enforce fair housing laws
Hopefully this includes not kicking out people who can still pay rent, just so the landlord can have themselves a weekend vacation cabin or higher-priced rental. And there should be a law forcing landlords to offer a rent-to-own option. Also, how about recalculating inflation to account for every expense that has gone up, so that the percentage a landlord can raise rent each year isn’t so damned high. While we’re being fair, of course :|
I agree with everything you said except for this:
And there should be a law forcing landlords to offer a rent-to-own option.
I generally don’t think there should be laws forcing individual citizens to sell anything they own. I could however be on board with government regulated and incentivized rent-to-own programs.
Owner Occupancy credit against property taxes. Sometimes called a “homestead exemption”.
Basically, if you live in a house you own, you pay a vastly lower property tax rate. If you own a house you don’t live in, you pay a vastly higher property tax rate on that house, because you can’t claim the exemption.
When we establish this, “landlords” stop “renting” and become private mortgage lenders. They sell their homes to their former tenants, or issue “land contracts” (rent-to-own arrangements), and enjoy the lower tax rate on the property.
If they foreclose or evict, they pay the higher tax rate until they get a new “buyer”.
I like the general idea but how does rent to own work for multi family properties, especially in larger apartment buildings? I know condos exist already but that requires an HOA or something similar to provide upkeep for the building/property. I also wouldn’t want to completely deincentivize renting because there are situations where it’s a better fit for people as long as they are not getting gouged or kicked out needlessly.
Maybe instead of a credit for occupying a property you own, add a tax on income from rental properties that is earmarked for the kind of infrastructure that an area needs to accommodate a growing population including mass transit. There would have to be some protections in place to prevent landlords from passing that cost directly to tenants but I’m not smart enough to know how to do that.
Alongside that, offer a tax credit for rent to own arrangements that starts small and gets larger as the tenant gets closer to owning the property. Successful transfer of ownership gets the original owner a credit equal to the difference between the taxes paid and credits received plus interest and the new owner gets a reduced property tax rate for their first year of ownership.
I understand what you’re saying and I did feel weird typing that since I know there must be a better alternative.
Something has to give, though. In late June I had to leave a place I rented for 19 years and I’m still stunned. Idk how much of the house’s value we paid in rent, but it was a lot. And it wasn’t even a large home, just a small cabin few people would wish to live in. But there was nothing stopping the landlord from kicking us to the curb.
Idk how much of the house’s value we paid in rent, but it was a lot.
Definitely 80-100% of it.
Almost 20 years of renting, if all of that including the (almost certain) increases had been applied to the original mortgage you’d likely own it by now.
They charge you everything they’re charged plus add on a profit margin. That profit margin if applied to principle on a standard 30 year mortgage would’ve paid it off earlier.
Honestly, I don’t feel like landlords should even exist
Sure, maybe renting can still exist, as long as it’s cheaper and government run or something. I would much much rather give my rent to the government than some rich fuck who literally gets my money for free
Whether or not they should exist is basically irrelevant. They do and that’s not something we’re likely to see change. Also, sometimes renting is a better fit for people at certain phases of their life.
In exchange for a reasonable rent, a landlord is responsible for ensuring that the building is kept safe and well maintained and that any necessary repairs happen as quickly as is reasonably possible. What I’d really like to see is landlords being held accountable for failing to do so.
You may have to redefine the legal term for landlord then, cause there are a lot of things that would count towards it on a legal level. For example renting out a portion of ones land for secondary use, an easy example is someone sticking a trailer on ones land and living there. Another two examples are closer to industrial but still count, renting land for livestock grazing and renting land for storage. Pretty sure they all count towards landlordship on a legal level.
