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'Renters Are Struggling': Economists Back Tenant-Led Push for Federal Rent Control
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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No it's not. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's inherently predatory.
I have to move to a city for 6 months, should I have to buy a house and sell it during that time? I need to rent, it gives me the flexibility without having to shell out capital or get in debt to live.
As with everything, it can be bad, especially when the government restricts building of houses so much, but my buddy buying a house, fixing it up and renting it out isn't malicious.
What's your alternative to renting? Government owns all houses and gives them out for people to live in for free?
My biggest head scratcher now that I've bought a house is "huh, my mortgage is locked in now, no matter what the market does... Why did rent keep going up if my landlord's mortgages were locked in?"
I honestly don't have a good answer, I could be looking at something perfectly explainable. But to me it seemed like they raised rent not because costs went up, but because they could. Why not. Everybody else is doing it.
Mortgages are locked in. Taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance/upkeep are not. All of those things have increased since I bought my house a year ago. Rental properties experience the same thing.
My landlord's taxes went down, I pay for utilities, not sure about insurance, as for upkeep I will let you know when I see that happening.
Property taxes went down? I doubt that. As far as upkeep, if the furnace goes out, who pays for that? The property owner. That's what I meant.
We got federal money for Covid and the commerical sector is doing well. Pretty sure the furnace is fine, but it isn't like I have lived here for multiple years.
Property taxes, market rate, costs to repair and maintain, interest rates increasing. How much money, beyond your mortgage, have you spend on your house since you moved in?
Less than my apartment ever was 😜
And what's especially nice is everything I buy and repair goes to me, belongs to me.
Sure I had to buy a washer and dryer, lawn mower, more furniture, etc, but that's all mine forever.
The only cost that's higher at my house than my much smaller apartment is utilities.
How much?
A few hundred a month less. I'm not suddenly drowning in money, obviously, but it's interesting paying less for much more, and that money actually benefitting my net worth vs being flushed down the toilet
See, you can't even answer a simple question.
You weren't actually asking questions to gain knowledge, you just want to hide the facts so it looks like you're right. Home ownership is expensive, and for most people, isn't ideal, renting is a huge need on our society so I don't have to give up 50k cash right now, so I don't have to pay 15k/yr in property taxes, a 20k water heater bill randomly and I can move next money if I want to. You being willingly ignorant to those don't change the facts.
???
Dude calm down. Is it really so crazy that my apartment was more expensive? Do you really need to know the exact dollar figure of price difference? No, that's my private financial info and my prerogative to give you, but fuck it, here's some ballpark figures;
My rent was $1299, pet fees added $75, water, trash, electric, and internet came out to about $300. So per month for basic nessesties, my apartment was about $1675 a month. 900 square feet. Oh, and they were going to raise rent $120 if I renewed
My mortgage? With escrow (insurance and property taxes) is $990 a month. My water bill is $42 and includes trash, electric about $150 (and it's the peak of summer so, obviously that's going to drop), internet $55. Places totals at roughly what, $1250? That's a 1600 square foot house with a 2 car garage and a yard.
Rentals have their place, no shit, I'm not saying that. I'm saying I'm pretty certain rental prices get jacked up to meet "market values" regardless of what any landlord is paying to own the rental.
Of course buying a house is harder, not everybody can drop the money down or afford to furnish or purchase appliances. But the month to month costs are, in my opinion, really weird with how much cheaper it is to own than rent. An apartment the same size as my house would run like $3500 a month here and be expected to share with roommates. That's almost triple the cost of mortgage and utilities. Yes, you rent property to make money, yes there's the added convenience of not being responsible for the yard and maintenance, yes, there's value in being able to move easily, but $3500 a month is too fucking much for an apartment, how could anybody possibly save up for a house when rent is costing so goddamn much. I only saved up because I deployed and moved my wife into my parents house!
And just to top it all off, I'm overpaying for this house. My friend bought a bigger house in a more expensive area, closer to the city center, but it was a few years ago. He's paying like $750 a month for the mortgage!!
See, you haven't read anything I've written, nor have you actually taken time to understand the costs.
Your apartment, monthly, may be more than your mortgage. What about the cost of home ownership like I asked? You've said so many words, even offering to tell me your monthly internet, to avoid telling me how much money you've spent on your house since ownership.
I sincerely don't know what you're looking for. The fact that down payments exist? My down payment and all the money I've spent since for furnishings and appliances was less than a year's rent. Where we get to MY point. The down payment and all the shit I bought is my equity now, not a landlord's, and it's money everybody would have a much easier time saving up if rent wasn't so diabolically high.
Maybe you're talking about the extra associated costs of maintenance, home renovations, etc. A couple hundred a month extra in .y.pockrt certainly makes that a lot more manageable.
In the 3 years I've lived at the apartment, I'd have spent in the ballpark of 60k on the monthly requirements. Even with the costs being front loaded for house purchase, in 3 years I will have spent a good deal less, for a good deal more.
I guess I'm confused about why you're insisting I'm lying, or obscuring the truth, why you're so confident you know more than me. It my own finances, I am pretty certain I know at least vaguely what I'm talking about, whereas you're just guessing based on what you want to hear, what you think I should be saying.
