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I remember looking up just the air b&b’s in the Portland metro and there were over 4,000…..
A large majority of the rest were being rented.
The wealthy are buying it all with no regulation.
There should be one home per family in the suburbs. One vacation place and your house. No one needs 10 properties, get rich another way you greedy terrible fucks.
Rich people outbid regular folks for real resources (homes), taking away any chance at intergenerational wealth building. the only (legal) answer at the moment is taxation of the rich.
Gary Stevenson has some worthwhile insights on what we can do and how to convince working class people that the rich must be stopped or else your kids and grandkids will all be homeless renters.
inequality is sharply risinh all around the world. and it's getting worse. this is arguably the most important issue of our time.
the only (legal) answer at the moment is taxation of the rich.
If it would destroy the economy if everyone did it, then it should not be doable in the first place.
It's funny that one probably-landlord downvoted this. You know who you are, scum-sucking leech.
Same people will be looking for a govt bailout when the real estate market collapses.
Mooching off of others to fund your life style and giving nothing back in return
opens envelope
What's something considered classy if you're rich, but trashy if you're poor?
Here's a tip poor people; just have money!
All i had to do was just buy 4 houses? Damn. I'm rich!
Facts that concern me:
Henry George's ideas will catch on again someday, hopefully.
All so that none of their tenants can afford any of those four things without constantly struggling!
I know people like this. They truly believe like they are doing society a favor by buying up houses and renting them out. The disconnect from reality is wild.
It's a little better than corporate real estate vultures though. If you think about it, these small landlords and renters are more alike than the people at Blackrock buying up all this shit.
Nah, corporate landlords at least tend to have minimum standards and contractors on call.
These type of small time landlords are the ones that tell you that a working refrigerator is a luxury, and water damage due to a cracked pipe in the wall is the tenant's responsibility.
Just because they aren't faceless doesn't mean they aren't as bad. In case of corporations, at the very least, anyone up to CEO could claim they were doing what their boss/investors told them/expected them to do, they have the mirage of fabricated innocence. The guilt is also spread more thinly, with many, often low paid employees contributing a small portion towards the greater legal crime.
Small landlords have none of those delusions available, though from my personal, anecdotal experience, higher management in large corporations also often personally own real estate and rent it. I'm working in IT, but I have no reason to think it would be in any different elsewhere. I was led to understand it was "normal" and "smart". So I'd say it's the same kind of people that make decisions on top of the real estate corporations, and the petite landlords. And yeah, I'm excluding from that, obviously, renting a flat you've gotten as inheritance from your grandma or something, though I have more fundamental issues with the inheritance thing itself.
In the case of the screenshot, absolutely.
I have a question though, and I am curious about the perception here so please be honest as to what you think about my situation. (EDIT: I have received a few responses, and they are terribly informative of all of your perceptions. I want to thank you all for contributing your knowledge to my understanding, as I think by ingesting it, it has made me a better person. Thank you!)
In my case, I own a condo. I worked my ass off doing technical shift work and my parents were fortunate enough in their lives to give me a gift of $20,000 dollars in my local currency to try to buy a home. I am floored. I never thought I would afford the opportunity to potentially own a home of any kind.
I buy a small condo. Two bedrooms. One living room with an attached kitchen. The floors of the building are thin. I can hear my upstairs neighbors walking around and opening and closing doors and drawers at all hours. The insulation is bad, it is cold in winter and hot in summer. I am happy. I have a roof over my head, and I answer to no one for the walls, the fixtures, the plumbing.
I lose my job because the business I worked for fucked up and lost some clients. Because of the lack of cash flow, I and many others are laid off.
I hold on for as long as I can but eventually the cost of mortgage, insurance, groceries add up. I go on unemployment insurance. The economy is fucked because of covid, no one hires me for a year and 6 months.
My unemployment insurance runs out after having submitted 4 resumes daily this entire time, maintaining a log of them for the government EI program.
When I only have a couple thousand dollars left in my bank account, if I want to keep the ownership of my home, I have to move in with my parents again and rent my condo out to keep it at all. My dream of being able to just exist in a home I own is at stake.
The government EI program calls me in for questioning to insure I am a legitimate case. I feel some of the most stress and fear I have ever felt. Logically I know that I have been doing everything I can, but somehow I still feel guilty for having to take advantage of it. I perform the interview, I bring a document detailing the URLs, Descriptions, Dates, everything of every job I have been applying to. The interviewer shows shock on her face. I get the impression that the level of detail I have been maintaining is uncommon. They let me leave without incident.
For rent I charge the exact amount that I have to charge to cover mortgage and insurance, legally required, to maintain my the ownership of my home and nothing more, no profits. I have lived under abusive land lords before and the way they operate disgusts me. I will never be that, I would die before I let myself become that.
A Ukrainian family, Husband and Wife with their 3 year old Daughter are the first to apply. I discuss the property and their lives with them and they are some of the strongest, most responsible, wonderful people I have met in my life who came to my country to escape the situation in theirs. I accept them as my tenants immediately because I recognize how absurdly lucky I am to have these people living in my home, given how smart, how responsible, how kind they are. I promise to myself that at the first opportunity, I will show them the same kindness.
I finally find a job, even though it doesn't pay much, and begin reducing the cost of their rent because I can finally afford it. I begin paying rent to my parents because they are owed that. My bank account begins saving about $100 a month in case I have an emergency I need to cover.
The interest rates lower and condos begin to become cheaper. I intend to lower the cost of the rent based on this when my tenants renew the lease.
This is the last 5 years of my life.
Am I a leech?
Well this is gross. Its extremely had to buy ONE property, to exist in, if you dont have Bank of Mom and Dad to rely on.
I used to have my own place before my wife and I got married, and she had her own house too. When I moved in with her I decided to rent out my place to a friend, otherwise I'd have to still pay like $650 a month for my mortgage. I set my friends rent at $900 a month for him and a friend, with cats. I paid my mortgage and had some extra to save up in case a repair was needed. Average rent for an apartment (not a house) was 1200-1500 in the same area. My renters ended up taking better care of the house than I ever did. It was beautiful when they lived there. I ended up making about 5k to 10k extra bucks over the course of a few years and my mortgage was paid for me. Eventually they had to move out due to some issues between the two at which point I sold the house and made over six figures(net profit, not gross), off a house that cost less than $80,000 when I bought it.
See what I did there? I charged a reasonable rent and still made a totally stupid amount of money off of just one property. I wasn't a goddamn parasite who tried to bleed my tenants for everything they were worth.
People like these total shitbags. They're the reason why America's youth have no future
That's nice, but you shouldn't have an extra property to rent out to others when there's not enough to go around.