me at age 35
taxing didn’t work I have a modest proposal for landlords
yes 🍴🫢
Landlords are taxed. Their rental income is subject to income tax, when they sell the home they have to pay a lot more taxes than if they were selling their primary residence, and they have to pay property tax.
Now, I do think residential real estate rental corporations should be straight up outlawed.
They are taxed, but I think they could be taxed more and better. Specifically, I — and many others, including many an economist — think we ought to be implementing a land value tax.
Why LVT and not just leave it to income taxes? In short, LVT is just a really good tax. Progressive, incentivizes efficient use of land, discourages speculation and rent-seeking, economically efficient, and hard to evade. Plus, critically regarding landlords, land value taxes can’t be passed on to tenants, both in economic theory and in observed practice.
In fact, it’s so well-regarded a tax that it’s been referred to as the “perfect tax”, and is supported by economists of all ideological stripes, from free-market libertarians like Milton Friedman — who famously described it as the “least bad tax” — to social democrats and Keynesians like Joseph Stiglitz. It’s simply a really good policy that I don’t think is talked about nearly enough.
Even a quite milquetoast land value tax, such as in the Australian Capital Territory, has been shown to reduce speculation and improve affordability:
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.
That’s not the point I was arguing. The rage comic said landlords should be taxed, which caries the implication that they aren’t currently taxed.
I agree. They should make it that no one person can own more than like 3 properties or something like that.
Apartments should be owned by the renters. They pay for their management and if it’s poorly managed they can choose to hire someone else.
Same with condos and the absolute nightmare costs of HOA. No HOA should own a community. The community should own the HOA.
With who’s politicians?
Detroit is trying to, largely at the behest of their mayor, Mike Duggan. Detroit would especially benefit from the proposed tax, as it has a ton of vacant land, much of it owned by the ultra-wealthy Illitch family:
Ilitch Holdings has been criticised for leaving many properties in Detroit untenanted, allowing them to decay, and for demolishing historic buildings and leaving lots empty, or only using the lots as car parking, rather than developing them.[11][12][13][14][15]
The top line of what you just linked me is saying they’re going to drop property taxes on occupied buildings by 17% and raise taxes on unoccupied land. This isn’t about changing the math for renters this is about shrinking the city’s sprawl to save money on infrastructure.
And that’s not to say taxing landlords is going to do anything. My point is about the political economy of going after people whom you give half your money for years and years first (for centuries). Our political system is designed to protect these people. From the constitution on down.
drop property taxes on occupied buildings by 17%
As they should. Property taxes are broken and enable land hoarding and speculation.
raise taxes on unoccupied land
Not quite. The point is to raise taxes on the unimproved value of land. For example, two identical lots with the same underlying land value – one vacant and one with an apartment building – would both pay the land tax, but it would be the same amount. They key idea being to heavily incentivize the owner of the vacant lot to do something with it (like build housing) rather than just sit on it as a speculative investment. It should cost speculators money to keep valuable land idle.
Even a quite milquetoast land value tax, such as in the Australian Capital Territory, has been shown to reduce speculation and improve affordability:
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.
Yeah so I’m even less impressed now
How so? Land value tax is just supremely good tax policy, and we should be striving to replace our broken property tax system with it.
Any progressive tax system that incentivizes new housing development, disincentivizes speculative land holding, empirically makes housing cheaper, and cannot be passed on to tenants is an absolute win in my book.
Who gives a fuck how cleverly the administration of ‘free market solutions’ through tax policy is targeted towards ‘incentivizing’ landlords. This is a post about the parasitic relationship between landlord and tenant. I made a (glib) point about how it’s difficult to legislate against landlords because they get to use your money to lobby against you. What does your point have to do with any of that?
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Leave some empty so you can jack up the prices on the others. You have to hire less staff and have less expenses and still make more overall.
Drop the “T”
le’s tax landlords
I think the pro-landlord commenters are missing the fundamental point:
In the “please pay me to live in my extra house” scenario, the problem is not that someone is renting your extra house. The problem is that you and others can afford to have multiple houses, so much so that the person renting your house cannot buy their first house. If the cost of houses increases as the availability of houses decreases, there is an obvious outcome to the richest people buying all the houses and renting them out.
Yeah I think people forget that these kinds of complaints and memes arent geared at the nice old lady who rents the unit upstairs and who,along with her husband, in the 60s/70s invested in some cheap real estate to help get them through retirement.
