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Another valuable life lesson from Elmo and friends!
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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I mean, this is how businesses work in general. If you don't buy their products/services, then they wouldn't be able to continue providing them.
I understand that we're trying to draw attention to exploitative landlords, but if anyone can afford to keep their property regardless of whether or not you pay rent, it's the exploitative ones.
The problem is that landlords don't create value, they seek to endlessly profit off of one time labor. Rent-seeking creates no real Value of any substance.
That's the naivete of the Internet talking. Of course landlords create value; they do so in exactly the same way lenders create value: they absorb risk by amortizing upfront costs and charge a premium to do so.
If you didn't agree that it's an ethical way to participate in the economy, say that. Don't try to pass off a moral judgment as an objective truth.
There's no Value created by risk, that's an ad-hoc justification for profiting endlessly off of labor performed one time long ago.
car and house Insurance both provide value by reducing the capital investment required to continue having an item, landlords reduce the upfront cost of housing by charging a continuous fee instead of a lump sum.
Insurance is perhaps the peak of Financial Capital masquerading as Value.
Houses are not "one time labor.". Housing requires constant scheduled maintenance and upkeep over time.
Not to mention the financing required to pay for it all,which is normally spread over 30 years.
Building a house is one time. Maintenance creates Value, yes, but one only needs to compare the cost of maintaining a house with the cost of renting it to see that the vast majority of profits come from rent-seeking. It's non-productive extraction.
Get him
Landlords also do repair and maintenance (jokes aside) to maintain the property in good working order / habitability.
At least, they are generally required by law to do so. Your laws may vary.
Landlords also prep the unit for habitation between tenants and handle all of the paperwork for rent and utilities (depending).
Maintaining housing is very expensive, and many people cannot afford to just drop $25,000 to redo a kitchen or reroof a building when it is required.
So landlords are basically the middle manager between your living at the property, and all of the maintenance and financial details. You pay rent to them for that service.
My landlord doesn't do that, they have a property manager that does that stuff. Ive never even seen my landlord. If the landlord does it, then they are not doing landlording, they are being a property manager and landlord, but they don't necessarily have to, and one doesn't require being the other.
That’s disingenuous. The property manager very much is NOT paying $30k for a new roof. The landlord is. The property manager just executes the maintenance plan the landlord is paying for.
The real problem here that these kinds of discussions usually miss is the system of laws that force everyone involved to treat housing as an investment. Housing is a necessity that the government should ensure availability of for all. Some countries get it right, like Germany where the laws pushed so much reasonably priced housing that rent isn’t even painful so tons of people don’t bother buying
They do create value. They provide maintenance free housing as well as short term housing (short term as in 1-3 years.) Not everyone wants to stay in the same location for 5+ years. If you move around alot It you want to rent is usually the better option.
Now sure you could argue they are over charging for that service but that doesn't mean they aren't providing value.
The only reason why we are having issues is because there is a housing shortage that is raising the price and large companies have taken advantage of this by buying up all the houses at the crazy price and renting them out at crazy rent prices eating up the market for actual people to want to buy a house.
The ability to rent is useful, but the idea that endlessly profiting off of the same property and doing minor maintenance is creating Value is silly. There's no Value being created through simply owning something. Maintenance creates Value, yes, but that does not make up anywhere close to the profit of landlording.
Value is created by the use of something. If someone is living in a house then it is providing value.
As long as the something is useful it can provide value endlessly.
What is "Value?" We are talking about different things here under the same term. You are referring to "Use-Value" as Value itself. A Use-Value being created has a Value, it will provide it's Use-Value until it is consumed fully.
No. It's not large companies. It's a sickness inherent in the system and exactly what this is taking about. The only service being provided is leveraging their own credit to get a mortgage from the bank and then paying that mortgage and taxes with rent. They do that because it will decrease supply and increase value. And that's a parasitic practice done not just by large companies by any means. In my city they even subcontract for maintenance and also pay for that out of the rent. If we're doing this shit, why exactly aren't we just letting the renters own their equity for paying the goddamn mortgage. It's a disgusting system.