All I've done is open up a genuine dialogue with "I could be wrong, but my experiences show xyz" and instead of actually engaging back, your only take is "No, you're wrong and lying, I will not clarify despite being asked to clarify, see previous comments"
Evidently, in your brilliant master class intellect, you've neglected to be clear enough for the smooth brained idiots like me, because I've clearly read all your comments and still have no idea what your point is beyond calling me a liar because I'm not saying what you want to hear. And after all that, all this, I'm wasting your time?? Give me a break. My house is cheaper than my apartment, yes that's including all the super secret extra costs. My "xfinity bill" is far from the only proof I've offered.
What's frustrating me the most is that your argument hinges on me being a liar. Maybe you genuinely think so. But it's frustrating as hell because I know I'm not lying and there's nothing I can do to argue otherwise short of... saying it again. Sorry your world view boils down to "they disagree? they must be making it up!" but unfortunately I'm the one dealing with the negative consequences, while you surely feel quite intelligent and assured.
We have social housing for low income people, is that not enough? Do we just need more? How much more?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_United_States
Have you heard of the term the 'projects' - it's provided housing, but many of the subsidized housing areas are more like a 3rd world country than our prosperous 1st world country. Is this the policy you'd like more of?
I would rather pay the cost of service to the government than my landlord's mortgage
Just curious, why? What difference would it make for you? Many of these mortgages are government funded anyway. I don't rent anymore but my government is far more inept and corrupt than any landlord I've ever dealt with. Just my experience though.
Well, paying an at-cost price would mean it is inherently cheaper as the government wouldn't be trying to turn a profit, merely charge an amount that compensates for upkeep.
But is still building equity for a private individual.
I have a say in my government though, at least theoretically. I think housing (at least primary housing) shouldn't be a for-profit industry, so I advocate against it via my government.
lol.
With risk attached, yes.
Agreed. Nor should food, water, electricity, health services, etc. but here we are.
So you want housing as government controlled? How much? 100%? 80%? 50%? How much private residential property should be stolen by the government to achieve what you want.
wow is that the best strawman you could come up with? Public housing shouldn't exist because *checks notes* it is literally impossible to achieve without stealing existing homes? That's how you're gonna present your initial argument? Be better sporto
That's not really reflective of the market in reality. Rent in a competitive market (I.E. anywhere people want to live) tends to hover around the cost to own, buying with 20% down, plus property tax and mandatory homeowners insurance required by the mortgage holder.
In fact, usually it's cheaper to rent than it is to buy with only 20% down and good credit.
This is because people do this calculation, come to the conclusion "it will cost us a little more, but we get to own our dwelling, our payments eventually go to principal (though this is rigged by the banks too), and hopefully the market goes up and we get equity"
Yes, the market fluctuates, particularly in economic crisis. But it teeters back and forth based on the costs to buy and rent. Because if rent exceeds the cost to buy, investors snap up property just to rent it out, and that raises demand on real estate to the cost goes up.
The rates going up as fast as they have when prices are still high have killed buying as an alternative to renting in my city.
I feel for people who weren't "smart enough" to buy during the pandemic, because unless prices, rates, or both drop dramatically, it looks like they may have been permanently priced out of buying and renting is only getting less affordable.
I agree. It sucks all around right now for anyone on the market to rent or buy. We're all squeezed. Only people that had the luxury of owning and/or capital and foresight to invest are happy right now.
The wealth divide has only increased substantially.
But that doesn't mean that rent is "predatory" except in the cases of long time owners hiking rates when their costs have stayed the same. The reality is that rent is closely related to the current cost of buying at any given time.
Not all landlords are predatory maybe, but at least in this city the overwhelming majority of them are. They're also like a half dozen corporations that hold most of the apartment buildings. They raise their rates dramatically like clockwork even though I'm in California and we have Prop 13 which holds their tax raises to very low percentage increases yearly.
I would say that for the most part, yes, it has a relationship to what it would cost to buy the same property...but it's location dependent. You can't (for the most part) buy an apartment here. It's almost certainly the case (I'm only not 100% sure because a lot of the apartment complex holding companies are private) that they have low rate mortgages or no mortgages at all on the buildings, and they charge more and more as time goes forward despite their costs not really increasing.
We're entering a neo-feudalistic economy and while yes, again, there's some relation to the cost...a lot of it is just straight up greed.
It made you more rich on paper, but the reality is that you aren't in the same boat as landlords. The reason is that if you live in your property in order to realize the profit on it you'll have to sell it and move somewhere less expensive (i.e. somewhere likely less desirable).
Prices in real estate going up only really benefits real estate tycoons, the local government (depending upon location), and other side players in the market (e.g. real estate agents). For the rest of us, if you sell it just means that you have to turn around and buy in a more expensive market. Also (depending upon location, California properties aren't completely re-assessed for taxes until they change hands) it hikes your taxes.
As a single property owner in California, I'm rooting for prices to drop so I can upgrade and still pay the same amount of taxes (or less).
I wouldn't bet on it happening though.
Your use case reflects what I said exactly.
For someone to buy your condo today, they will be signing up for a mortgage whose monthly cost is near the going rent price. And most likely, more than the going rent price.
If they were to just buy and rent it out, they will likely be doing so at a loss.
The market going up or down after the purchase of the property is independent. It may go up, it may go down. That's the gamble you make if you're doing it as an investment.
Your experience happened to take place at an extraordinarily good time to already own property., and FOMO was certainly fueling the frenzy during the peak.
Whether that continues to be the case is unknown. Economists are all over the map.