightmare, the market was down, and it was very difficult for me to get that financial obligation off my back. Subsequently I have rented. I am very grateful that there are landlords who have housing units available for people who have reasons not to buy, and I have the opportunity to live in a place temporarily.

This is a complicated topic, and I fully acknowledge that there are bad landlords out there. But I do believe there is such a thing as a good landlord, providing a valuable service. I also believe that if we had a much more abundant housing supply, it would be much harder to make any money without being a very good landlord, and that would drive prices down, as well as driving the grifters out.

Just food for thought.

I think there are fundamental differences between landlords and ticket scalpers that must be taken into account despite the similarities in other ways.

In addition to the obvious duties of maintenance, landlords Supply the capital for the house a tenant occupies. In this way they are more similar a company providing a car lease, fixed duration business loan, or home mortgage. They generally do so with fewer financial protections in my opinion.

A tennant pays a monthly fee instead of a large Capital investment and debt obligation. The landlord takes on substantial costs ( opportunity and real) as well as substantial risks when renting, which warrant some profit margin at a debatable rate.

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