Slightly off-topic: Just found out that the word boycott comes from a British guy called Charles Boycott, who managed landlords properties in occupied Ireland. He got ostracized by the local community and people refused to serve him or work for him.
Nobody gets a second house until everyone's had their first.
But then there will be nobody to rent your second house too!
That's the neat thing!
So then what would you recommend happen instead? Landlords don’t provide the house? They give it to you for free? Like it’s fun to complain but what’s your solution exactly?
The solution is collective ownership of housing. Housing is a right, as much as healthcare or education, and centralizing and socializing housing would ensure affordable access for everyone, as it has historically.
Housing could be owned by unions, by local councils, by the central government or by all of the above, and then rented at maintenance costs to tenants under no threat of eviction. This was the case in the Soviet Union for example, and led to the total elimination of homelessness and to the average rent costing 3% of the average monthly income.
One option would be the rent you pay slowly increases your ownership share of the house/appartment. If you live in the same place for 20 or 30 years and have paid enough to approximately match the value of the house you now own it and don't have to pay any more rent.
Just the first thing that cane to mind
What if housing were owned collectively by the people who fucking lived there and the landlords were hunted in the streets like fucking dogs for all the innocent blood they've spilled? Or something with bamboo? Maybe build houses with it after?
The solution is to tax any property that is not your primary residence 10x the normal amount. Landlords will pay the tax or be forced to sell. Especially if no one rents it at whatever ridiculous price they would set.
I wish we could go back to the 1960s and make Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) legal for commercial real estate only. Prohibit residential.
Maybe that doesn’t solve the problem fully, but turning a commodity that everyone needs into a large scale investment vehicle was a mistake.
Some hoard, some invest. They rent it out at at exactly what it's worth by definition (ie what people will pay for it). If you think being a landlord is easy and a money maker, then become one yourself and win. Oh, you don't have the capital to invest, and if you did you'd rather spend it on other things? Well, yes, the landlord had to find the money to buy the property and not spend it on other things in order to be able to rent it to you.
Of course there are some shitty landlords, just as there some shitty tenants. And it's really important that landlords are regulated. But a lot of people would be totally fucked if they could only stay somewhere if they could buy it.
People love to say that we have to have landlords because otherwise no one could rent. Great! So then, let's have not-for-profit landlords or public housing.
Also, here is a basic refresher on "what something is worth". If you're drowning and someone offers to sell you a life vest for your life savings, then you might pay it so that you don't die. Immediately after that you would pass laws to prevent them from ever doing that kind of horrible shit again. At least, you would do that if you had an ounce of empathy... Do you?
Was gonna type out explanations about how treating housing, something we all need, like capital is inherently evil. But if you don't get why landlords are leeches you're either one of them and/or you've never been anything approaching poor. I can't imagine thinking there is worth derived from hoarding housing and gouging people to live in it .
It's like trying to debate that the Earth isn't flat. You could spend the time and effort doing it, but you know they'll never actually change their mind.
Housing....and food, water, clothes. Internet, cause how else are you supposed to maintain a job?
lol "what people will pay" = "what it's worth by definition"
you are joking right? trying to make fun if landlords?
because hoarding, limiting supply will artificially rise the prices of a necessity.
it's pure evil, and with no moral justification besides you being selfish.
Imagine being thirsty in a desert, and I have gallons of water, but you and everyone else will die without it. I could give you all some at the cost of whatever it costs to distribute. or I could be a lazy fuck, and only give water to them highest bidder, they'll trade all their income for something I made artificially expensive.
then pat myself on the back because I save some people from thirst, and let the "ungrateful" die.
ie what people will pay for it
funny thing about basic human needs. You can mark them way up because the alternative is freezing to death in a ditch.
"things are worth whatever people will pay"
Then why is it illegal to kidnap people for ransom. I only ask for the fair price of "whatever people are willing to pay"
ie what people will pay for it
If you need a place to live there is no thing as "what people will pay for" because people will pay whatever as long as they can afford it. And they pay because what's the alternative? Live on the street?
The only "fair" rent price is the one where the landlord doesn't make money from it and no, taking enough to pay for the mortgage is still making money.
I see the downvotes and am choosing to extend the olive branch instead: I understand your perspective about how people who could not afford to buy a home would be shit outta luck, but this perspective limits itself to the boundaries imposed by the capitalist need to commidify basic human necessities. Homes should be guaranteed for everyone. Yes we have the resources and yes it is possible to do. In fact, all the empty homes already exist to house everyone in the states. It has nothing to do with 'good' or 'bad' landlords, the concept of a landlord is directly opposed to housing all people, as they are financially incentivized to maximize rent and to keep a pool of unhoused people in society with which to maintain the threat of homelessness. There is no invisible hand of the market.
Dipshit.
Mao theme intensifies
Jokes aside, housing should be one those "essential money pits" because it's a place of shelter not some stock on the NYSE. Housing is a human right that we all should have access to.
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