Thats the american dream isnt it? To be exploited until you do the exploiting? God I love America

What's the problem? If you don't buy a house you need to rent one, houses aren't free. Yeah those owners never worked for it, but isn't that the case with every rich kid? Why don't you buy a crappy house you can fix up yourself?

sadly if you try to be a good landlord and make a slim margin, you'll get dumped a huge repair bill/tax increase/other expense and now you're running the appartment at a loss. At that point you either sell it to a company willing to exploit it or you have to be less nice to your tenants and ignore repairs or charge more. Most people choose the first which is why we end up with terrible landlords.

aside: heard someone in that exact situation running low income housing, on a phone call with an expert talking to the government. The expert said "any prudent management would raise the rents the maximum allowed amount"

They have once a year paperwork to do and still bitch and moan and they still call it work.

It's disgusting.

The one "person" I know also drags tenants to court over stupid shit (he always loses 🤣)

But they’re entitled to the results of my labour!

Why?

Because!!!

I don't understand, is lemmy flooded by reddit kids now?

Comments here make it sound owning a house is free and doesn't cost money to not make it fall apart (houses tend to do so if left unmaintained).

I've rented for 20 years since I left my parents' house and finally bought my house last year, with great expenses and time waste. I'm still wondering today if renting was a better choice financially.

Step 1: Use the equity you've built up in your primary dwelling to put a down payment on a second house, which you can rent out. Congratulations, you now have a second job to fill your evenings and weekends.

Step 2: Hope like hell you get a decent tenant who pays the rent on time and doesn't destroy your property.

Step 3: Pay all of the taxes, mortgage payments, maintenance costs, repairs, legal fees, etc., which the rent will just barely cover. Of course, most of the mortgage payment goes to the bank as interest.

Step 4: Keep crossing your fingers that you don't rent to someone who will destroy your property, fail to pay rent, sue you, or cause any other major headaches.

Step 5: After 20 years of doing this, you have now paid off that second house. Yay!

You wouldn't do this if it weren't profitable. The tenant will end up paying for the furnishings and maintenance many times over in rent, and you will get an appreciating asset that you are gradually paying off the debt for. You're not getting paid for management, you're profiting from holding capital in a system designed to benefit those that have capital, and seeking rent for the ownership of that capital.

I wouldn't hold it against someone in this system we have if they end up buying a property to safeguard their money, but let's not pretend that landlords are not a parasitic relationship that reduce the amount of housing stock available for people to buy and act as a middle man between a tenant and a property management company.

Yes, nothing. Except for repair and maintenance and servicing all those cost and insurance and worrying the tenant doesn't pay and all those headache people never forsee. Nothing.