This is more he big boys and girls who have eviction down to a science, who dont repair things on time, who are hard to get a hold of, and who raise rent on the regular because despite their overhead remaining the same “everyone else is doing it so good luck!”
The irony is that a lot of the “pro landlord” development and laws favor the big wealthy LLCs and very rich individuals over the mom and pops supplementing their fixed incomes.
As a landlord (renting out my basement) Amen. Fuck people with multiple homes for the purpose of “passive income”.
I don’t have an inherit problem with “mom and pop” landlords as a thing if they’re willing to actually do what they’re resposible for. Rental property existing isn’t the problem and fills a need for a lot of people. Renting (at sane rates that allow saving up a down payment) is a pathway to ownership. It’s a solution to people that aren’t planning on settling down in an area – like students and people working towards another career.
Price gouging and landlords screwing over tenants is an issue. Huge rental companies buying up everything they can is the problem. As is reality companies creating artificial scarcity and driving up prices on housing.
The problem is what’s it’s always been: unmitigated greed, primarily by the rich and powerful.
Renting (at sane rates that allow saving up a down payment) is a pathway to ownership.
As opposed to what? You’re either living with somebody for free or you’re homeless if not currently renting or owning.
it’s not a job. it’s an investment.
basically like trading or renting out equipment.(but yeah treating homes people live in as investment is pretty fucked up, as that leads to poor treatment of tenants)
It is absolutely a job if you personally handle upkeep. Managing something is still a job. Although if you outsource every aspect of it I would consider it more an investment.
It is always an investment that requires work to be put into it, but you doing the work isn’t an inherent component, you can always pay someone to do it for you.
Just rephrasing what you said in a way I think you’d agree with to repeat the point that it is always an investment.
Why are we gatekeeping the word job? all a job is “a task or piece of work, especially one that is paid” that seems to fit the definition of a homeowner renting out their property.
You’re just not getting like, a basic political economy concept.
Regardless of whether the investor also does the job of maintaining the property, the property they invested in is an investment. Investments always require some sort of work on someone’s part.
Also you were the one gatekeeping the word investment
Something can be both an investment and a job. If you found a startup, for instance. I just don’t get the meaningless arguments about how maintaining a property isn’t a job. If it requires you to work, then it’s a job.
Something can be both an investment and a job. I do not know why you were saying “it is a job not an investment” originally.
it is a job not an investment
where did I say that
The job in that case is property management, not being a landlord in and of itself. If you do upkeep yourself as in renting out a basement or a second property, you’re technically both a landlord and a property manager. Homeowners can have property managers as well, such as in a condo, in that case the property manager is hired by the owners council and paid for with condo fees.
The “professional” landlords, the type that are hated by far the most, hire dedicated property managers who do basically everything (up to and including approving new renters and evicting people in some cases) and basically the only thing the actual landlords personally do is hold the deed, which is why those businesses are called holding companies.
Land value tax would solve this when combined with a UBI from the revenue it generates
Ok, yeah I can see you’re filling this community with fire content
Land value tax is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of. “Unimproved” value? So basically when rich people get together and build mansions, next to them we build affordable housing. Both pay the same tax because the unimproved land is worth the same? Or maybe you’d argue that because the other mansions were built that the land is now worth more because it’s more desirable. That logic applies to the affordable housing next door though, so the rich can kick the poor out of house and home just by being nearby.
No, all taxes need to be extremely progressive because the wealthy simply consume more from society than the poor. A poor person can be poor anywhere. A rich person can only accumulate and hoard vast wealth if the society they parasite provides them with a steady source of healthy and intelligent workers and vast access to energy and natural resources to consume. The rich take more from society and need to pay more.
Taxes also need to apply to every possible economic transaction because unlike the poor, the rich can afford to do weird things to escape taxation. If we tax only one thing you can bet your ass the rich will find a way to avoid it and only the poor and working class will pay, allowing the rich to hoard wealth unimpeded leading to the tremendous inflation we see now.
Land value tax is progressive. Due to land’s inelastic supply, this tax cannot be passed on to others. People that own lots of land bear the entire burden of the tax. Charging for unimproved land value encourages building denser on more valuable land. This increases housing supply thus making housing more affordable
LVT is 1 policy. It can be combined with other policies. LVT is not an avoidable tax
It’s not progressive.
How much land does Musk or Bezos own? How much land does an average farmer own?
