ID: A Sophie Labelle 4 panel comic featuring Stephie in different poses, saying:

Landlords do not provide housing.

They buy and Hold more space than they need for themselves.

Then, they create a false scarcity and profit off of it.

What they’re doing is literally the opposite of providing housing.

  • kitnaht@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 month ago

    I guess part of my viewpoint stems from my mother starting off as a real-estate agent when I was a child - having a stroke at 32, and being unable to truly work. By racking up credit card debt, she was able to build a house and start renting it - it was a lot of work and she took a lot of risk in doing so. She rented it out in order to sustain our family - and eventually ended up giving it to my sister. You’d be surprised at how much power renters have over a house, and the difficulty in actually “extracting” anything from them. Over the years that house was destroyed by tenant after tenant, with basically no way for us to recover funds from them for the damages.

    Renters can drag out the eviction process for a good 8+ months or longer, dodging service, etc. Then they live in your property and destroy it before they leave - with the landlord holding the short end of the stick. It’s not all butterflies and daisies.

    On top of that, because she owned a rental, our family was ineligible for any kind of assistance programs - no food stamps, no childcare credits, etc.

    Corporate landlords, are the ones who gobble up massive swaths of housing and raise prices. But landlords is a pretty broad brush to paint with, and I’ve seen the flip side of this coin.

    Landlords themselves have taken some risk, or used their own savings to be able to build a house that ends up giving someone the ability to ‘digital nomad’ like they want. It’s a service in trade for money, like everything else. If it weren’t a service that someone wanted, they’d just buy a house. Many states have first time homebuyers programs, and there are still some very affordable homes that can be had on a somewhat meager wage. But - the catch with that is that you’ve gotta be willing to live below your standards for a while. That’s how I ended up in my home. Well and septic were fucked, didn’t have a kitchen, half the walls weren’t even there – And I bought it because it was still a house. Over 15 years or so I’ve put money into it here and there, and now it’s worth a lot. But I put a lot of work into it too. I basically lived in a garbage heap for the first 2 years. About 8 years ago, I got cancer. It’s difficult to work now after all the treatments. If I wanted to go take a risk and rent this out - after I did all of that work, why would that make me a bad person for wanting something I could live off of?

    The renter loses a lot of the risk by renting. I take on the risk and the house provides someone with a place to live. I’ve gotta find a price to put on that to guard against a bad renter, repairs, etc.

    • jwiggler@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      Your story is why Im not one to say that landlords are inherently bad people, or similar such statements. Most of us are brought up in a society where we are taught to do what we gotta do to get out of it. Terms like passive income, making your money work for you, investments come to mind. I try not to blame people for playing the game that we are all expected to play.

      Still, you bring up common points defending landlords that were also taught to me through my conservative family. The risk that a landlord typically incures, though, is that they have to sell their property and end up having to become a renter, themselves. I don’t necessarily think that is much of a risk, when the reward is to take a cut of someone’s wages to put toward your own equity. But again, these are statements of theory and I can’t say they apply to every case, whereas you are coming from personal experience.

      In your mom’s case, I’d imagine damage would normally be covered by insurance, but then again I am no expert on renting a home out. I’m sure there are personal frustrations with it, especially if the mortgage is high and the equity is low. I’ll have to think more about the power dynamics in a squatter situation.

      Anyways, I’m sorry to hear about your and your family’s housing struggles, you’ve given me a bit to think about. Hope I didn’t invalidate your experiences