Well yeah. You do realize there are many, many levels of wealth right?
Orwell explains it well in 1984. The upper class only comes down when the middle and the lower team up.
If you’re upper class and want to prevent a revolution that takes you off the top level of society, the way to do that is to sew division between the lower and middle classes.
In a typical landlord/renter scenario, the landlord is middle class and the renter is low class.
That person is like an inch above you, and there are other people who are miles above that.
Do have any idea how massive the gap is between us and the true ruling class is? They aren’t landlords, they own the investment group that owns the holding company that employ the landlords.
So yeah, very intelligent to use your energy to attack people who are at worst, their incredibly disposable footsoldiers.
Also, I hate to break it to you, but if you want the split to be black and white like this yet you have the time, energy, and opportunity to complain about this sort of shit online… you probably aren’t one of the proletariat. You’re petit bourgeois.
ALAB because “renting” residential property is abhorrent behavior.
Owner Occupancy Credit against property taxes. If you live in a house you own, you get a credit. If you own the house and don’t live in it, you pay the full rate. Enact an owner-occupancy credit against property taxes, then increase both the tax rate and the credit until these corporate bagmunchers are no longer a problem.
“But landlords will just raise their rent to cover the increase”. They could try. But, if we raise it high enough, they will be able to make far more money issuing a private mortgage, or offering a land contract, or converting to condominiums, or otherwise getting their tenant’s names on the deed and becoming eligible for the credit.
“But these landlords will be forced to take a risk on these sub prime borrowers.”. They are already taking that risk by renting to them, and the remedy is basically the same: if they can’t make their payments, evict them, take back the house, and offer it to someone else.
The only residential property that should be feasible to rent are the additional units in a duplex, triplex, or quadplex, where the owner of the building lives on site in one of the units. Outside of these small, multifamily homes, “rent” should be a practice found only in commercial or industrial real estate.
“We” are not polarizing ourselves. We are just describing a polarization that already exists to opress us. Be it ACAB, ALAB, whatever you find, the thing is, it just is.
Exactly. My mom was sick a few years ago so I went back to my hometown for an extended visit. I certainly won’t bunk with her and her new husband, and conveniently, people don’t include hotels in their polarized war against landlords.
The best option for me was to just rent a room at a boarding house, which was both cost effective and close to my mother’s place.
The issue is not landlords themselves, it is the capitalism, the unrestrained corporate greed and the lack of very steep taxes for the owners of multiple homes.
No, the issue is artificial friction added to the new construction process which keeps overall supply lower than demand, and pushes prices up continuously.
It’s good to have building codes, because we need safe buildings. But we should offset their existence by slightly subsidizing new construction. Basically we want to enable as closely as possible the natural balancing between supply and demand. Right now, the heavy regulation (both legitimate and overreach) of new construction, as well as the high paperwork and hassle cost, and the uncertainty of permitting or of permitting timeline, all those things are a big finger on the scale pushing supply down.
Maintaining a constant downward adjustment on the amount of new housing constructed each year is a recipe for exactly this situation we have now: disrespect of tenants by landlords, and exploding rent prices.
We don’t have a free market in housing. We have a tightly controlled market where new supply is constantly gatekept and thereby suppressed.
I mentioned building codes but there’s also nimbyist zoning laws. There are plenty of places where a 100-unit apartment building would be a more profitable use of space, but zoning prevents the construction of more than 10 single family homes.
We do this for lots of reasons, such as maintaining the architectural character of the town, protecting rich people’s views by prevnring tall buildings, avoiding health issues, managing transportation demand, etc etc.
But we need to be conscious of the fact that the price we pay for all those other benefits, is that we have a housing shortage.
what’s sad about this mindless “ALAB” blathering is that it actively detracts from ACAB. ACAB isn’t just about “bad cops”, it’s about the entire police institution designed to support bad cops and cover up wrong doing.
There is no “landlord institution”. Individual property owners are not related in any way. Separate agencies aren’t related. Bad landlords don’t force good landlords out of the market.
There’s private equity firms which are evil, foreign investors who are evil, and so on, if you’re looking for some big boys to wave your torches and pitchforks at. There’s issues with capitalism.
Renting is fantastic. You want to build a house or buy a house, or renovate your house, but it takes a few months? You move to a new area, temporary job relocation for a project? You rent. From someone who owns a house. Called a landlord. They are providing the service of making this available for you in an area you want.
Now, yes, local and state governments should be building more properties to rent cheaply, and you know what that’s called? Competition in the marketplace, which is what is needed.
“ALAB” is a bullshit concept. Until Landlord B walks over to Landlord A and starts forcing them to raise their rents, it’s not an institutional problem.
I will say: most property agents are evil, lazy and stupid. Relators for rentals. They usually get paid a percentage of the rent, so they have a direct interest in raising rents. Landlords (the owners) are just people. Most never had the training to run rental properties which is why they listen to the supposed ‘expertise’ of the stupid, lazy, evil agents.
Here’s a classic news clip from the 90s, where a guy says what we all agree on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lyex2tSUyA
(just a little misunderstanding which all works itself out)
As it applies to residence, the concept of “renting” is fundamentally broken and damaging. “Renting” is a commercial activity; “housing” is a human necessity. Combining the two is inherently exploitative, so “ALAB” is a reasonable and apt observation.
Renting is fantastic. You want to build a house or buy a house, or renovate your house, but it takes a few months? You move to a new area, temporary job relocation for a project? You rent. From someone who owns a house. Called a landlord. They are providing the service of making this available for you in an area you want.
A better option in these scenarios is a “land contract”. This is, basically, a rent-to-own scenario. During the initial period, if the occupant withdraws or defaults on the contract, they forfeit any equity they have built, just like a rental.
Unlike a rental, however, there is no annual increase in the rent: the purchase price is fully amortized, and (so long as they maintain the agreement past the initial period), the tenant gains equity with every payment and every increase in market value.
That full amortization / fixed payment is the main reason why landlords don’t currently like land contracts. They want to be able to command a 5-10% price hike every year.
To make land contracts the better option for landlords, we can establish an owner-occupant credit against property taxes. A landlord is a non-occupant owner, and is not entitled to the credit. Under a land contract, the occupant is considered the owner, and eligible for the credit. With a sufficiently high property tax rate on non-occupant investor-owners, a landlord stands to earn a significantly greater return on land contracts or private mortgages than they can earn on renting a given property.
oh no we’re polarizing ourselves… yeah if someone murdered my friend I would get so absolutist and polarize people into my friend vs the guy who murdered my friend. when am I going to learn‽
Right. Because murder is a heinous crime that rips a person’s life away.
Renting out apartments isn’t in the same category as murder.
it’s not that far off. shelter is a basic human right. landlords are parasites who profit off of that by providing nothing in return.
if i could buy an “air lot” the same way i can buy land and houses and charged a monthly fee from people who want to breathe air in that space it would be ridiculously parasitic. landlords do the same with land instead.
Yeah, I feel like the right has such a black-and-white/zero nuance view of things. So then the left goes and does the same thing!
My sense is that these A*AB movements are really trying to say, “the institution of X is fundamentally flawed,” and that’s something I agree with definitely. But it’s worded provocatively, which is just…assinine. Like, the little old lady who would be priced out of her home if not for renting out a room to a college kid, below market value? Yeah total bastard…