Amazon warehouses are built on the unimproved equivalent of farmland or worse. The Amazon warehouse generates millions in annual profit. The same parcel of land gets a farmer a meager income and we should tax BOTH THE SAME???
If you come up with a tax that has any chance of taxing an old farmer more than it taxes Musk or Bezos, don’t come tell me it’s progressive.
Also I’m sick of hearing that somehow this tax “can’t be passed down to the consumer”. If every plot of land nearby is taxed the same, all the owners will shrug and say “sorry that’s just what it costs”. It’s the very definition of things that will be passed down to the consumer. Take your libertarian BS out of here.
It meets the definition of a progressive tax.
The broader Georgist program involves aggressive taxation of government-granted monopolies like IP, which both Musk and Bezos are indirectly beneficiaries of.
LVT is 1 policy meant to solve 1 problem. It can be combined with other policies that address other problems.
The labor theory of property, a negative application of which provides a moral rationale for LVT, also provides a justification for an inalienable right to worker democracy
I’m sorry, I just have a hard time agreeing with you on the definition of progressive taxation here. Sure SOME rich people will pay more than SOME poor people. But even that statement is tenable at best. Certainly MOST rich people will pay less than an average family farm. Most rich people will pay less than an average person who owns a self sufficient rural homestead lot.
It’s not as bad as the libertarian “15/15/15 flat tax” that was making the rounds a few years ago, but that’s the best that can be said about it.
I like a lot of consequences of the LVT, like that if famously solves the downtown parking lot problem. But I’d never call it progressive. A progressive tax should tax people who own more wealth more than those who own less. If you tax someone who owns a multi million dollar hotel the same as someone who owns an empty lot next door all you’re doing is making it so that only the rich can afford lots. Then when they improve the lot to make more money you reward them by effectively taking a smaller percentage of their new found wealth.
LVT taxing the empty lot next door at the same rate as a multimillion dollar hotel is exactly what makes it so efficiency enhancing because it give land owners economic incentives to use their land productively rather than just holding it and waiting for it to appreciate in value. With LVT, prices would exclude the value of the land.
LVT can be combined with other policies and taxes. You have to look at the whole package of policies to determine progressivity. LVT+UBI is progressive
inflation: exists
if the revenue from the tax is used for the UBI, there is no change in the money supply compared to the current situation. So, can you explain where the inflation you’re predicting is coming from?
Rent seeking, unless you also combine it with rent control and a bunch of other measures and have a monopoly on violence.
Inflation comes from people seeking to make more money, not just an increase in money supply.
That’s the benefit of a land value tax. It captures all the economic rent, without penalizing investment in improvements.
If you’re an anarchist, then the economics work the same way in a geoanarchist society.
LVT doesn’t really address the fundamental class antagonism between landlords and tenants.
Let’s say landlords pay more taxes because of LVT, and that goes to UBI. Landlords can just jack up the prices to make their money back. The only people who benefit are people who don’t rent.
Also geoanarchism doesn’t sound like anarchism, unless we are being pejorative toward anarchism.
I agree that LVT doesn’t address the fundamental class antagonism. It only addresses economic rent.
Landlords can’t just jack up prices. LVT doesn’t distort prices because the supply of land is perfectly inelastic - the revenue comes entirely out of landlord surplus. UBIs so far haven’t caused significant inflation, which makes sense if the total amount distributed equals the total amount taxed.
http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/Geoanarchism-FredFoldvary.html
wtf is that source lol
Okay, imagine a hypothetical. You’re a landlord with 90 percent occupancy rate across 100 apartments. For simplicity let’s say they all pay you 1000 dollars a month. With the lvt tax you pay 100 dollars a month per apartment. Your renters simultaneously get 90 dollars a month(let us assume that renters make up 50 percent of the population and slightly more than half of the tax comes from residential land, giving us 90 dollars)
You’re going to raise rent by 90 dollars, at least. Maybe 111 dollars, to compensate for the empty apartments, if you want to continue making the same amount of money.
yeah, years of economic science dating back to post WW2. not just an emotional comment on lemmy.
They asked a fair question. And economics was more a branch of philosophy than a science at that time.
lol mfw
Ok thanks for your contribution Dr. Science.
u too mr hypothetical
philosophy is a science mr smartypants
So what’s the consensus on landlords who do it as a side hustle
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”
-Literally Adam Smith. I dont even need to get out the Mao quotes.
