this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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My only comment on the landlord stuff is that there are landlords that are good, but they're extremely rare. My landlord from college, whom I now consider to be a friend, and regularly keep up with, became a friend because he was an exceedingly great landlord.
He would regularly visit the property to check in, do the work around the place that needed to be done. Stuff like shoveling snow, cutting the grass, etc. He made sure everything was running correctly and there were no issues; if there was ever a problem he would address it right away and at the very least, give you a rough timeline on when things would be fixed.
You could call him 24/7 and he would drop whatever he was doing and head out to address any issue that needed immediate attention. He was lenient on payments, often foregoing first/last/security payments with little more than the commitment to pay by a certain date, which could be months into the future. We were students and sometimes our financial assistance didn't come in exactly when we needed it, and we had to argue with our financial institution to get our cheques for the semester. He provided everything included in the rent, from heat/power to internet. Rent was reasonable and often under market value for what was provided. He was less concerned about making profit and more concerned with the house paying for itself, and running smoothly.
Before anyone has the chance to comment, this guy is a unicorn. I'm damned lucky to have rented from him. By no means does he represent even a fraction of 1% of landlords. He did everything in his power to ensure we were taken care of and that's why I rented from him the entire time I was in college, and a few of my friends ended up moving into my student house over the course of my college career. I don't expect to ever find another landlord that's anywhere near his quality ever again. I've had the need to rent from others, because he doesn't really have any units that served my needs later in life (and now I have a mortgage, so never again), and the difference is dramatic. Most landlords seems to do everything in their power to avoid taking responsibility, visiting the property, or have anything happen that doesn't either sweep problems under the rug, or make it someone else's problem. They just want their money, and damn everything else.
99.9% of landlords are garbage, and they deserve every ounce of hate towards them. They've worked hard at earning that hate and they get the hate that they have earned. I recognise that my experience with this one landlord does not and should not excuse any of that loathing that others feel about landlords in general and the vast majority are not worth the oxygen that they consume.
My entire point is that it's not 100% of landlords that are shit. It's damn close to 100% but it's not. A very small fraction of a percent are actually good at what they do, and take issues seriously. They get involved in issues without hesitation and resolve problems quickly, without complaint. It is an extremely small number of them. My (now) friend who happens to also be a landlord is one such example. That being said, it's not worth it to maintain an entire industry full of shit for the few that actually do things well and provide something valuable. So I'm still in favor of burning it all down and rebuilding from scratch. Temporary/rental living has a place in society for those who will be living in an area for a small amount of time (college/university is an easy example), but on the whole, ownership should be a painless experience, and it's not. In no small part because of landlords buying up anything they can. Another contributing factor is house flippers, whom I consider to be a scourge to society, since so few of them do anything remotely correct. Many don't do things that will even stand up to moderate use and buying from a flipper often results in having to have most of the work re-done correctly within a few years.
It's a horrid part of society and should be abolished.
There are three reasons that "good landlords" seem to be scarce:
People tend to be more vocal about bad experiences than good, so we'll definitely hear more about the bad ones
Many people decided to become a landlord because it outpaced other "investments" greatly, especially if you're a shitty landlord who doesn't put profit back into maintaining said "investment"
Many of the good landlords that did exist and weren't gouging eventually got hit with a bad tenant that cost them a lot of suffering and $$$ while being extremely difficult to evict. Whether it's true or not, I still hear current ones who say they're charging [crazy amount] to pad for the eventual $20k bill when a bad tenant wrecks their place (and these days it's not hard to do $20k+ in damage)
Also per the comic: I've never heard of anyone tipping a landlord, good or bad
It's the ones left with an extra property as a result of inheritance or moving in with a partner that are probably OK to rent from.
Although letting agencies are always there to bring the big landlord misery experience to smalltime landlords.
Anyone buying a third property or more should be charged 100% stamp duty.
Make it illegal for any corporation to own residential property.
all properties beyond your first property, you pay an additional 10% sales and property taxes per property above 1. This means you pay 110% for your second, 120% for your third, 200% for your 11th, and so on.
Housing crisis solved.
I think there's a few more parts.
Lack of housing means that you have to bid more than anyone else in your area was offering, including greedy wannabe landlords who watched an episode of Homes Under the Hammer and think it's easy money. When I bought my house, I tried haggling down. Now they're haggling up. Even if the landlords weren't an issue, you'd still be competing with all the 30-something couples in your area desperate to get their feet on the housing ladder.
Insanely low interest rates has lulled people into the idea that the crazy prices "aren't that much" when paid back over 30-40 years. Rising interest rates would fuck a lot of people over who suddenly find their wages going up by 10%, but their mortgage payments going up by 100%. Plus who wants to still be paying off their house when they're pushing 70? Fuck that noise.
