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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.
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Oh my god, tell me about it.
Even when you want to rent a place and can afford to do so, landlords make the situation really difficult because many of them put up places supposedly for rent, but make it as difficult as possible for someone to actually qualify to rent it, since they’re only doing it to inflate their net worth and having someone living there apparently devalues it. It took me over a year to find a place that actually was willing to let me rent it because most others would cook up bullshit reasons to reject me (my personal favourite being one that got mad at me and put me in their blacklist for… asking too many questions about their property???).
Like… I have money. They are offering a good in exchange for money. I am willing to spend money in exchange for this good. It shouldn’t be this hard.
I’m in a similar situation. Add disability (which means at least 80% of properties aren’t suitable without serious adaptation) and benefits to the equation, and I’m considered “too big a risk” (even though having me as a tenant means funnelling government money directly in to landlord’s pockets). The polite landlords and agents will play along and pretend to take me seriously before they very obviously put my aplication at the bottom of a pile and never call me back, while some feel comfortable enough to openly discriminate against me, because despite the law saying they can’t, no one actually enforces it, and they know they can get away with it. The ratio of applicants per property are so obscenely out of whack, they can place as many illegal conditions as they like, and people will continue to flock, borderline beg, to be allowed to spend 75% of their income on a shitty little hellhole.
I realised that I had to limit myself to only applying to places that are at least £100 less a month than I pay now, and even those automatically reject me on grounds of “affordability”, meanwhile my landlord just keeps putting my rent up in an attempt to push me out so they can then charge the next person even more, and I keep paying it because I simply can’t find anywhere else suitable to go.
To say it’s distressing would be the understatement of the century.
That really fucking sucks, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this bullshit. Landlords really are the worst.
I appreciate it, back at you. None of us should be putting up with this bullshit.
There is a solution for landlords that we’ve known about for a long time.
And its doesn’t involve the a massive, powerful state controlling where people can live.
Its a 100% tax on the value of land. It would stop the landowning class from unfairly stealing huge amounts of money from the poor in the form of rent. It could fund the government (allowing us to decrease taxes that hurt labor, like an income tax), or be redistributed as UBI.
Seriously, if you are at all interested in potential solutions to the housing crises and wealth inequality, please, please, google Land Value Tax and Georgism.
What does this mean? It sounds like paying rent to the government using different words. A better solution I see is limiting the amount and type of property an individual can own before taxes are raised significantly or more severe steps are taken.
Why not pay rent to the government? Without a profit incentive, the value of housing would go down and the money you’re paying in rent to the government would go on to fund public services rather than private equity firms, bank executives and shareholders
I think most people’s goal is to one day own property so they can stop paying rent.
Paying rent to government is better than paying it to my horrible multitrillionaire landlord who has like 3 or 4 apartments or something and is using the income to focus on his music instead of working, but eventually I’d like to not pay rent to anyone, at all.
USA government is far too greedy and won’t ever do it.
Especially if it helps old people or people living off of ‘benefits’.
Landlords would just raise rent and claim the taxes as an expense. If they couldn’t claim it as expenses they’ll just increase rent even more.
So because other landlords will be trying to raise money to pay the land value tax, they will be more desperate for renters, and will offer a lower price. So if your landlord tried to raise the rent, you would have a lot of cheaper options to leave to. It would make landlords compete against each other.
See here for theory and empirics, including an example from Denmark
I live in a city where property values have increased by an order of magnitude over about 40 years.
Yes, we have a lot of speculators and wealthy landowners who need to be taxed out of existence.
But we also have a problem where seniors on fixed incomes who have owned their homes for 30 - 50 years cannot afford their property taxes because the land their homes are sitting on has exploded in value.
There is a solution to this: homestead exemption. A lot of states already implement implement this with their normal property tax. If a property is your primary residence, then the tax you pay on it cannot increase by more than x% a year. Some states also give preferential tax treatment to senior’s primary residence. Their is no reason we couldn’t implement these same breaks on a LVT.
So they wouldn’t be able to afford their taxes with a LVT, but they can’t afford their taxes under the current property tax regime (in which land value is also a factor). I don’t see how this is an argument against LVT.