The problem isn’t the scale the problem is the class dynamic.
Honestly, Adam Smith gets a worse rap than he deserves because all the rich people abused his ideas to peddle unregulated, free-wheeling capitalism. Even Smith knew the inherent danger of privatization and monopolization of land and rampant rent-seeking.
Kinda like how Nietzsche’s sister exploited and misrepresented his work after his death to further the Nazi cause.
It seems to be a common thing with a lot of the classical economists that they all recognized (and wrote quite a bit about) these problems of monopolism and rent-seeking, but wealthy elites cherry-picked their books to serve their own economic agenda.
So here’s a story from other side of a coin. When I got married I decided to get a small house in the suburbs as my work is remote so I can work from anywhere. But after getting a baby me and my SO decided that we would live near my in-laws house to help with taking care of my baby for the time being. So we rented a house near my in-laws and to keep the house occupied I decided to rent out the house for a cheap price. It’s basically half the market price. Soon enough I got a renter. Being too trusting of others I decided to not ask for a deposit because the people renting are basically a friend of a friend.
But after they finished their rental period when I came to the house it was basically wrecked, they destroyed the toilets, one of the doors, and generally left the place in shambles. It’s amazing what kind of damage you can do in a short period of time, and the amount of money that I spent fixing the damage is more than the rent money that I got.
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Yep, my deal with my landlord is if there’s anything that needs fixing I’ll fix it myself and if I spend any money I’ll just forward him the invoice and he’ll deduct it from my rent. Although others don’t have the same situation as myself, I think there’s a place for landlords to exist.
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Yeah, damn those tenants who use their legal rights to actually get their landlords to maintain their own damn property. They’re just mean. If only all tenants just did free labour for their landlords, the world would be a better place.
What a fucking joke.
Dude, if you get to rent a place for half the market price, just try to be a decent person okay?
Something almost exactly like that happened to me. I bought a house so my money wouldn’t be stagnant and didn’t wanna live away from my parents yet so I rented it. They totally fucked up everything in it.
Should have sold your house. Another person could have bought it. Being the owner, they would have more respect for it since it’s their loss of it gets wrecked. Adding another house to the market also increases supply and makes houses more affordable.
Your landlord also should have sold his house and you could have bought it instead of paying his mortgage.
The ethical use case for rentals is short and medium term for travelers and people who are in a place for a few months to a year.
Selling your home is not a solution. “Being the owner they would of had more respect for it” is a ridiculous notion to abide by. People will wreck their home as owners just as much as renting. You can easily just argue to have the tenant pay full cost for rent, pay full down payment and then maybe he would have respected how much he was paying for his living solution.
Do you not understand the costs of buying and selling a home? Having to deal with banks and lending? You think this is the solution every time someone or a family needs to make a living change?
The guy tried to rent out his property at a reasonable price because he didn’t want to go through the other route. Even without the absurd costs of closing and dealing with mortgage lenders and every party involved, the volatility of the housing market is enough to make people insecure.
I can tell the majority of people here aren’t home owners and hate landlords like some evil boogeyman but they’re conflating a single or 2 house owner with a renting conglomerate. Selling your home so there’s more homes on the market as a solution is equivalent to turning the water off while brushing your teeth to fight the dwindling supply of water.
Selling your home so there’s more homes on the market as a solution is equivalent to turning the water off while brushing your teeth to fight the dwindling supply of water.
Fucking EXACTLY. Every drop counts, not running the water uselessly for 4 minutes a day saves enough water for you to survive a full day. Sure there are people wasting more water and we need to spend more energy reducing their waste, but just because someone is worse than you doesn’t mean you’re “good”.
So you expect me to buy another house when my kid is old enough that I don’t need help from my in-laws and spend much more money after the housing price goes up.
My landlord is in a similar position as mine, soon after he bought the house I’m staying in he got assigned to work abroad for five years and decided to rent the house for cheap. I did the same expecting the tenants would act like me.
Man people hate owning property here. Selling your house because you needed to change living conditions for a while is wild. Besides the absolute volatility of housing markets and prices, just the cost of buying/selling a home is a ton. Renting is an easy way of what you did.
No way do these people think selling your home was the right idea in your position. And it’s not entitlement to want people to take care of property.
This, if someone borrowed your shit at least you want the borrower to take care of it.
