521–530 of 595 posts
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They transform housing from one form to another. Some people find renting more convenient and flexible than buying.
That is because the buying process is an artificially inflated burden that reinforces the current system. Removing landlords would also remove the need for them to exist.
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Unfortunately, as part of the unfolding of the post 2008 recession, a lot of rentals shifted from individual or smaller landlords to larger corporate landlords whom take a much more impersonal approach to making it through the depression. To some degree, to the extent they can take out holdover loans and let rentals sit empty, they will do just that - irregardless of the social utility of compromise. https://www.thea…
Corporate landlords are rational and reasonable negotiators who will readily respond to market signals. Small landlords are a crapshoot; you might get one who just prefers an empty unit over lower rents. You can easily see this from craigslist data right now. Large buildings are lowering rent faster than small buildings and single-family houses.
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The pine tree is fully mature, maybe 40+ feet high. Its the one with the most damage to its bark. Too big for me to cut down on my own. Its also next to a fence. The blue spruce I could cut down.
Deer love to rub velvet of their antlers on the pines around me and it's not uncommon to see a whole group of pines without any branches on the lower half and they rub all the bark they can reach off in the fall. If it's 40 ft, would wrapping the trunk with tree wrap protect it until their gone? Then asses it, hopefully it starts to cover the exposed areas on it's own
Bear in mind that the tenants have already ignored requests to stop destroying the trees, and they have opposable thumbs.
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Property developers (and the people who actually physically construct housing) provide places for people to live. Landlords simply buy/own those places. Those are almost always different groups in practice though I’m sure you could contrive a counterexample. A landlord provides about as much value to a consumer as a stockholder does to a public company. Economically the landlord-tenant interaction is primarily a spec…
> Landlords simply buy/own those places. Thus landlords are the one to actually finance those buildings. > A landlord provides about as much value to a consumer as a stockholder does to a public company. Which is a significant value, for a company (even if I would like more companies to be privately owned). In this model a landlord is how people can get access to housing without huge initial capital and/or long term…
Actually it's mostly the banks that provide the finance, the landlord is an intermediary.
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> These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. You're ignoring the potential effects on property value.
> You're ignoring the potential effects on property value. Bingo. Surprised nobody else brought this up. Not to mention the neighboring home/property owners are going to be pissed off because it's a potential drag on their property value. Though the stigma against section 8 may not even be warranted. I wonder whether there are any studies on the effects of section 8 on communities.
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When we talk about 'rent seeking' it's usually not about actual rental of property, which fills a very real need in society. Maybe it's different in other parts of the world but where I live, rent seldom covers the mortgage on a property, let alone all other expenses. The profit, if any, generally comes from capital gains when selling the property (which right now isn't on the cards for pretty much anyone.)
> rent seldom covers the mortgage on a property Don't forget that "covering the mortgage" involves building the landlord's equity, so it's not as if this portion is lost to the bank while the landlord has to depend on appreciation. If I "only just cover the mortgage" while renting for the entire term of the mortgage on a house that doesn't appreciate above inflation, the landlord still goes from owning 20% of a house…
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The vast majority of council houses in the U.K. are owned by private landlords who rent to the council. No one wants to live in Social housing projects in the U.K. and for a good reason they are all rubbish, the U.K. has had some of the worst designed and built social blocks in the world many of them were demolished within 1-2 decades. Stuffing poor people into high density housing is a horrible idea every study show…
Counterpoints: 1. Not all social housing is high rise or high density. Look outside of the cities for example - new towns. Lessons can be learned this time. 2. Much of the social housing was sold off in the 80's I think, the trick is to keep government ownership of it, not sell it for a pittance and let private landlords profit from price increases.
Concentrating poor and vulnerable people isn't a good strategy they do better when they are surrounded by the better off, having 2 low income families on a street would produce a much better outcome and shoving 200 of them.
Social housing in the UK is complex, at some point nearly 80% of the people lived in social housing, it wasn't for low income families but rather for nearly anyone but the most affluent which often held titles and on the other spectrum the most remote and rural communities.
Social housing was seen as a means to bring workers into the cities during the industrialization of the UK.
Today despite the fact that anyone is still eligible outside of political corruption which ironically nearly exclusively plagues Labour councillors, MP's and party officials which somehow jump to the front of the queue despite earning well above the mean council housing is seen as a solution for the working poor.
Councils already offer rent assistance, have council properties which are used to temporary house vulnerable people, building more of those won't help just look what happens when you have council flats in new build projects, drugs, anti social behaviour and damage to properties simply due to the high concentration of these individuals.
So while having 20-30% social flats in a new build project might seem like a good idea the only thing that it causes is a huge backlash from the regular tenants due to this behaviour and nearly always they end up winning.
I'm likely out of touch here, but at least for the person mentioned in the article, why does he need a huge SUV? If the crisis hits and you cannot re-pay the bills, that would be the first thing I'd get rid of. It doesn't look like he needs it for work, and he could just get away with a used Honda Civic or a similar smaller car that doesn't require much gas, expensive insurance, and most importantly monthly loan paym…
The wisdom of having purchased such a large vehicle on credit to begin with is another discussion entirely. Americans are, on average, far more relaxed about owing a lot of money on a vehicle than, say, Germans. I grew up assuming a car payment was just part of adult life; my husband, a German, was raised to believe that borrowing for anything other than property was foolish. I've since come around to his point of view, and am the reasonably content co-owner of a 12 year old Fiesta, though considering our upgrade options as we have a baby on the way.
Why a large truck in the first place? A lot of American men, especially in the South (where this guy is), consider small sedans to be unmanly. If they're overweight like most Americans, they also think they're going to sit more comfortably in a larger vehicle. Plus, SUVs and trucks are less expensive in the US than they are over here - for what I'd have to pay for a new Corolla hybrid station wagon (my current coveted car) in Germany, I could get a Toyota Highlander mid-sized SUV in the US, which Toyota doesn't even bother trying to sell here.
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Why the provider and not the purchaser who chose that insurance? It’s spelled out in the contract what you’re buying (and paying for).
"If riots aren't covered" the clause won't be in any contract to begin with.
As an example, my policy covers general losses arising from physical damage, but then explicitly excludes losses from earthquakes, floods, oil spills, and acts of war.
If I buy only that coverage and a flood or earthquake damages my property, it's not my insurance company's fault that I'm not covered.
I'm so extremely grateful that I accepted section 8 tenants into my rental units. Most of these tenants have nearly all of their payment covered by the government and they just have to pay $100 or $200 on top of that to cover what the government won't. These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. Mine are great. They keep the units spotless, mow the lawn for me on my…
I love my section 8 tenants. Same here, they take good care of the place and the government doesn't miss rent payments. Some counties even provide free legal help for landlords if their section 8 tenants do something bad. It's actually pretty low risk. The main downside is the increased overhead of paperwork and inspections. The government wants to (rightly) make sure you aren't a slumlord so they do a lot more inspe…
High paid tenants seldom miss payment - I've setup automatic EFT withdrawal from their accounts, so I don't even need to process checks, and they aren't really impacted by the rise in unemployment right now - most just work from home.
I think the bitter spot for being a landlord (especially now) is to manage low-mid income units. ...it's just a constant stream of problems - people moving in and out - single mom's that chronically cannot afford the rent - unregistered tenants - people that refuse to pay and refuse to move out - drug and police raids... like it was a total total nightmare.
Managing 12 low-mid income apartments was a full-time nightmare. Managing 12 high income lux units now takes about 4 hours every other weekend and is usually a pleasure to do.