But, zooming out, is it beneficial to society to have empty-nesters, and elderly single people, living in 3- or 4-bedroom houses when there’s a critical housing shortage for young families? Is it even good for them to live in a big house, when a nearby, smaller dwelling that’s cheaper, and easier to clean and keep up? The problem in the United States is that those smaller dwelling units don’t exist at all in most neighborhoods, and about the only option is to move to an “independent living” facility on the edge of town, away from family an neighbors, for $3,000 a month.
It could be a win-win: Elderly owners of high-value land could realize the cash value that’s currently locked up in their houses, while the city could benefit by intensified development of that same land, increasing nearby land values even more. We need to change the zoning code to allow building that missing-middle housing in the same neighborhoods, but if we did that, a land-value tax would help incentivize its construction.
I’d be willing to consider it if there was an extreme homestead exemption.
No one should get a second home until everyone’s had their first.
The policy issue to overcome here in America is a robust pension system. Home values are obscene for a lot of reasons but one of the biggest reasons no one does anything about it is because for most non elite Americans the home they own is their most valuable asset and the growth in equity ends up becoming a significant contributor to retirement
Even with that the dream is over; the days of baby boomers buying houses and seeing explosive growth of 12-20k in 1960 to 200ish-k in 2010 or even gen x buying a house for 100k in 1995 and seeing it mature to 400k in 2020 are unsustainable. The people buying 250-400k houses now (like me) would be foolish to expect their homes to be worth millions in 30 years outside of hyperinflation.
But I bet money we will cling to it. It’s difficult having seen the past several generations retire very comfortably via the equity in their home, while we make the $2000 mortgage payment that will get us housing but not this benefit. Another way millennials get fucked out of something that every modern generation before them had. To be fair this one had to die but it just sucks all of this gets saddled on us because it’s not like there’s a strong likelihood social security is getting fixed in time
Buying a home now requires so much money down, and will still have monthly payments higher than renting, it’s not even a question for me. Home ownership isn’t in the cards and may never be.
The woman I toured a few houses with last week is in her late 60s and I was telling her how frustrating it was to have lost so many houses to people offering cash deals 30k over list. She decided to tell me a long story about how she reconnected with a lost love and moved down to Florida with him. But being far from family was tough so they decided to buy a second house out here for when they travel. They got “an amazing house” by offering cash, 30k over asking. She lamented how it felt like they were taking someone’s starter home but her now-husband reassured her that whatever family they outbid just has to wait 20 years.
All I could say was, “you probably did buy a young family’s starter home. Maybe it was even mine.”
Congrats on owning two houses, I guess.
Hear hear.
With homes i agree and with apartment buildings over 10 units it should be mandated to maintain 95% occupancy year round across ALL owned buildings. Only reason I say 95% is because there’s gonna be highs and lows so I think 5% is very fair for unoccupied space. This would also cover the in-between of someone moving out and needing to get the unit ready for another person. If a land owner can maintain that then I think it’s fair to let them continue growing and should they fail to meet the requirements then they can’t buy any more properties. I would recommend also that 1 single year of 95% doesn’t immediately qualify you for growth. A penalty of 2 years consistently having 95% must be required.
Not sure you thought through your numbers if only because 95% of 10 means you can only have half a unit unoccupied.
Round up dawg. Most apartments these days have 20+ units anyways.
But the comment says it would apply to buildings with over 10 units. So, for a building with 11 units, that gives 132 unit-months per year. With a maximum unoccupied rate, that’s 6.6 unit-months per year.
As the renter, I’d really appreciate my landlord wait until I’ve actually moved out to start showing my unit, although they don’t always do that. Assume all 11 units decide to move at the end of their leases, that means the owner has a little about 3 weeks per unit to clean, do any maintenance and repairs, and find a new tenant. If the unit needs extensive repairs/cleaning, the owner probably doesn’t want to even start showing it until the repairs are completed. Hopefully most tenants renew their leases and stay longer than 1 year, but the owner can’t count on that. Even on a larger building, the numbers still average out to 3 weeks per unit, but at least the effect of a few extra non-renewals is smaller.