Landlords gonna landlord. You’re literally the guy in the meme “owning other people’s homes and complaining about it”
Basically you wrote a story where you’re the good guy who out of the goodness of his heart rented his only house at HALF MARKET VALUE just because you love the poor and want to help them. Then an EVIL NON LAND OWNING tenant moves in and destroys it for no reason. And you didn’t even make any money. What a disaster. Thankfully for your landlord you’re a good land owning tenant. If only all tenants were like you.
What a joke.
Entitlement is a hell of a drug. I deserve to live wherever it’s easiest for my family, obviously. You don’t though.
Dude, I’m literally renting the house for a couple of years before I move back in after my kid is older. What the fuck do you expect me to do? Do you know how much I rented the house at? Only for 2 months cost of the mortgage for a year.
Let me sum it up for you simply, if you bought a house for some price and then you need to move for a short time like 3-4 years, why the fuck should you sell the house?
Sounds like poor planning to me
Imagine complaining about having to buy a house in a bad market while also complaining about being a landlord
So let me get you straight. If I needed to live somewhere else for a short time like 3 years. I’ll need to sell my house and then buy the same house again after 3 years for 50% more price?
No? Why would you need to buy the same house again?
Also you’re getting mad at the exact evil that makes renting the only option for some - the shitty housing market. It just so happens that landlords exacerbate the shitty market by being economic parasites. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned you are as a landlord, the concept of renting is parasitic.
A man owning a home and renting it out isn’t the problem and you know it.
Imo taking houses out of the market to rent them out shouldn’t be allowed.
Lol, no nuance here. Landlords are the devil. I try to inject some moderation once in a while. We have a rental, it’s in fantastic shape. We’ve never raised the rent. We’ve spent so much on improvements and repairs we’ll not see a profit on it for the next 3 years. Tax write off? Sure… but nonetheless landlords are the devil. Doesn’t matter if we worked out asses off to afford it.
E: what follows is people willing to subscribe to luxuries like entertainment, but complain about fair prices for necessities. Why bother being decent when you get shit on anyway.
I would argue that owning additional property in an environment where there is a housing shortage is implicitly unethical even if you’re trying to run it ethically. Only argument I can think of against that is that you’re keeping it from shittier landlords and corporations. But still, denying others the opportunity to grow their wealth through property ownership causes poverty on a mass scale. Not any one person’s fault, but still.
We charge well under mortgage rates for rent. It’s affordable. I hate to throw this out there, but our intent is never to “extract” the max profit from someone. If someone wants to rent at the upper extent of their ability to pay it’s not what we’re forcing on someone.
The only reason you own a second house is for profit. A profit you are doing directly from an other individual. You can twist that how you want, it’s the reality. You are doing it respectfully and are providing a service. But an artificial one.
What if it’s run at cost? (And the property value were to stay level)
You’re still extracting wealth from the tenant, and the tenant is only losing money. You’re still preventing the tenant from building their wealth through property ownership.
The ethical thing to do in this situation would be to sell the house to the tenant at a price proportional to the rent, minus what they’ve already paid in rent to this point.
Sorry I genuinly don’t follow. If I were to rent out at cost, that means if the tenant were the owner, they’d have to pay the same cost as well. So they’re losing the same amount of money either way.
And how would they be building wealth through property, if the property value doesn’t rise? They would buy the flat for say 50k$, and then own 50k$ worth of property
minus what they’ve already paid in rent to this point
I think you’re assuming that I would be paying off a loan with their rent? By renting at cost I meant their rent covers maintanance/upkeep
If its run at cost, why aren’t you selling it to the tenants?
It can be fairly priced, but that doesn’t really change anything I said before. It’s not how the property is run that’s the problem, it’s that it’s owned by someone who isn’t living there during a time where that, on its own, creates problems.
Yeah, youre doing it out of the goodness of your heart and not to have a renter pay for you to own an appreciating asset. /s
Why do you think any business does what it does? That’s an absurd assertion that anyone would do that for nothing. We take good care of our tenants because we like having good people there, and that’s worth a lot. We play the long game. Your /s is useless after that post.
Why do you think any business does what it does?
Yeah, profit is legitimately a problem, this guy Adam Smith wrote about it in a book and then Marx wrote a whole series of tomes doing a more comprehensive analysis about how it is unsustainable and to the detriment of humanity.
We’re not interested in infinite growth and owe no loyalty to shareholders. Our rates are static.