Keep in mind this isn't always the case. Landlords where I used to live are increasingly requiring tenants to pay for some maintenance costs. A past landlord had us pay for anything $300 or less.
Where in the world is that? I have never heard of renters paying for maintenance.
In fact, every single rental agreement I signed over 25 years said "contact the landlord if there is a problem" which was backed up by state law.
"Free" as it isn't the renters responsibility. If something breaks they call the landlord and say fix it.
Obviously the maintenance cost will be baked into the rent cost, or as an added fee as shown in your example.
We had to fix it or arrange to have it fixed, then the landlord would verify it was fixed to their satisfaction. The landlord was otherwise hands off until it exceeded the cost limit. This was the norm for the area.
Ahh ok, I miss read your comment.
No, you're fine! I didn't specify. I lived with it for so long, it didn't even occur to me to outline the process.
Robbing tenants of potential equity is not a service.
Generalizations that are oversimplified to the point of lacking all nuance are probably untrue because there are bound to be exceptions. Instead, try including 'many', 'most', or such as an easy remedy.
Specifically, landlords can create value when they handle property management and maintenance (and the related costs) efficiently. It is wrong that greed has made that so rare.
The act of landlording creates no Value. There isn't a "most" there, because it creates no Value, period.
Maintenance workers create Value, yes. Landlords are not creating value, here, the workers are. Landlords often pay management firms as well, cutting out all personal involvement. The minor, administrative labor does create Value, but that is incredibly small in the scope of the money expropriated from the renters.
Greed didn't make this happen, Capitalism did. The Mode of Production naturally led to this, it isn't a case of especially greedy people taking power.
If they don’t create value then they wouldn’t exist in a capitalist market. Their value is that they take the liability of homeownership.
That's not Value. "Risk" and "liability" aren't Value. Nothing is being produced here. There is risk, and there is liability, but that in and of itself is not Value. Additionally, the "risk" in being a landlord is miniscule, even if we take the false pretense of risk creating value, the difference between the minor risk and massive, endless profits from the same property forever is nonsense, the landlord continues to profit over and above their initial investment.
What do you think Value is?
I’m not sure how you define value, but I’m using it to mean “the price or amount that someone is willing to pay in the market” this could be for a tangle thing, like the house itself, or a service, like renting it.
My point is that landlords successfully find willing persons to rent their house for some amount of money. Therefore there is by definition value because it’s happening, whether this is ethically OK or being rented for a fair amount is a separate argument.
When I was a university student I didn’t have enough capital to buy an apartment, but I found value in being able to rent one.
That's close to the truth, but not quite. Supply and Demand distort the price around a central Value.
Not really, the fact that something is purchased doesn't mean the "risk" or "liability" created the Value behind it.
You found it useful, ie renting allowed you to fulfill the Use-Value you needed, shelter. You appear to be using Subjective Value "Theory," ie the idea that Value is a hallucination different from person to person, which is of course wrong.
Capitalism optimizes for exchange value not use value, also landlordism is a fuedal holdover that hurts capitalism, I would suggest reading the chapters in capital volume 3 on land rent
In theory, the value they create is in handling all the home maintenance. Of course, many of them don't do their jobs in practice.
I'd articulate my stance slightly differently, but "handiwork" and even "property management" are real jobs that produce value, but neither of those are "being a landlord", as evidenced by the fact that the more successful and/or lazy landlords hire managers, etc. and let the "passive income" roll in. The fact that they can outsource even the relatively small amount of labor sometimes associated with their occupation and then still profit endlessly shows that they have a very parasitic social position.
Maintenance creates Value, yes, but landlords aren't maintenance services, they extract by far the bulk of the profits off of owning the home itself and renting it.
none of them maintain their properties
Of course people can simply refuse to buy housing and end up on the street, which isn't dangerous or criminalized or anything/s