There’s a lot to unpack out of this reddit moment.
If we want people to take us seriously about advocating for reform in this housing crisis, this ain’t it. Stripping nuance out of the conversation isn’t helping the cause, it just makes us look uninformed.
Yes, the vast majority of landlords charge too much and do to little. But claiming that no work is required to be landlord does two things:
It absolves the landlord of the responsibility to maintain the property
It diminishes the scope of the work required to provide people with affordable housing and doesn’t set clear goals to accomplish
There is a rule of thumb called the unrecoverable costs to owning which is typically 5% of the property’s value. This goes towards plumbing, electrical work, landscaping, HVAC repairs, roof work, pest control, interior upkeep, and much more. The reality is that a property doesn’t take care of it self and someone has to.
Yes, the system is broken, rent is unaffordable, and home owner is neigh impossible these days. What we need is regulation on the housing market, getting rid of speculators, reform zoning laws for high density housing, public transit and good urban planning, more subsidized and public housing, etc.
Even when you have all of that you will still need landlords, just not the kind that we have today. Because for housing to exist there is an inherent risk that somebody has to carry to guarantee the mortgage is paid for and that it will not go up in flames.
Because having one plumber fix 10 houses is fundamentally different from having a landlord oversee fixing 10 things in the same house.
Imagine if every mechanic only fixed one part of the car and you had to go to 10 different ones to fix 10 different things. No mechanic would be able to point to what’s wrong with the whole car and can only tell you what’s wrong with each part.
There is a degree of vertical integration needed to maintain a single dwelling. As an example, I wanted to replace my stove that had a broken oven. In order to do so, I needed to fix the gas line. However, I need to finish removing an old gas furnace and installing a heat pump. In order to do that, I needed to repair the broken sewer lines under the unit, and in order to do that, I needed to resolve a dispute with the city over sewer line maintenance (they admitted fault eventually).
This wasn’t just a bunch of small projects that 10 people could each do one of. There were a myriad of dependencies and choices to make that would affect other parts of the house.
Funny enough, the same principle is part of why the US healthcare system is so shit because the lack of vertical integration due to the insurance system is why patients have such a hard time getting the diagnosis and medications they need. If you or a family member has multiple health issues, you may be familiar with this.
My point is, keeping a house alive isn’t some group project that you can get 10 people to each do a little bit of. At the end of the day there are executive decisions that will determine the outcome of other parts of the house.
Obviously it depends which country you’re in and how trustworthy your government is, but in my country I heard from a former coworker, who used to work in constructionz that government-built housing estates tend to be well taken care of. You call the council and they quickly send someone over to fix the issue. They also do periodic maintenence so council estates are more maintained that private estates. Council estates are still owned by the government and they still have to comply with their own laws (for the most part), so they tend to these public housing. Whereas, estates built by private corporations and vulture funds would sweep things under the rug because there is fewer oversight.
As a landlord, you can hire someone to handle reparations, disputes, enforcement of contracts and rent collection. Therefore, being a landlord is really not actual work. It’s like the difference between being the owner of a company and its CEO: it sometimes goes hand in hand in smaller companies, but the owner isn’t pocketing the company’s profit because they do management work, they get the profit because they’re the owner.
Because for housing to exist there is an inherent risk that somebody has to carry to guarantee the mortgage is paid for and that it will not go up in flames.
So just build public housing, which can actually be priced attending to the real cost of building it and maintaining it rather than market speculation.
There’s a lot to unpack out of this reddit moment.
If we want people to take us seriously about advocating for reform in this housing crisis, this ain’t it. Stripping nuance out of the conversation isn’t helping the cause, it just makes us look uninformed.
Yes, the vast majority of landlords charge too much and do to little. But claiming that no work is required to be landlord does two things:
It absolves the landlord of the responsibility to maintain the property
It diminishes the scope of the work required to provide people with affordable housing and doesn’t set clear goals to accomplish
There is a rule of thumb called the unrecoverable costs to owning which is typically 5% of the property’s value. This goes towards plumbing, electrical work, landscaping, HVAC repairs, roof work, pest control, interior upkeep, and much more. The reality is that a property doesn’t take care of it self and someone has to.
Yes, the system is broken, rent is unaffordable, and home owner is neigh impossible these days. What we need is regulation on the housing market, getting rid of speculators, reform zoning laws for high density housing, public transit and good urban planning, more subsidized and public housing, etc.
Even when you have all of that you will still need landlords, just not the kind that we have today. Because for housing to exist there is an inherent risk that somebody has to carry to guarantee the mortgage is paid for and that it will not go up in flames.
why need landlord when have worker to call and say “fix my pipes”. he come over and fix your pipes. what can landlord do that worker man cant.
Because having one plumber fix 10 houses is fundamentally different from having a landlord oversee fixing 10 things in the same house.
Imagine if every mechanic only fixed one part of the car and you had to go to 10 different ones to fix 10 different things. No mechanic would be able to point to what’s wrong with the whole car and can only tell you what’s wrong with each part.
There is a degree of vertical integration needed to maintain a single dwelling. As an example, I wanted to replace my stove that had a broken oven. In order to do so, I needed to fix the gas line. However, I need to finish removing an old gas furnace and installing a heat pump. In order to do that, I needed to repair the broken sewer lines under the unit, and in order to do that, I needed to resolve a dispute with the city over sewer line maintenance (they admitted fault eventually).
This wasn’t just a bunch of small projects that 10 people could each do one of. There were a myriad of dependencies and choices to make that would affect other parts of the house.
Funny enough, the same principle is part of why the US healthcare system is so shit because the lack of vertical integration due to the insurance system is why patients have such a hard time getting the diagnosis and medications they need. If you or a family member has multiple health issues, you may be familiar with this.
My point is, keeping a house alive isn’t some group project that you can get 10 people to each do a little bit of. At the end of the day there are executive decisions that will determine the outcome of other parts of the house.
Obviously it depends which country you’re in and how trustworthy your government is, but in my country I heard from a former coworker, who used to work in constructionz that government-built housing estates tend to be well taken care of. You call the council and they quickly send someone over to fix the issue. They also do periodic maintenence so council estates are more maintained that private estates. Council estates are still owned by the government and they still have to comply with their own laws (for the most part), so they tend to these public housing. Whereas, estates built by private corporations and vulture funds would sweep things under the rug because there is fewer oversight.
As a landlord, you can hire someone to handle reparations, disputes, enforcement of contracts and rent collection. Therefore, being a landlord is really not actual work. It’s like the difference between being the owner of a company and its CEO: it sometimes goes hand in hand in smaller companies, but the owner isn’t pocketing the company’s profit because they do management work, they get the profit because they’re the owner.
So just build public housing, which can actually be priced attending to the real cost of building it and maintaining it rather than market speculation.
https://youtu.be/skz9odeewpc?si=Gfu5bOG2XZcAXXMP
kill all landlords
In Minecraft.
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Edgy honestly