Every economist and political theorist worth reading for the last 300 years has said that landlords parasites and the landlord system is one of exploitation and oppression that makes life infinitely worse for everyone except the landlords. I don’t understand how we still get so many people who stick up for the landlord system. People are just cucks for the rich in North America and I’ll never understand why.
What’s the alternative that’s actually feasible? Not some tankie utopian dream, but actual solutions? I own a property I rent out. I don’t want to sell it because I love my house and plan to live there again some day.
I know I’m not what most people are fighting against, it’s the corporate owners who buy massive amounts of property. But what’s the solution to that that doesn’t punish someone like me who just wants to keep my house for the future.
Rent caps (maybe as a square footage baseline or something) and massive taxation on people who rent out more than, idk, 3 properties to the point where it’s totally unviable economically to own those properties. This would, of course, trigger a mass selling of property, which would probably drive down home prices drastically. Couple that with eliminating the down payment system for first time home buyers.
In this solution, some people will lose a lot of money. Specifically property investors. But investing involves risk. It’s part of the gig. If property investors have to lose money so that the vast majority of people can own their own home instead of being milked like a cow for their wages I’m fine with that. If we can send 18 year olds to die in foreign lands for something as stupid as oil venture capital I think I’m willing to sacrifice the bank accounts of a few rich people locally.
If we didn’t let it get this one sided with property in the first place we wouldn’t have to make such drastic decisions. But we can’t just do nothing. Im lucky because I own property. It’s very difficult to do as a tradesman just to get your foot in the door. Most of my friends and colleagues still rent in their thirties. That’s bullshit and needs to be dealt with on a systemic level.
it’s not just big landlords. I’ve rented from small landlords most of my life and they’re just as shitty. It’s just a big list of bad incentives. people are landlords because it is passive income for which they do not have to work. This attracts parasites whether they’re buying one extra house or a hundred houses. They want to retire and they’re absolutely going to make it societies problem. Landlords profits are literally “created” by charging as much as possible from tenants, while paying as little as possible in maintenance. it causes neighborhoods to decay and makes it impossible for tenants to advance their own life goals. but hey, landlords get more vacations, so i guess that makes up for it right? Fuck your second house. if you loved it you’d be living there. So sell it to a family who needs it, and stop squatting on the deed like an incontinent golden retriever.