To the OP: People don't have a right to housing. If the rent is too high, find cheaper rent, a smaller apartment or a worse location. go buy your own house or apartment. Lots of options here and you are entitled to none of them! You are, however, entitled to the right to pursue all of them within the terms that the current owner sets. The property owners hold the cards (always have, always will)... if that bothers you, set your sights on how to become a property owner.
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Be fair warned though that by the time you achieve property ownership you'll understand why your current understanding here is wrong.
Demonising people who provide an essential service as evil always works out well
Worked well in Ukraine in the 20's/30's with the farmers who dared to make a (small) profit from selling food
The righteous revolutionaries stepped in to stop that, and 6-7 million people starved as a result
Well, it depends on how you read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 25, ¶1
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
This seems good. I'd take it to mean something like access to a relatively free market for each of those things. Healthy market competition, perhaps with anti-monopolistic regulation enforced by government, is the best force for lowering prices as far as I can tell
I’m going to agree that demonizing land lords isn’t the way to go, but I am going to say that I think “essential service” is… dicey at best. In the larger sense it is not essential at all a service, to charge a fee for an organism to have a dwelling. In the economic sense, something is only an essential so far as in the sense that it is essential in maintaining the present way of things.
It is generally the case that landlords tend to rent our existing structures as opposed to building new ones, meaning what they create is merely a means for money to circulate.
It IS more complex than “just let people live where they want” or “give away houses”
Since hikes must be constructed, to be safe they must be to code as to not endanger not just the occupants but other homes around, and they take upkeep- if money isn’t spent preventatively or on active wear they rot away.
If certain utilities like water aren’t supplied long term it can lead to potential hazards like heater explosions. They can become bio hazards of mold and harbor disease vectors like various pests and such. So there are many costs that go with keeping up a property which most people don’t consider unless they have owned property or researched it seriously. That said the prevailing model of land lordship is largely predatory. It feeds a system of large scale consolidated builders, investment firms and banks that have a virtual strangle hold on controlling the market, with land lords enriching their wealth by taking money from people who largely are in less advantageous socio economic positions.
The average rent is higher than the mortgage and upkeep costs of a property, meaning that credit and assets for a down payment are the primary things preventing ownership for renters who cannot buy. The fact they pay rent higher than ownership costs tells us they can afford the home, but..
.. lack of wealth and credit act as a barrier to entry. We know statistically that in recent years the majority of property purchases have been by those already owning property. In other words, we have created a system where huge segments of the population “can’t afford a home” in their area despite the fact that they are paying more to live in that same building than if they owned it.
That being said there are many liabilities and such for landlords. It isn’t always just “easy money,” it isn’t the land lords faults for participating in the system when that is one of the tools that is almost a requirement of financial well being in the modern economy. Most people of given the choice between being a land lord or a renter would choose landlord all things being equal, so the landlords aren’t necessarily the ones who should get the brunt of negative attention. I’d say most landlords operate as fairly and honestly as one can when participating in the system as it currently exists.
The system itself and those in the most control are where the focus should be.
The entities that profit the most from the practice, banks and developers and investors are to blame.
Comparing land commerce to farming doesn’t work because a farmer produces something that of the farmer didn’t exist, you would need but not have. The house existed before the landlord and would likely exist if the landlord died tomorrow. If the land lord is gone the “middle man” is lost. The person who is feeding the wealth of some bank somewhere and generally making a profit or personal gain for their part in it is gone. There isn’t a functional necessity for middle men, their place exists in economics as an entity that serves to redistribute wealth. it’s like paying someone to wash your hands for you. The world works fine without that job existing but if it was created and there were 100,000+ people making their wage washing others hands, and then schools and uniform companies and contractors and…
.. a great web of industries sprang up surrounding people being paid to wash your hands for you- the number of people and the amount of commerce that largely unnecessary job position created would be so great that to lose it suddenly could cause massive depression and economic loss and unemployment. An example or close cousin to “disguised unemployment,” jobs that don’t need doing but exist so that someone can make money doing them and some larger entity like a bank or corporation or government can make a larger profit or regulate commerce through themselves becoming “necessary.”
