this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Late Stage Capitalism
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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.