Yeah, youre a member of the rentier class, not the capitalist class.
The critique is actually different for rentierism vs capitalism, even most capitalist economicists hate rentierism. You’re collectively a parasitic class even to the capitalists because you increase their operating costs indirectly for no benefit. Earnestly no offense, as class analysis is about understanding structures, not moralizing.
You still benefit from extractivist class dynamics. Unless you’re going to be in the red even after selling the properties you own, even if you’re charging so low that you lose money in the short term. But I’m guessing that on aggregate over time you’re gaining money in the short term.
Well, that’s an opinion.
Typically most businesses aren’t profiting from the threat of withholding basic human needs.
Really?
Groceries?
Electricity?
Fuel?
I think you need to adjust your thinking.
Groceries?
Food stamps. It definitely would be nice to have a government owned food bank. This is a bit of a weird one because the line between luxury food and necessity food is blurry and complex. It certainly is a system that is also in need of reform
Electricity?
About half owned by the government why I live, the other half is highly regulated, companies dont really get a choice of what to charge. It’s also illegal where i am to cut off electricity during winter months where it really is 100% a need. If they don’t really get to choose who there customers are or how much they charge, aren’t the real customer the government? I think this would be a pretty good model for land ownership.
Fuel?
Not really a basic need, I haven’t used any in a couple years. The car cartels are certainly a huge threat to people’s basic freedoms.
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Yes really.
I absolutely agree with you about grocery, energy, and fuel companies being evil. But most companies aren’t grocery, energy, or fuel companies.
That said, I still hate capitalism. But for the purposes of this discussion, landlords are listed among the worst because they’re part of the select few who withhold basic human necessities over profit.
Fuel is NOT a basic human need, especially in countries where gas stoves are extremely uncommon or banned from being used in new houses (which includes most of Europe). In fact, in most of the US electric stoves are also by far the most common type (with the exception of California, NY, Illinois, and New Jersey).
Fossil fuels as a “need” is manufactured, it’s completely artificial, it shouldn’t even be legal to install stoves or heating that require gas. The US and Canada also shouldn’t have shitty car-dependent infrastructure. The only reason we have these problems is because of propoganda from fossil fuel corporations promoting garbage like “gas stoves cook better”… whatever that’s supposed to mean… or lobbying to keep cars as the only viable form of transport for the past hundred years.
I agree with the rest of your points though.
Well actually…
(I get your point though, it is very direct with landlordism)
Don’t get me wrong, capitalism is still evil. On the employment end they’re still extorting people because below a certain level, in the current society, money becomes a basic human necessity.
But for the purposes of this discussion, from a consumer perspective, most businesses in the world don’t trade in human necessities. Landlords, grocery stores, hospitals, energy companies, and a few more are the select few who do.
You’re literally my parents. They were long term landlords, bought properties for nothing in the 90’s rented them for 20-30 years and then sold them. Most properties were long term rentals, people lived there for 5+ years, one lady had 6 kids in 10 years in one of their houses. Rents in their area are ~$1200-2000, my parents were still renting at $700 because the place was paid off and the people living there had been there for nearly a decade.
Side hustle landlords ain’t the enemy, it’s the corporate landlords that are the true problem. Unfortunately the people being oppressively fucked don’t see a difference and it’s hard to blame them.
Hope your side hustle works out for you and I hope you stay one of the good ones.
EDIT: My parents both have full time jobs, having rentals wasn’t a job for them. They rented to pay the mortgage and pay for upkeep. The long term plan for them was to sell the houses and retire, not live off rent for perpetuity. They rented the properties at a rate that allowed them to pay the mortgage off quickly and pay for landlord repairs (roof, HVAC, water heater, septic tank, etc).
No they’re still part of the problem just not the biggest problem.
I mean it CAN be a job if they also do repairs, landscaping, and/or preventative maintenance. Almost none of them do it though.
I think it is probably useful rhetorically and in analysis to differentiate between landlording as owning property and doing maintenance as doing a job even if one person is doing both
Class: Landlord
Sub-class: Property Steward
And getting money for it 👍
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Yeah, rent control isn’t the solution people think it is. It turns out markets are high because of demand and supply. Not solely due to greed. What we need is more housing and to delete nimbyism.
People being like “tax landlords more” No, do what the cpc did. Stop enforcing property rights. All you have to do is take over the local sheriff or city court and refuse to enforce or write any eviction orders except for serious safety reasons.
