Godzilla knows what's up

There's a lot to unpack out of this reddit moment.

If we want people to take us seriously about advocating for reform in this housing crisis, this ain't it. Stripping nuance out of the conversation isn't helping the cause, it just makes us look uninformed.

Yes, the vast majority of landlords charge too much and do to little. But claiming that no work is required to be landlord does two things:

It absolves the landlord of the responsibility to maintain the property
It diminishes the scope of the work required to provide people with affordable housing and doesn't set clear goals to accomplish

There is a rule of thumb called the unrecoverable costs to owning which is typically 5% of the property's value. This goes towards plumbing, electrical work, landscaping, HVAC repairs, roof work, pest control, interior upkeep, and much more. The reality is that a property doesn't take care of it self and someone has to.

Yes, the system is broken, rent is unaffordable, and home owner is neigh impossible these days. What we need is regulation on the housing market, getting rid of speculators, reform zoning laws for high density housing, public transit and good urban planning, more subsidized and public housing, etc.

Even when you have all of that you will still need landlords, just not the kind that we have today. Because for housing to exist there is an inherent risk that somebody has to carry to guarantee the mortgage is paid for and that it will not go up in flames.

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Capitalistic landlording is wholly unnecessary. Homes can be personally or publicly owned without needing a landlord rent-seeking. Ownership is not labor, and creates no value.

This isn't a "reddit moment," it's a leftist moment, and given that lemmy is the leftist answer to the Capitalist Reddit, it's a bit interesting that you think this is more reddit than true to Lemmy.

42
- I didn't say ownership is labor. I said maintenance is labor.
  
  Seriously. Have you tried: re-painting a house, replacing drywall, installing new floor boards, replacing light fixtures, redoing baseboards, hooking up new washer/dryers, replacing doors knobs, fixing broken ceiling fans, installing security cameras, vetting and hiring handymen, plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, getting permits with the city, installing a new faucet, cleaning up sewer leaks, cleaning up mold, fixing stucco, dealing with bedbugs and termite extermination, get HERS testing, spec out a new electrical panel, debug for nuisance tripping, and so much more shit that I don't have time to list them all.
  
  This stuff doesn't do it self. I live in my own home now and I had to learn how to do most of these things, at least the ones that don't require certification. Handymen are expensive, and right fully so because doing maintenance well is not an easy job. If I can't learn to do it right, I'll need to pay someone else to do it.
  
  My point is that owning a home is kind of like owning a pet. You need to be fully prepared for shit over the house and know how to deal with it when it happens. Unless you're some property conglomerate, owning a house isn't just a deed transfer, it's practically a living thing that you need to take care of.
  
  15
why need landlord when have worker to call and say "fix my pipes". he come over and fix your pipes. what can landlord do that worker man cant.

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- Because having one plumber fix 10 houses is fundamentally different from having a landlord oversee fixing 10 things in the same house.
  
  Imagine if every mechanic only fixed one part of the car and you had to go to 10 different ones to fix 10 different things. No mechanic would be able to point to what's wrong with the whole car and can only tell you what's wrong with each part.
  
  There is a degree of vertical integration needed to maintain a single dwelling. As an example, I wanted to replace my stove that had a broken oven. In order to do so, I needed to fix the gas line. However, I need to finish removing an old gas furnace and installing a heat pump. In order to do that, I needed to repair the broken sewer lines under the unit, and in order to do that, I needed to resolve a dispute with the city over sewer line maintenance (they admitted fault eventually).
  
  This wasn't just a bunch of small projects that 10 people could each do one of. There were a myriad of dependencies and choices to make that would affect other parts of the house.
  
  Funny enough, the same principle is part of why the US healthcare system is so shit because the lack of vertical integration due to the insurance system is why patients have such a hard time getting the diagnosis and medications they need. If you or a family member has multiple health issues, you may be familiar with this.
  
  My point is, keeping a house alive isn't some group project that you can get 10 people to each do a little bit of. At the end of the day there are executive decisions that will determine the outcome of other parts of the house.
  
  6
- Obviously it depends which country you're in and how trustworthy your government is, but in my country I heard from a former coworker, who used to work in constructionz that government-built housing estates tend to be well taken care of. You call the council and they quickly send someone over to fix the issue. They also do periodic maintenence so council estates are more maintained that private estates. Council estates are still owned by the government and they still have to comply with their own laws (for the most part), so they tend to these public housing. Whereas, estates built by private corporations and vulture funds would sweep things under the rug because there is fewer oversight.
  
  2
As a landlord, you can hire someone to handle reparations, disputes, enforcement of contracts and rent collection. Therefore, being a landlord is really not actual work. It's like the difference between being the owner of a company and its CEO: it sometimes goes hand in hand in smaller companies, but the owner isn't pocketing the company's profit because they do management work, they get the profit because they're the owner.

Because for housing to exist there is an inherent risk that somebody has to carry to guarantee the mortgage is paid for and that it will not go up in flames.

So just build public housing, which can actually be priced attending to the real cost of building it and maintaining it rather than market speculation.

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https://youtu.be/skz9odeewpc?si=Gfu5bOG2XZcAXXMP

kill all landlords

8
- In Minecraft.
  
  4
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  https://piped.video/skz9odeewpc?si=Gfu5bOG2XZcAXXMP
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  3
- Edgy honestly
  
  1

Godzilla says:

sex workers are more honorable then landlords

31

Sounds more like a Klingon saying

5
do they carry big sword and scary samurai demon mask to battle

4
- If you pay them enough and they have a sense of humor, absolutely.
  