I think a 90% occupancy rate would be a little more realistic, but would probably still need some room for exceptions.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with you. 95% is probably just a random number the other commenter came up with. Certainly if this system was to be put in place, we’d need to have a more flexible solution than just a plain percentage.
Rich people: “Can I have a 4th home, just as a little treat for myself?”
I don’t think he knows about the 4th home.
Ok but where’s the punchline? Why is this even a comic?
Yeah, comic only laugh. Funny funny or else why? Why comic if no funny? Funny pages, comics, funny /s
Dude, comics can be whatever the fuck you want. Want to make a comic that’s just four panels of an unmoving rock? Still a comic. And there’s no reason why anyone should question otherwise.
Between this and all the “how is this a meme?” comments. Most inane, useless comments. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t meant for you? Clearly it’s getting upvotes
Want to make a comic that’s just four panels of an unmoving rock? Still a comic.
Sure, except that would be a somewhat shitty comic and anyone would have the right to say that if that’s their opinion.
Between this and all the “how is this a meme?” comments. Most inane, useless comments. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t meant for you? Clearly it’s getting upvotes
Maybe my comment wasn’t meant for you if it bothers you this much? Just move on bro.
Let me help you.
The comic, as many other do, revolves around the final panel where the character portrayed wandering in a state of frustration comes to the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that landlords, that supposedly provide housing, do the opposite.
It’s political, but also plays on the relatableness of the situation and has a certain quirky dinamicity to it, with changes of location, gesturing and inbalanced poses.
Its effect on some people is best summaryzed as “it’s funny because it’s true”.
It’s 4 sentences with a hard hitting message. This doesn’t need to be in a comic 🤪
Nothing needs to be anywhere.
Oh, I mean you’re not wrong. Let me adjust my message:
I dislike this comic, not because of the message, but because it is in the form of a comic. Personally, I think it’s gimmicky and unnecessary to put this message in a comic. Though, I understand that the person trying to get this message out might use comics as their main platform, which then brings me to understand and respect their decision. Still, the comic adds nothing to the message, and that was my original point.
What should go in paintings?
Not all sequential art is meant to be funny.
Side note: One of the best non-fiction books of all time is Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
You’d expect a sub that’s about memes to contain memes, or, if not quite memes in the “proper” sense of the word, at least generally funny or entertaining content. This is just a brief lecture in four panels. McCloud’s wonderful comic is pretty much the last thing this could remind me of.
“memes” in the proper sense of the word are not inherently funny or amusing. Same with “satire”, for what it’s worth.
I disagree, i do agree that a comic is not perse a meme but a meme does not need to be entertaining or funny.
Memes are an evolution of language. A picture can convey a thousands words at a glance and by sharing recognizable meme patterns we can streamline that language for efficient consumption.
Most memes do tend to be humor because humor is an effective and popular language format but plenty of nom humor examples exist: Rage comics/Wozak, loss.
Other argument: In some ways the “4 panel comic” pattern is a meme. And there is something funny in that its a child saying it while holding wildly different positions. That does convey a certain recognizable “but what do i know, I am just trying to live my own life”
We could argue its subjectively bad or ineffective at being a meme, but in the subjective nature of information you can’t argue that this is definitely not a meme.
Georgism, distributism, communitarianism.
Words.
Say a renter starts doing good job and money wise for themselves. They invest their surplus in investment options like mutual funds and deposits and so on. Then their surplus is enough to invest into real estate. Should they not?
If by “invest in real estate” you mean purchase a property that they will then live in while it appreciates in value, effectively making that property a hedge against inflation, then yes absolutely.
And if after doing that they decide to purchase a second property to rent out, then sure, why not?
But no individual should be allowed to own more than two, maybe three properties.
No corporation (or any legal entity other than a person) should be allowed to own a single-family home or any other classification of single-unit residential property.
And banks should not be able to deny someone a mortgage if the monthly payment would be equal to or less than what that person is paying in rent.
No. Housing is a human right, not a commodity. A renter going on to invest in real estate is being the crab in a bucket climbing over others then pulling back the ladder that capitalism wants them to be.
