capitalism competely collapses without the housing market being one of the many debt carrots converting perceived labour into cash.
What do families do, that only want or need to live in a place or area for like a year or so? Buy a house, pay thousands in closing costs and inspections, lose several thousand to realtors, and then have to go through the trouble of trying to sell the place a year later?
We very much need landlords. What’s screwing everything up is corpos doing it as a business or individuals with like 20 homes instead of one or two. Renting a house is a viable need for some people and it would actually suck if it was an option that didn’t exist at all.
There’s no reason that local governments can’t do this job, there’s no need for middle men leaching money.
But you could replace just about any product with that statement.
Now, you’re getting it…
I don’t want this government running any new services until we remove the utterly fucked voting system.
While I’m writing a fantasy novel, let’s also get rid of all forms of gerrymandering. Including giving two senators to both California and Wyoming. You know what, no more Senate at all. The entirety of congress is proportional representation with more representatives than 1 per 600,000 citizens.
Exactly
The senate is the american version of the house of Lords and is where good legislation goes to die.
Abolishing the senate is one step in unfucking the government. And setting up direct election of the president through popular vote. Wyoming should not have the same say in who leads the country as California.
A couple of years ago, my boss’ father (who founded the company and still worked there on and off) and I had a chat over lunch. I’m not sure how the topic of house prices came up, but he mentioned that when he and his wife bought their house, a car cost more than a house, so you knew that someone was really well off if they had two cars in the driveway.
I think that’s the first time I’ve actually gotten my mind blown. The idea that a car could cost more than a house just didn’t compute, and it still doesn’t quite sit with me.
Of course, the general standard of houses decline the further back in time you go, but houses were a lot cheaper back in the days. Below is a figure of housing prices in Norway relative to wages at the time (mirroring the situation almost everywhere in the west):
Factoring in the increased production capabilities over the same period of time, the construction cost of houses are not that much higher. If we designed our communities better and had a better system for utilizing the increased labour power, we could have much more affordable housing and more beautiful and well functioning societies.
Do not let it sit right with you. This future was stolen from you.
The problem is that these socalled “viable needs” are treated as and acted upon like they are elective priviledges by charging exhorbitant prices for the properties that are being made available. Blaming the market for it is just passing the buck and not owning up to your own choices in what you charge. I get that the ‘market’ has some effect on your rates but making it the main driver for your price that reflects the cost of the entire mortgage on the property is what makes you look like a parasite. If you and your tenants shared the cost of a mortgage in a more equitable fashion, i bet there would be fewer complaints.
Some of the biggest law breakers and abusive landlords are independent landlords. They’re also the ones who don’t seem to realize that being a landlord is a full time job where you are the handy man, maintenance, property manager, etc. It’s not just collecting a cheque every month, you actually have to earn it.
But OP just said it’s not a job in the meme. Which is it?
I’m not op, and the thing is that 99% of independent landlords don’t do shit. I was a model tenant at my last place and I’m a handy man by trade so I would actually do every minor repair in my apartment, I would keep that place tip top and never bothered the landlord. He still thought I was a shit tenant and kicked me out as soon as he could because he wanted to charge more for the place.
Not really. I don’t have to fix things on a monthly basis at my own house. When my parents rented the landlord would have to do something maybe twice a year.
How has no comment in this thread yet mentioned Georgism or Land Value Tax? That is the solution to Landlordism
it’s really not tho, i’m sorry but all Georgism/ and value tax is/was a form of pre-marxist capital taxation.
or do you think that Property tax is stopping BlackRock as we speak?
Property taxes != Land value taxes
Further, it’s not a tax on capital; it’s a tax on land. It’s very explicitly designed to target land, as land has distinct economic properties that make it a prime target for taxation.
And yes, it does target speculative investments like those of Blackrock:
It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.
A tax on land is a tax on capital. Land has been capital longer than the concept of capital has existed.
It’s not, though. The classical factors of production, whence we get the concept of “capital” as a factor of production, has land and capital as clearly separate:
Land or natural resource — naturally occurring goods like water, air, soil, minerals, flora, fauna and climate that are used in the creation of products. The payment given to a landowner is rent, loyalties, commission and goodwill.
Labor — human effort used in production which also includes technical and marketing expertise. The payment for someone else’s labor and all income received from one’s own labor is wages. Labor can also be classified as the physical and mental contribution of an employee to the production of the good(s).
Capital stock — human-made goods which are used in the production of other goods. These include machinery, tools, and buildings. They are of two types, fixed and working. Fixed are one time investments like machines, tools and working consists of liquid cash or money in hand and raw material.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factors_of_production
And it’s an important distinction. The fact that land is not made and inherently finite makes it zero-sum. Meanwhile, the fact that capital such as education, tools, factories, infrastructure, etc. are man-made and not inherently finite makes them not zero-sum. This distinction has truly massive implications when it comes to economics and policymaking. It’s the whole reason LVT is so effective, so efficient, and so fair: it exploits the unique zero-sum nature of land.
It seems you’re using a more technical definition than I was. I was thinking something along the lines of definition 1a(3) in this dictionary entry. I agree there are important differences between land and other money-making assets.
I am a landlord and also have a full time job. I also spend my time fixing my units.
With the maintenance cost and taxes, I’m actually losing money or breaking even depending on the year.
My tenants are living in a house that they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own in today’s market. Being able to live near their work.
So why am I the bad guy?
you’re not, these people simply can’t comprehend not being handed everything on a fucking platter.
Elaborate on who you consider “these people”.
Lazy and entitled people. Usually those left leaning that think they deserve everything without working for it.
Is your assumption that lazy and entitled people are left leaning? And\or that left leaning people don’t work therefore, they are lazy and entitled?
Either way its all assumptions and generalizations but, I’m curious what brings you back here after 4ish days.
Landphobia on my Lemmy? It’s more likely than you think.
Name one functional society that’s big enough to have property rentals but doesn’t.
Name a functional society
you can’t make me!
Don’t many landlords… manage the home(s) they’re renting out? Like cutting the grass, doing maintenance work, investing into the property for upgrades etc… ?
I don’t see how the landlord is stealing from the renter.
Side note: I don’t support corporations buying up property and renting them out or converting them into AirBnBs.