Some of those landlords will form gangs to enforce their property rights, those landlords are myopic jackasses who are going to end up killed by peasant… er… tenants if the local law enforcement doesn’t step in to break up those gangs without killing anyone first.
Who pays the property tax then?
They do, until they realize that their not going to get their land back, and then they’ll sell their land for pennies to either the tenants or some investment company who can absorb the losses for much longer. Eventually the property will end up owned by the residents who will pay taxes assuming you can maintain power (you’re basically set electorally, you’re the group that did land reform, you just have to worry about capital strikes and coups, so you should probably do a hard purge(fire all the pigs, throw the ones in jail for illegal activities they’d previously have gotten away with) and reorganization of the local police and should invest in arming the local organized proletariat to dissuade that)(capital strikes can be prevented because dissolving the rent seeking class is beneficial to sectors of capital too) who will pay property taxes, as the property tax and maintenance costs are much lower than rent.
The tenants’ money was paying the property taxes to begin with.
Why would anyone pay property tax if property rights stop being enforced? Unless you are actually just giving only the government property rights, allowing the writing and enforcement of evictions, which just makes the government the sole owner of all land the thus the new landlord. Even then, why pay tax when I can just go squat in anyone’s house or building while they aren’t home and it comes down to whoever is stronger getting to stay. Also no point paying tax if someone can just come take it from me. Unless you mean the police actually will enforce property rights for some people but just not others, which just means only those who can afford to employ the police have secure property while the poors just get to duke it out. Unless what you are actually saying is only don’t enforce property rights on secondary building ownership, and then only if that secondary building is not owned by a business that is not providing residential living space. Or are we also breaking up all multi-locatiln businesses the same way?
If everyone risks losing their home every time they leave for work or to get groceries, and only the strongest get to keep the best shelters, the social compact is broken and forming warring territorial clans and insular communities is the end result. Property rights are kind of a keystone for a functional society operating at a size larger than a rural village. It would cause less damage to just make owning more than a single family dwelling illegal, and force everyone to acquire a mortgage to wherever they currently live. This may partially lock your population to wherever they happen to live without finding someone to swap similarly valued dwelling units wherever you want to move to, but there are ways to lessen that impact. Alternatively, the government just seizes all property and doles it out according to whatever the government’s desires are for an area.
Why would anyone pay property tax if property rights stop being enforced?
Monopoly of violence, same as always. I also said stop enforcing private property rights. Personal property is distinct.
A home doesn’t stop being your personal property when you leave it for work, don’t be absurd.
You must be conscious about how much of a stretch that rhetoric is, right?
Not to be pedantic, but you did write just the broader enforcement of property rights and not private property rights, and I approached it from that broader perspective. Under your clarification, your house does not cease to be your personal property when you leave it for work, but only if the government uses their monopoly of violence to enforce it. And yes, it was a stretch of rhetoric, but not made dishonestly.
The concern is that under this ideal scenario, what happens if you leave you house for a longer term? How does this take temporary moving into account? Examples: I get temporarily transferred for a year to a new city by my job and I fully intend to return to my home after this assignment. Rental homes/apartments aren’t a thing, so I must either buy a dwelling there for a year, or stay in a hotel for a year. If I buy a dwelling, I now own two properties as long as I can afford to pay both mortgages. More likely, I am forced to sell my long term home because I cannot rent it out for that year I am gone. If I do keep it, can I own two separate pieces of personal property or does one become private property because it is not in habitation? I have deprived someone of buying one of them by owning both, and ownership of empty dwellings is usually complained about just as much as renting them. Will my personal property rights be enforced on my vacant home for that year? Should the government allow someone to move in and use my house for that year without my permission or compensation, and only resume enforcing my rights when I move back in? Am I forced to sell and hope that I can rebuy my home when I return? A similar dwelling in an adjacent area may not factor against the sentimental value of a family or generational home. Are any of these parts different if I become temporarily disabled and move in to another person’s home for care. What about a year in the hospital or rehabilitation facility? I don’t think any of these concerns are all that absurd, even if they would affect a small percentage of the population.
You were also seemingly arguing that allowing non-residential private property rights would/should still be enforced so that the capitalist class gets to keep commercial property, unless you are classifying personal, private, and capital property as three distinct categories. Since generally the argument is that private residential property is being used as a rung of capital, I was viewing these as similar enough to be lumped together. It does seem that maybe you were hinting at this being a first step, keep the capital class from revolting while we take out the rentier class, and then move on the remaining private property in swallowable chunks as power is consolidated, which is another reason to view it at a somewhat extreme angle.
