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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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This is incorrect.
All landlords, regardless of how many properties they rent out, are ultimately producing nothing. They sit on property and leech money off of the economy. The scale at which it is done does not change the core "product" (which isn't a product at all, in the traditional sense, because it is not produced). It's a classic grift.
So, yes: all landlords.
Edit: in some sense, all forms of "passive income" follow the same pattern. Capitalism relies on money being exchanged for goods and services. Passive income is a perverse adulteration of that. Free money is not a thing.
Not everything people pay for produces a tangible object. For example, people pay to hear someone play a song. People pay to hop in an Uber to get from point A to point B -- they don't own the car they ride in afterwards.
People pay for services and there's nothing wrong with that.
Renting is not a service. It is a passive income.
People playing a song or driving a car for someone else are performing a service.
Of course you don't own the car when you get an Uber. Not sure the point of the comment.
Edit: I'll also note that hedging on this issue of passive income is one reason why the wealth disparity in the US is so astronomical. If we treat passive incomes as services, we ignore the fact that they produce value from nothing. Every dollar made from a passive income came from an active income.
Passive incomes like property rental also make it exceedingly easy to contribute to generational wealth -- one more way that wealth gap gets wider.
We must stop pretending that housing (and healthcare) can work using traditional business models.
Providing rental housing is a service. It's a job, like being a waiter or a flight attendant.
Note that being a waiter or a flight attendant requires activity which directly affects the client -- just like other services. Not true of landlords.
Owning a property and renting it out does not intrinsically equate to providing a service. In fact, the only activity one has to do (in many cases) is collect rent, which is a service to the landlord only. Landlords can offer services -- improving the property, for example (though it's a service which does also benefit the landlord) -- but this is not intrinsic to property renting in the way of any service you mentioned.
And it certainly isn't a job, in the traditional sense of having a boss and a schedule etc. I guess in some sense it is closer somewhat to independent contracting, except that you ultimately get to kick out your "clients" if you want to, and you don't have to do anything they ask. Even by that interpretation, it's money for nothing. "Job" suggests effort.
I assume you're about to try and claim that paperwork and government hoops that landlords may have to work through means that they must, by definition, be a service. And to that, I would say: things that give you income are meant to require effort. But I'd gladly take over the paperwork for my landlord if it meant I didn't need to keep giving him half of my active income every month for doing literally nothing, and I don't think I'm alone in that at all.
You are mistaken regarding the activities that landlords do. And the lower the income of the tenant, the more work the landlord has to do.
Paperwork and dealing with government bureaucracy is part of the job.
Landlord activities directly affect the "client" which is the same in any service industry.
Being self employed still means having a job. Some people only know what it's like to be an employee. They don't know the ins and outs of running your own business. Perhaps that's why you don't understand the job of being a rental property owner.
Again, all those things you mention directly impact your profit as a landlord. They have nothing to do with your tenants. It is not a service.
If I want to be able to drive a car, I have to get a license. But that doesn't mean that getting a license is a service to anyone who might ride in my car. It's overhead that I have to perform in order to drive a car.
Hearing landlords complain about paperwork while sucking up their psssive income calls for the tiniest violins ever. But, thanks to that income, they probably haven't had a real job in so long that the difference may be difficult for them to comprehend.
Being a landlord IS a real job. You're not getting it. You seem to have some idea that all a landlord does is sit back and collect rent. This is not true.
There's a lot of work involved in setting up and managing properties. Some months it's less and some months it's more. Being self employed isn't a 40 hour a week punch a clock type of job. The more properties, the more work is involved.
None of that work is a service.
Yes it is.
I guess it really depends on whether or not the landlord is a slumlord or not.
Home ownership is not easy. Homes and properties require constant care and maintenance, for those who care about them. Having two properties can easily eat up 2-3 days a week, year round.
Absolute bare minimum I put at least $10,000 into my house every year, and that's if I do all the work myself and nothing major breaks.
Paint, decking, siding, roof, furnace, plumbing, electrical, lighting, exhaust fans, yardwork, insulation, windows, doors, cabinetry, appliances, replacing sewer lines, cleaning french drains, gutters, etc etc. They may not all need work in the same year, but they do all need work and some of those jobs are a major time and money commitment.
To say property ownership is a passive income is ignorant at best, but more likely disingenuous. If it's truly passive, it's only passive for a short period of time before the costs catch up to you and your "investment" is ruined.