this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Late Stage Capitalism
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Private landlords are about to get harder and harder to come by...it's about to be corpos all the way down. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html
First house I bought was a duplex because it let me afford the mortgage. I bought a 110 year old home in disrepair and spent years of hundreds of hours and tons of my money slowly fixing up the place. I proactively do maintainence, I charge slightly below market rents, and my renters know me on a first name basis and call me for random things unrelated to the house and I'm happy to help. I respond within hours of any request, even if just to let them know when I'm off work to come fix whatever is going on.
Half the homes on my street are now owned by a single person who is trying to buy me out. He's okay, but the homes aren't super well maintained and he does his best to juice profits by cutting a few corners. He probably owns a few dozen homes. He's driving up rents through a mini local monopoly in a niche in demand area.
I compared my return on my investment to what I would have gotten if I just put the money in stocks, and the main reason it looks okay is only because the value of the houses have been driven up by these corporate investments.
I empathize so much with the frustrations with landlords here (and damn do I hate the term), but I don't see a real bridge to dealing with the problem that doesn't squeeze out people like me trying to do it right by the renters and force these properties into the hands of the corporations. Not a single person who has lived in my duplex since I bought it can afford to buy me out for what I've got in it, let alone what I could get on the open market. They've all enjoyed living there and the updates I've made, and most of them were in town for only a few years before moving (graduate students/young professionals).
Mostly just a vent. I get why people like me get demonized on here, but it's pushing out those of us trying to do it better than the rest. I've debated selling for awhile, but the next person won't be as good to the community in all likelihood. And none of the renters have been interested.
That's because of land lords. You are the problem. People could afford to buy a house on a working class income in my parent's generation. But now you're using your own price speculation as evidence that we must maintain a class of renters instead of dealing with out of control prices?
Fuck no. The government should eminent domain it all for the original price plus normal inflation and put it on the market at that price. If it's older than 50 years or has had significant changes made to the original plan then we discount it. Houses are the only product we pay more for as they fall apart and it's entirely because real estate speculation is a thing.
Get a job!
Property maintenance is a job. Landlord is not.
Some landlords do property maintenance in addition to being a landlord.
So they repair their own dwellings, of which they own more than one, just like a regular homeowner? We don't call that a job.
Do you ever pay someone to repair your dwelling?
Nah, I got a landlord that sucks so much money from me that he's nice enough to do it for free!
The property maintenance the landlord did is actual labor. This doesn't imply 2K/mo or any more than what it would cost to pay someone to maintain the property is justified.
I'm just trying to illustrate there's a difference between the income the landlord steals as a landlord and the income they may earn from labor. Same exists with many petite bourgeoisie small business owners who do some amount of labor, but also exploit the labor of others.
I think a bigger threat than corporations buying single family houses is that there are certain types of housing that will likely never not be owned by a single entity such as the large apartment buildings with shared entry areas.
I think the YIMBYs need to start adding "ownable units of housing" to their list of things to look for when developing new housing structures. A lot of places in California are starting to build again, but they're building a lot of corporate-owned apartment buildings with hundreds of units that only help further consolidate the housing market.
My neighborhood did a mixed development model and I think that's the way it should go: some apartments, some townhouses, some condos. Stop letting a single company own the entirety of the new housing units you're building.
Corps should only be able to own apartment style housing. I'd be fine with more of them being built if we removed single family homes from the rental market.
That varies a lot depending upon where you're talking about. In my area, the overwhelming majority of people that rent aren't renting single family houses.
My area of New England, rentals seem to be either big corporate places or a unit in a triple-decker (3-story building with a single unit on each floor, traditionally owned by someone who lives in one of the units).
I live in a condo I own, which seems like an ok balance of privacy, responsibility, and being able to actually afford housing. Mortgage, HOA fee, taxes, etc, is still $800/month cheaper than my old corporate apartment, and I promise you I'm not spending $800/month in maintenance and neither was my landlord.
I think we need to look beyond individual ownership towards collective ownership. Apartment buildings should be a housing cooperative managed collectively by the people who live there.
I'm on board with that too, but I think that's a tougher sell politically.
That's reasonable. Given the current climate of apartments, I think the most accessible option for folks would be tenant unions
Get a group of people interested in doing that. And enough money to buy it.
It's possible, my city passed an ordinance to allow right of first refusal to tenants. 3 immediately formed, and there's been a few more since.
That's dope. I like hearing that. Spread that news, it's good news to spread. Im interested in how that works out.
Agree! With the added note that they shouldn't do it the way the developers in my area did: they pitched it as affordable, accessible mixed use, and then built luxury homes that normal people couldn't afford.
Yup. Fucking ridiculous.
I've been at the same place for ten years. My rent went up twice. I hate not having a private property owner. Unless I magically come across 150k for a house down payment, it's looking like corpos from here on out. Ugh
Just twice in 10 years? You've got a good place. Every apartment I've stayed in (except one privately owned one) jacked the price 11-13% every year. That was a major factor in biting the bullet and getting a house. In 5 years (4 now) the house will be cheaper per month than my last apartment.
Oh yeah I've been lucky. Only reason it was raised was because a new guy bought the place.
If I could afford buying a house i would have done it years ago.
I know what you mean. Partner and I are both working professionals with no kids, and it was still a huge financial stretch to get the house. We even had help from family to get the down payment. I honestly don't know how most people do it.
My best friend and his fiance bought a five bedroom house in a great area. They'll never have kids. Her family is loaded and helped out, and that's how they were able to snag it.
Supposedly family used to only really help at the wedding. These days it's whenever possible, it seems. I feel like this social structure is going to crash hard eventually.