Not to be pedantic, but you did write just the broader enforcement of property rights and not private property rights, and I approached it from that broader perspective.
In fairness I did say “like the cpc did” which implied the distinction between personal and private property, but Im glad we’ve cleared up the source of misunderstanding.
The concern is that under this ideal scenario, what happens if you leave you house for a longer term? How does this take temporary moving into account? Examples: I get temporarily transferred for a year to a new city by my job and I fully intend to return to my home after this assignment. Rental homes/apartments aren’t a thing, so I must either buy a dwelling there for a year, or stay in a hotel for a year. If I buy a dwelling, I now own two properties as long as I can afford to pay both mortgages. More likely, I am forced to sell my long term home because I cannot rent it out for that year I am gone. If I do keep it, can I own two separate pieces of personal property or does one become private property because it is not in habitation? I have deprived someone of buying one of them by owning both, and ownership of empty dwellings is usually complained about just as much as renting them. Will my personal property rights be enforced on my vacant home for that year? Should the government allow someone to move in and use my house for that year without my permission or compensation, and only resume enforcing my rights when I move back in? Am I forced to sell and hope that I can rebuy my home when I return? A similar dwelling in an adjacent area may not factor against the sentimental value of a family or generational home. Are any of these parts different if I become temporarily disabled and move in to another person’s home for care. What about a year in the hospital or rehabilitation facility? I don’t think any of these concerns are all that absurd, even if they would affect a small percentage of the population.
This is entirely contextual. If there is enough housing for people to do it at the rate they’re doing it then sure, own two properties at once if they are for personal use. If there is not enough housing then let someone who is going to be there for a year use it. You could also create rights to first usage in the case of letting someone (an exchange student for example) use a residence for a period of time while you retain long term usage rights.
But also, historically speaking, the communists aren’t coming after your toothbrush. This stuff is a drop in the bucket and they don’t care.
Also why would you still be paying a mortgage in this system? The idea is decommodified housing. Housing is assigned based on needs, not currency.
which is another reason to view it at a somewhat extreme angle.
You could view private property as an extreme angle that has been normalized. The idea of private property rights is the bedrock of capitalism, which is rapidly committing ecocide on the one planet humans are able to access.
First, your username finally clicked and I feel slow for missing it for so long. I actually love it.
Nextly, to also be fair, the existence of a difference between private and personal property isn’t widely known, and China’s implementations of these concepts are even less well known unless someone has been more than toes deep into communist/socialist discussion. Even a lot of “communist” posters don’t have a good grasp on it and can’t really articulate the original intent behind “abolish private property”.
I would like to point out that there are currently enough homes in the US for everyone, and far more vacant homes than our entire homeless population right now. We have major density problems and collusery artificial scarcity that has long crossed over into being illegal and immoral, so we need to be building homes on the scale we did in the post war period. Houses should be much further down the commodity end of the commodity/investment scale, but until we reach a true post scarcity environment (Star Trek levels of post scarcity), I don’t foresee full decommoditization of housing working sustainably.
Lastly, while the communist state really isn’t coming for your toothbrush, obstensively communist countries have overshot going after the landlords and replaced most residential personal property with government landlords. Soviet khrushchevka blocks are a trope for a reason, even if overused.
And thank you for the actual engagement and conversation on this, I appreciate your insights.
Rent extraction: Passive cash flow from doing nothing but owning something without actually producing anything. Such income can be used to buy more such cash flows until monopolies form. Unless monopolies are broken up by government, monopoly owners collude to maximize rent extraction until heads roll during the next revolution.
“NFTs” were an attempt to rent-seek on the internet, demanding kickbacks for the dubious ownership of an entry on a ledger that is usually associated with an ugly picture.
Sounds like an oxymoron.
buy one, live in it, buy another, rent one. not usually a job, already have one thanks.
i like how this is somewhere in france, because i could just find it unexpectedly
Could be Quebec.
indeed it could
Being a landlord involves property management, tenant relations, and property maintenance. Generalizations about all landlords being “bad” oversimplify the situation. I’ll bet some of us have had some pretty interesting landlord interactions in our time as renters.
Landlord hands typed this.