Landlords provide serfdom, and they are needed because of the serfdom the worst offenders impose on society.
If you live in a house long enough you should begin to have a claim on it. Most landlords add zero value to it, they only harvest it.
But a good landlord with fair prices will prevent evil landlords from price gouging tenants! /s
I mean this can happen, but nobody should have to rely on the good will of some random person. Thats one thing i learned as a kid, never trust people with money amounts of that order unless they are legally obligated to fullfill their promises. People can be super cool and nice right until they need money.
You had me in the first half, ngl…
I don’t understand how would a 100% land tax work? If you own a 300k house you’d have to pay 300k in taxes every year? So basically making housing unaffordable except for the ultra rich?
Also why would anyone build apartments if they weren’t going to make a profit? What’s the incentive? No one would do anything if they couldn’t make money doing it.
If landlords are bad or too expensive why not move, another building another state another lower cost of living area? Agreed rents are super high but that’s mostly in dense urban areas. You’re paying a premium for location.
I’m really not seeing any honest answers here about how to fix this problem. Besides the government should provide everyone free housing? How would that work how would you decide who gets to live where? Who gets the apartment on the lake vs next to the airport/oil refinery?
Like I get it housing is expensive but I haven’t seen anything here that would actually help fix that? Ironically more landlords and more apartments would probably help.
You would only pay tax on the unimproved value of land. You pay no tax on everything built on it. So an empty 1-acre lot next to an apartment building providing 100 homes on a 1-acre lot would both pay the same taxes.
So landlords would earn a profit but they wouldn’t earn rent (in the neoclassical sense).
Its almost like anybody who wants exclusive access to land (for their housing or their business) has to pay society for the right to use it. And if a business (like an apartment) tried to pass on costs to customer (their renters) without providing more or better services, they are essentially just admitting their land got more valuable, so they would just pay more in land value tax (thereby providing more funding for UBI or public services)
Okay that kind of makes sense. There is a problem though, well three.
Imagine you live in a small town. Something happens (COVID for instance) and your town becomes popular and your land value goes up. Yesterday your house was worth 100k but now it’s worth 500k+. Your saying those people should essentially be forced out of their homes? To be bought up by rich people?
Additionally this means only the super rich would be able to afford homes? This tax would essentially mean only the top 1% could have a home and basically give them a free for all on any land they want. Why would we want that?
Lastly if you increased land tax by that much landlords would have to increase rent prices to offset this? So even with a govt subsidy the renter is still the person paying this increase.
Honestly I’m intrigued by this idea but once you start thinking about how it would work it falls apart. There is probably some variation of this that could work. Maybe in cities they’ll be an extratax if you don’t build some sort of minimum housing? But this is already pretty similar to just basic property taxes.
How does this work for land for agricultural use? It’s going to increase the tax burden on producers and increase the cost of food unless I misunderstand how this works and how it’s different than property tax
Imagine you live in a small town. Something happens (COVID for instance) and your town becomes popular and your land value goes up. Yesterday your house was worth 100k but now it’s worth 500k+. Your saying those people should essentially be forced out of their homes? To be bought up by rich people?
No, because
You would only pay tax on the unimproved value of land. You pay no tax on everything built on it.
Your unimproved land value may increase in that instance, but it wouldn’t suddenly jump up the amount you’re implying, unless the economy catastrophically collapses.
That’s exactly an instance where this would happen. Since the value of the land itself not what’s built on it is valuable in this instance. Look at the value of the land near any ski resort town over the last 10 years.
The assessed value of a property is only indirectly related to the property tax that the owner pays. Municipalities multiply the assessed value of a property by the mill rate to calculate the taxes. They set the mill rate essentially by dividing their budgetary revenue needs by the total assessed value of all properties in the municipality. If my assessment goes way up (say, I put an addition on my house), then my taxes go up. But if everybody’s assessment goes up proportionally, then my taxes don’t change, because the mill rate will drop.
The latter is the situation in those ski-resort towns. It means that property owners suddenly have a much-higher net worth, but doesn’t necessarily mean they’re paying more in taxes. It only means that if the rich people moving in demand more and better municipal services, and raise spending.