  5

I just got laid off and am collecting unemployment while I find a new job.

I also have a roommate who pays me rent (I own the house and it’s a good situation for both of us), and I was wondering if my rental income would impact my unemployment, so I called them up to ask. Interestingly enough, the unemployment office does t consider rental income to come from employment, meaning they don’t see being a landlord as having a job.

Edit to add: the roommate situation is new, and it’s had me all sorts of uncomfortable because we had to sign a lease (they are on rental assistance and they required a lease to be signed), so I got a boiler plate lease that we both felt good about and signed it for month to month. It makes me feel a lot like a landlord when we’re really roommates, but ultimately I benefit from the situation because even if I dedicate that money to upkeep, repairs, and improvements to their living space, it still ultimately increases the value of the house for me.

How can I be ethical while collecting rent from someone?

19

The problem isn't with landlords as a whole, it's exploitative landlords. The reality is a house is expensive, and having someone who can bear that up front expense, trading that initial cash for a long-term but stable supply only benefits people. Issues arise when super-rich investors buy up homes with the intention of keeping them empty, start charging exploitative amounts, etc.

In short, keep the rent as low as is feasible, and if you're living there anyway, there's really zero issue.

8
If you are collecting less than half the mortgage (excluding utilities) in rent I think it's mostly fair. You are giving someone a cheaper place to stay and they should contribute to that, whilst you have seemingly no profit incentive.

If they were to stay with you a multitude of years and will therefore have contributed a significant portion of the entire mortgage then it would be most fair if they saw some part of it back upon sale, though that isn't entirely realistic either. Perhaps in a perfect world it would be, but if it were a perfect world they wouldn't have had the need to live in with you.

Though "you are providing a service and ought to be compensated for it" comes close to some landlord arguments, given it's not exactly a business model for you with multiple houses I think it's unethical nor immoral.

7
- Oh yea, I’m asking waaay less than half the mortgage. With the rental assistance (where nothing comes out of their pocket) it’s 22% but also covers their utilities, and without that assistance it’s 11% not including utilities.
  
  Ya’ll are easing my conscious quite a bit. Thank you. I’ve been so in my head about it that I lost sight of what makes being a landlord problematic.
  
  3
The thing is, you're not looking at this as a job, or an investment, or a profit-generating enterprise. You have a friend who is staying with you, and helping you with the bills. I don't see any ethical issues at all with this.

I actually find myself in a similar situation, as my friend just left her partner, and, well, I had a spare room. She kicks me a little money to help with the bills, and I keep a roof over her head until she has somewhere better to go. In my mind, that's different than looking at landlording as a job, or worse, an investment to generate passive income.

What I'm saying is that intent matters.

3

I'd really like to get Dale Earnhardt's take on this before committing.

11

8

A weaponized apathy PSA

I like that, can we get more of those?

11

Landlords are lords for a reason😎

8

because it's not supposed to be a job, it's an investment

6

Housing is a human right, not an investment.

People who play "number go up" games with basic human needs can eat shit.

27
- well it's capitalism. you can play the "number games" with literally every single type of asset, and if you want your basic human needs met, in the end you'll have to go pay someone. be it food, living space, whatever. they're all tradable assets.
  
  4
- how do you expect houses to get built when there's no money to be made at all by it, especially when there's an immense amount of financial risk and work involved in maintaining a building and dealing with issues that come up, especially tenants who abuse the place and/or surrounding property
  
  2
Grounds keeping, maintenance, accounting, etc…

It’s supposed to be a lot of work, when it’s not then it’s a bad landlord

7
- That is work for the grounds keeper, the maintenance technician and the accountant. Which get paid by the landowner, who "earns" money for doing absolutely nothing but own something.
  
  2
A good needed for survival should never be seen as an investment.

It is like investing in air.

2

As long as it's sex work im fine. It's just that most "sex workerks" (people on onlyfans) do not sell "sex"/porn but a virtual sexual/intimate relationship to easily exploitable, lonely people. Which is just sad.

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Something something bad dragon

5

I think legitimizing Sex Work just creates an opportunity for human traffickers to operate in broad daylight, sadly.

5

I disagree. Creating a legitimate marketplace creates room for regulations and law enforcement and kills black markets.

Human traffickers get a lot easier to catch if the trafficked can turn their traffickers in without fear of being arrested themselves for the things they were forced to do.

13
- You're arguing against the science on this issue, it's a well established fact that countries that have legalized prostitution in the past have notably larger human trafficking inflows. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986065
  
  2
It's the same argument with drug dealers. Legalizing drugs will just let them operate in the open! Or, it'll kill an industry that only exists because it's illegal, and as soon as you open the legality up, people can operate more independently and with more protection.

5
- Bit of a stretch to compare the selling of the use of live human bodies for sexual gratification to the use of a plant. Mainly because we don't require the plant's consent.
  
  You're saying that kidnapping and forcing people and children into sex labor against their will is something you WANT legalized, akin to selling hash? That's a pretty fucking wack take on this.
  
  1
Licensing fixes that

0
- Licensing by the state entity is extremely rare for most professions, usually a licensing organization is made up from individuals participating in the industry based on wealth or political experience. What might actually fix it is constant auditing and oversight which, again, is extremely rare, and even then people would fall through the cracks just like with child protective services failing to find signs of abuse.
  
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Based Godzilla

2

Sex work does involve daily activities in a dangerous workplace

1