cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/18963881
Get rid of landlords...
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly
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Your response sounds a lot like you didnt read a single thing written.
Its closer to "collect rent to pay for the constant deluge of random shit breaking down and failing"
Typically landlords dont actually make a lot of "take home" pay per hour, its a full time job. People seriously underestimate the enormous amount of bureaucracy involved in maintaining a rental space. Theres mountains of legal paperwork all the time. Every single thing that gets fixed has to be tracked and filed and entered in and accounted. Money has to be tracked very carefully so you dont get audited by the feds. etc etc.
Its not as simple as "call the plumber", its...
"call up the insurance agency, tell them what happened, send a bunch of emails, get the approved in network plumber assigned to you, the plumber agency calls you, you confirm the time the plumber will arrive, they then fax you a bunch of paperwork to fill out, you fill that out and then file your own copies, you then send that back to the plumber agency, they send you back some more info, you have to copy and file THAT now, then you have to go find your notification of entry paperwork and make a copy of that, then you gotta go let the tenant know when the plumber is going to arrive and deliver them the notification of entry..." ... "then on the day of you get further coordination, you have to drive over to the location and use your keys to let the plumber in, give them access to what's needed, then make sure they fix it, then they give you even more paperwork to fill out, then you make copies of that, then you file all that, then you have to followup with the insurance agency and let them know everything is fixed..." ... "Then later in the year when you are doing your taxes, you have to go find all that paperwork and make sure it's included as part of your filing, of course"
All for 1 single plumber trip.
And realize every single time something, anything has to be done, the landlord should be tracking that shit, and you can pretty quickly see why it starts to become a full time job.
Yes I did. You pay for everything with the rent you collect. You are not protecting anyone from any risk.
Not to mention homes appreciate, which is why you own them, so any of these "deluge of shit to fix" that you're supposedly protecting them from can easily be paid for with credit backed by the equity of the home.
Or just buying a new home with a warranty or an old home with deferred maintenance priced in.
Homes very much don't appreciate in value unless constantly maintained.
And you are lucky if you can afford to pay for the fixes with rent.
In reality, it's not uncommon for 1 bad dice roll to evaporate your entire bank account in an instant.
It's purely a gamble, through and through.
Renting is fundamentally paying money so someone else can gamble their entire life savings instead of yours.
And sure, lots if people do fine for 10-15 years without some shit happening.
Fundamentally, here's how it works:
There's this game of Russian roulette going on people play. It's a 100 chamber gun though, very small chance you get shot and die.
If you dont die though, you make a little bit of money everytime you pull the trigger.
You have to play this game though, or, be homeless which is it's own different game of Russian roulette.
However, someone offers you a deal.
They'll pull the trigger for you on their own head! If they win money, they keep it, but if they die it's their fault, not yours.
In return you don't have to be homeless, but also you don't gotta play the r6ssian roulette game.
All they ask is you pay them some money to cover the risk they are taking on, so you never have to pull the trigger.
That is what you are paying for.
Blah blah blah, the average upkeep on a home is 3% of the home's price. On a 400k home that's 12 grand. That's 1k a month for a 3br home. Rents for something like that would top 3k.
That's why we call it RENT and not a service. No one would pay over 3 times as much for something they could do themselves.
Homes appreciate on average 1% a year so you're really talking about 8k out of pocket or $800 per month for maintenance.
You're not taking taxes and interest on your mortgage into consideration and historically there's a higher return on investment to just use the money to invest in the S&P.
If landlords don't exist, what's your solution for people who don't want to own or aren't financially or mentally able to have that level of responsibility? You can be able to rent a house without wanting to own it, doesn't mean you want to live in a state owned apartment either...
Because you talked about the "risk" that landlords absorb like flood and fire.
And how much your mortgage is is predicated on how much of a down payment you put down. A down payment that tenants can't save because of the parasitic draw of landlords.
The only reason why renting is cheaper than buying now is because of rampant speculation by DUN DUN DUN LANDLORDS. You want me to be great full for a solution to a problem YOU CAUSED.
Before COVID made AirBnBs 10x money machines, and RealPage allowed landlords to fix prices, buying was actually a little cheaper than renting in all but the most desirable cities.
Regardless the Real Estate rentals making 100's billions of dollars. All the "risk" and equity that landlords are supposedly providing is all coming from tenants fully fucking stop.
As far a solution for the people that absolutely positively can not buy, that you couldn't give a fuck less about considering how many people you've kicked our onto the streets already, who previously could afford rent, it's called public housing, ie just give them a home. We already do it in Mississippi and it works great.
Bruh, landlords write off the interest on their taxes. Plus there's depreciation, a lot of landlords don't pay any taxes at all. You are such a landlord shill.
Lol give me a break, a tenant is not going to be filing insurance claims every month. That's like a once or twice in a lifetime thing.
If it's not you're not going to have insurance for long.
Tell me you've never owned a property without telling me you've never owned a property, lololol.
God I wish it was "once or twice a lifetime" holy shit lololol.
Oh sweet naive child.
Tell me you move the goalposts without telling me you move the goalposts.
Homeowners don't file insurance claims to hire plumbers. And sorry but filing work orders or insurance claims is never going to turn into a full time job for a individual homeowner.
If you're talking about property management of multifamily complexes yes that's a job but when you spread that work out among all the units it turns into minutes of work.
And like I said, all this "risk" would be easily affordable if the tenants weren't paying rent.
You are so adorable, you really think landlords make billions because of how hard it is to pick up the phone and talk to an insurance agent.