On the other hand, look at the perverse incentive built into the current system: Landlords can reduce their taxes by letting their properties decay (lowering their assessed value); or at least, the system disincentivizes improvements which raise the assessed value. In a popular ski-resort town, or college town like mine, we get slumlords, because the vacancy rate is so low that they know that they can get tenants even in run-down units.
Why not just move? Yeah I’m gonna tell my childrens mother that I’m taking off. Just can’t afford this shit anymore, sorry. Then get hit with the inevitable child support payments that will end you up in jail in no time anyway.
Just toss all that shit aside and move somewhere rural and shitty so you can afford it! (Oops, forgot to mention that pay is also significantly lower now so you still can’t afford anything )
Landlords do not create the false scarcity.
Government does, by constantly suppressing new construction.
Government does this via:
- Density zoning, which caps the number of units in places the market would support much more
- Making construction investment uncertain, by slowing permitting processes to a crawl
This is maybe true for landlording corpos.
In general though? Sorry, fuck you guys. When I can buy and rent an extra house or two for passive income, bet your titties I’m doing it and I’m not going to feel bad about it.
It’s not that passive. If you want passive income get an ETF. We are selling our old apartment because of all the hassle of renting.
I guess what I really eventually want is an accessible vacation house near some water and a reasonable way to offset the cost without just letting it sit empty half a year at a time. Living in a college town now, it seems like the short term rental demographic might be a decent choice depending what and where you pick.
landl*rds
Removed by mod
Did you literally downvote them?
The main driving factor is this “down payment” shit. A person who has a bunch of money can just go get a house and not actually pay for it fully. They can still loose all that money, there’s risk there if they can’t pay. And that’s the difference. Everyone else can’t put down that much money. So they can pay a landlord more money than the landlord pays monthly, but they don’t have 2 or $300,000 bucks at risk each and every day. I mean, the landlord is payed for the risk they incur.
So a renter only loses a small amount of money if they fail to keep paying rent. However, they pay more each month and also, they loose relatively more when they loose housing and become homeless. So the situation is fucked up. You could for example barely own a house and then stretch and buy a second house with not much left in savings. If you’re in that situation, you’re a different landlord than a bank who basically only incurs a monetary risk and not a loosing everything you got risk.
Because of this. Maybe we should bring down the “down payment” bar shit. I mean the house could be destroyed by a renter or an owner, but the house will still be there. Banks literally can only lose a little bit of time between ownerships. So if you could purchase a house with just $5000, for example, that would be pretty easy to do for most people who have a job. At least relatively much easier to $300k. You can sell your house to the bank and get yourself a new house. Literally nobody loses if the down payment level is lowered to something reasonable. Ultimately, the banks will always own houses. So why not just state it clearly…you don’t own this house but if you had 3 lifetimes, you could. And bring down the payments accordingly to people’s income. Keep it locked at 10%. If we did this, what would prevent you from owning a mansion? Okay limit housing to reasonable sizes? Control traffic by only allowing people to own near where they work? So you live 1 mile from work and then you find a new job, congratulations! Now you can be part of the people who can buy near that area.
I don’t know nothing. I’m just posting some stupid ass ideas.
deleted by creator
Losing* :/
Housing is still wildly speculative in pricing: detangle housing from investment, and people could actually afford to own homes
Youre right and, to add insult to injury, everyone, including those who do not own property, ensures that house prices always rise.
We’re all paying for the increase in value but fewer and fewer are enjoying the rewards.
It parallels the Vimes Boot Theory. I like where your head is at.
And the main factor driving down payments is housing prices, which are driven by landlords. Less landlords > less scarcity > lower prices > lower down payments.
On top of that, housing cooperatives exist, which can provide the benefits of renting (lower monthly payments than a mortgage, economy of scale for repairs & construction, less financial liability for the individual) without the negative effects of a for-profit landlord. (you progressively own more of your unit over time instead of never owning any of it, you pay lower monthly rates than you would to a for-profit entity)
They even have different ownership models, which could give more choice for pricing. For instance, the non-ownership model means you pay a lower rate, just the cost of continuing the providing and upkeep of the housing, with no additional profit margin, but you don’t end up owning any of the unit you live in. But the ownership model means often paying a bit higher pricing, but in turn, getting to actually own the unit you live in, and later sell it off if you wish to move. (some cooperatives have caps on how much higher you can sell it for compared to your purchase price, others do not)
But in the end, the one thing that makes housing more expensive, that outbids cooperatives for housing, and that increases the scarcity of the market, is for-profit landlords.