Governments and local government need to step in and provide housing at reasonable rents. The glorious free markets have had housing for too long and fucked it right up.
This is why you get a fixed rate mortgage
Is that standard in some countries?
Most of the ones I see in the UK are like 5 years, max.
It is standard in the US. Adjustable rate mortgages are available as well, but they have not been popular since the 2008 crisis.
Yeah, that's understandable.
The US got the brunt of that particular crisis. The UK didn't seem quite as bad, although I did notice you needed a much larger deposit after that. Pre subprime-crisis they were cheerfully handing out 110% mortgages, which in retrospect was fucking mental.
Except that rising interest has also fucked up the market for builders who are now producing even less houses
That cost would just be passed on to the renter.
For the first few, but there is a point at which it stops being feasible. "Hi, I'm interested in your one bedroom in Bumfuck, ID, how much is rent?" "Well, I own 17 properties so it's $93,000 a month."
Still think the big corpos would just pass on the costs, and get away with it, by using financial shenanigans.
Not with rent controls passed as well.
You'd have to have those too, true, but they seem almost impossible to pass, for tax collection reasons.
I have a small house I purchased in a neighborhood full of renters. I bought during the low interest pandemic times, too, so my mortgage is less than most people's rent. If I won the lottery tomorrow I would definitely sell my house for a better one (I make about 30% more now than when I bought, and the only reason I won't move now is because of the interest rate). So many people have told me that I need to rent this place out rather than sell it. But I don't have the ability to be the kind of landlord you described and therefore I know I shouldn't be a landlord at all.
You don't need to be a "unicorn", just be a "good horse".
Treat your renters decently, and take care of issues as they come up.
Don't be your own worse enemy.
Just be a good horse. I need this on mug or something.
Dunno, not all agencies are shit either. I rented an apartment for 2 years through an agency and their fee was stupid high where I live, sure, but they took care of all the issues we had, they called the technicians for reparations and if the technicians said that stuff broke because it was old or it was faulty, the landlord had to pay it. 100% of our issues were like that. When we left, the landlord returned us all the deposit the day before the agency came to check how the house was (it was clean ofc).
Iirc the landlord bought the house as a future investment for his kids, so we had the best renting experience for me at least. I live in a small european city with high prices so the experience will differ wildly from other places, even in other neighbourhoods of my city lmao
I get what you're saying. I rented from a large organization in my former city (they own something like 60 or 70% of the highrise rental buildings in the city), and we had an excellent experience with few exceptions; but our esperience was largely due to our superintendents. They were always prompt, punctual, and attentive to anything that needed attention. That was their job, and bluntly, they did it well.
I've heard stories from other people who have rented from the same company but for different properties who have had dramatically different experiences. The difference came down to who was managing the property, not who owned it. The corporation that owned it just pushed all the responsibility onto the super, and collected their money every month, not giving a shit about anything. We were good tenants and paid promptly every month without fail, so we never had an issue. The super also did me some really big favors while we were in the process of vacating the premise. We got out on time, but barely. I called in a handful of favors to get it done, but it got done. The super was being pressured by the corp who owned the building to get us out before a specific date/time (IIRC, 5PM on the friday before the last day of the month) - however, legally, we technically had posession of the unit until 11:59 PM (23:59) on the last day of the month, because that's what we paid for.
There was some discussion on this and the super got involved, and examined the situation (we were on good terms due to our history and repoire), and knew that the companies expectations of us being out by friday at 5 wasn't going to happen. They basically ran interference to ensure we had whatever time we needed, within the confines of the law, to get the job done, and wrap up as expected. At the end of the day, we were all happy with the outcome (both the landlord and myself and SO).... though, I believe they're no longer the superintendents there, and I'm not sure if that's related or not.
Simply put, they're little more than employees. The company wants what they want, and the corporation that owns the building is a cold unfeeling bastard who can only be diciplined by major legal action (which bluntly, most people who need to rent, can't afford to go against the legal firm that the corporation literally owns).
to give some context, I work I.T. and had occasion to work for their corporate HQ (my employer got some contract work), when the moved to a new building. Through that, I got some serious insight into the company, and they have entire floors set up for legal, property management, and even a fucking bank. This corporation is their own bank, legal team, and everything. it's staggering to think how large they need to be before simply buying a bank and a law firm is cheaper than hiring an independent company to handle that. It's mind boggling.
If they were to go out of business tomorrow, I wouldn't mind though. I attribute 100% of the positives of that experience to the superintendents we had. I would have liked for them to own the building far more than that heartless corporation.