The only way you get any true positive change on down payments, housing prices, or housing availability, is to completely ban all for-profit landlording.
If we could ban the for profit landlording that still leaves one big ass hole…asshole if you will. People keep making more people, so who builds their houses? Who pays for their land so they can start their own progressive path to ownership? And I totally agree with this. You should only make enough money to re-paint or re-roof etc. Maybe these things could be a type of insurance like the insurance you buy when you purchase a house with a low down payment.
People keep making more people
Eventually, people stop needing housing, or their housing needs can be met by a ceramic pot on a shelf. The house they used to need becomes available for someone else.
People keep making more people, so who builds their houses?
Developers. If there is more demand in a market, they will build property, then sell it to whoever is willing to buy, or, will seek funding from an existing institution, which if it’s not landlords, will be housing cooperatives, then use that funding to finance new buildings. Traditionally, when we’re talking high-density housing, the buyer of these properties is a landlord. Without that landlord, the demand still exists, and someone, or some group of people, will inevitably fund the cost of the housing. In a world with no for-profit landlords, housing cooperatives fill in the gaps. (primarily for high-density housing specifically)
Either existing cooperative members come to an agreement to pay slightly higher rents in order to build up a fund used to later purchase and expand their pool of housing, (which later increases the benefit they receive from economies of scale, and reduces risk of a major issue in one building causing a lack of revenue altogether) or a new cooperative is formed with money pooled from members, and once a specific threshold is met, they collectively purchase the property.
Housing is a good with inelastic demand. Everyone needs housing. There will always be someone, or some group of people willing to buy. And if you don’t have landlords to artificially increase the price of housing, which only goes up so quickly because of its commodification, and further purchasing by for-profit landlords, then the overall cost for a cooperative to outright buy a new property, or for a new cooperative to raise the funds required, is substantially lowered.
Alright but…there actually is a legitimate service that landlords provide. If someone does not want to own and maintain a property for a long period of time, or doesn’t have enough money or means to satisfy a lender that they will be able to repay a very large loan on that property over a long time, a rental agreement is beneficial. Grad students, visa holders, travel nurses, etc probably don’t want to purchase the property they’re temporarily staying in.
Don’t ever call what landlords do a service. They do it for profit. It’s not a service.
As opposed to everyone else who actively seeks to make trades that are detrimental to them?
“Service” and “for profit” are not antonyms, nor mutually exclusive.
So does a lawyer, a mechanic, a doctor or a delivery guy. They offer a service in exchange for money.
Where the cinnamon toast fuck do you live where a service exchanged for money is not done for a profit? Does your town have a grocery store selling goods at exactly cost?
Does your town have a grocery store selling goods at exactly cost?
No, you’re describing a co-op. Which my town does have, right across the street from the for-profit grocery store.
Ok good, so I guess the coop provides a service.
How do you get your Internet? Is that a service to you or is someone making a profit? Or perhaps everyone in this sub lives in a communal utopia where services never turn a profit of any kind.
Exactly, if renting wasn’t a thing, that means everyone unable or unwilling to buy a whole house has no other choice but to live on the street.
The middle ground should be there. It, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, quite the opposite.
It’s weird that people conflate renting or temporary but long term housing with “landlord”.
Public housing accomplishes this without transferring money to a landowning class
Landlords aren’t the exclusive source for short term housing, and don’t need to be defended in this way. Advocate for and support collective ownership via housing cooperatives. Landlording is the practice of leeching money from the working class.
Long-term stay hotels used to be a major source of short term housing. They mostly disappeared because of zoning law changes and in some cases fire code / housing code changes. There are problems with hotels / hoteliers. But, having a variety of solutions means various housing options have to compete with each-other, which is normally good for the person needing a place to stay.
I certainly think that we need to embrace more hostels and long term hotels, but we also need to remember that those are not solutions to homelessness. My goal is to direct them away from viewing housing as a commodity stock for capital first, then they can broaden their horizons with several various nonmarket solutions to providing housing.
I agree. I had a period where I moved very frequently and would not have wanted the headache of having any financial stake in the apartments I lived. Being able to just say I wasn’t renewing the lease and never having to think about the place again was very convenient. You also don’t appreciate how nice it is to not have to worry about maintenance until it’s your responsibility.
Land Contract (sometimes called “contract for deed”) provides all of those same benefits, from the same people, to the same people, as renting. It is a bit of a misnomer in that it applies to any real property, and not just “land”.
The difference from renting is that with the land contract:
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- The monthly price is fixed for the life of the contract;
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- After three years (in my state), the occupant begins gaining equity.
Grad students, visa holders, travel nurses, etc. might not necessarily want to purchase the property they are staying in, but they might also find themselves living in that area for longer than they expect. A land contract gives them the security of fixed housing costs and the flexibility of being able to walk away at any time and for any reason. They also allow the occupant to begin earning equity while still living in “temporary” housing, allowing them to save more for the future.
But, in our current market, renting is more lucrative to the landlord.
So how do we drive landlords to offer land contracts instead of rental agreements? We provide property tax exemptions to owner-occupants. We increase the nominal property tax rate: run it sky high. But, the owner-occupant exemption means the effective tax rate for homeowners (including land contract buyers) doesn’t actually increase. Only investors - people who own housing they don’t live in - will be paying that punitively-high tax rate.
With that sky-high tax on investment properties, today’s landlords will be incentivized to become private lenders. They will be taking the exact same financial risk on the exact same people, but now those people will be called “buyers” instead of “tenants”.
The only “renting” that will still remain is from landlords who live in one unit of a 2-4 unit property, or a roommate agreement, or short-term use like hotels and motels.
Home ownership is the single best predictor of financial prosperity in the US. Every housing contract should include some sort of provision for equity.
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I rent my house to military who don’t want to buy because they’ll leave in 2-3 years
And my dear grandma rents her old flat to a single mum and her kids, who’s down on her luck, for so little that she’s practically paying them to live there, until she can find a place to buy. My grandma hasn’t been able to stay there since pops past away while saving a bunch of babies from a fire.
Therefore, landlordism is justified.
there actually is a legitimate service that landlords provide.
one I don’t want to pay for, but also one they don’t actually give me. My apartment is still missing several doors and I’ve been here for a year now. They don’t give a fuck. You’re also setting it up as if I have a choice but to be serviced. I don’t. I don’t earn enough money for my bank to want to give me a loan, even if I wanted to be in debt, to buy even the shittiest house on the market here, so I don’t have a choice but to live under the thumb of a landlord.
You don’t have to rent from a landlord, you should have the ability to rent from a nonprofit, a co-op, etc. Housing is a human right and should never be about profit.
There is a legitimate service being provided there. It just shouldn’t be “lords” who provide it.
The problem is that the “lord” is earning tens of thousands of dollars per year for essentially no work. This makes it essentially similar to how a “lord” worked in a Feudalist system. This isn’t even capitalism where someone owns capital and uses that capital to generate profit. This is just demanding a payment for being in a place.
Since being a landlord requires essentially no work, landlords can accumulate wealth, buy more property, get even more income, buy more property, etc. More wealth / property means more political power. The main thing that political power will be used for is to gain and retain more wealth, which is equivalent to more power.
Imagine how different would be if nobody could ever rent out more than one property, especially combined with a vacant units tax. You’d still have “landlords” but they would be much less lord-like.
Sure, how many people do you think you’d walk up to who are renting who would say that that’s their situation?
Why are you talking about the exception not explicitly the problem that this is supposed to be trying to address?
The issues are people who want to purchase cannot while people have more than one.
Are you saying we prioritize those renters over homeowners? Is that better for the economy of the country to have people who are renting as opposed to people who own?
Edit: also how does this work if a country cares about their citizens and absolutely any of their citizens are homeless while someone has extra and empty housing?