So as an example- there is no reason realistically that banks or property management firms can’t simply rent a property directly to a Tennant, appraise the property when the Tennant moves in, and if the Tennant has ever paid more rent than the value, give them the title. It’s an oversimplification and the title holder is still acting exactly as a landlord in most regards, but we’ve cut out a middle man who wasn’t contributing to the process. Of course, then the banks would collect 100% of the profits and they’d likely need to hire property managers to manage accounts and maintain upkeep and compliance etc- meaning that they are now paying someone a salary to act as a land lord vs. being paid by the land lord for the act of making profits for the bank.
I’ve gone long enough. It’s a stilted system that favors large interests and the wealthy.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with, and there are many benefits to, a system of leases and rentals and such for residential property, but as the system we have is designed it acts as a highway to traffic money from those with less to those who already have more. It acts as a type of gate keeper to help exercise socioeconomic status quo. It is not a system designed with the concept of a place to live as a necessity humans should have but designed knowing that a place is to live is an essential and thusly can be leveraged as a source of power and benefit against those in need.
It is not generally a case where you can legally live in some “inferior” home like an 8x8 per person little shed or high density massive housing tower for free and the real estate market is where people go for the luxury of larger or nicer homes. It’s the only place. There aren’t really “open” legal alternatives.
@karlboll, how does that declaration of human rights work in 3rd world countries today? If these people have a right to those service (which are provided by other people), who is responsible to make sure those services happen?
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Should someone be taking doctors as slaves from western countries and shipping them to 3rd world countries to make sure that poverty stricken people have their Healthcare right? Or maybe those doctors get ensentivised to go, with money perhaps? But who pays them?
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My point is that a service cannot be deemed a right without infringing on the service provider's right to not do it.
You'll be happy to know that Article 4 specifically bans slavery so first world doctors are safe.
The UDoHR doesn't say how to accomplish utopia, it just states what rights and freedoms people should be able to expect from their home countries, or other countries if their home country is an oppressive one. It doesn't say everything should be free or tax funded, just that people have the right to what they need to live and seek happiness on their own terms, as long as it doesn't interfere to much with anyone else's ability to do so. It says that you have a right to clean water, nutritious food and shelter, healthcare and a just legal system. How that's arranged is up the nation in question. Sure, it works better in Sweden than in a third world country right now but it wasn't this good a hundred years ago. We do what we can to reduce suffering.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
If you worked your ass off to buy a house so you can rent it and earn some money to yourself afford to live, then you're definitely not evil.
This tweet just comes off as entitled, and I'm pretty sure they're thinking of a name while tweeting this.
Having worked on rent houses owned by my parents, I can tell you that there are good renters and bad ones. The bad ones pay late, say "you can try to evict me but I'll still get 90 days until it's official and THEN I can sue you in court for discrimination and drag it out over 6 more months and never pay one penny in rent during the whole time!" Of course, if you have a camera recording them make this statement and only a handshake rental agreement, it DOES tend to make the judge favor your position much faster. Security deposit / last month's rent was gone by the time we pulled the carpet from the front room. Dog feces in every carpet, they painted walls black, holes in ceiling, rot from water leaks.
I write contracts for a living now, and can tell you, if EVER I own a rent house for people to try to freeload on me.. they. will. NOT.
you defend the OP, I demand you let me rent one corner of your property. You HAVE to let me rent it from you, it's my RIGHT! (Then starts dumping toxic soils from OHIO train derailment in your yard). Don't believe it's possible? Ask me what it costs to dispose of 17 bald tires, 91 tampon applicators flushed and stuck in the sewer line, 3 mangy dogs covered in fleas and ticks, one home meth lab, and over 2,000 SF of carpet that smells of human piss. That's just some of what has been left behind after we FINALLY got the bad ones evicted.
We took them all to court to evict. Judge ruled with us every time. Still found concrete mix in the toilet, rotten fish in the attic, and one literally stole trash from neighbors dumpsters to fill the house before leaving.
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Be fair warned though that by the time you achieve property ownership you'll understand why your current understanding here is wrong.
Worked well in Ukraine in the 20's/30's with the farmers who dared to make a (small) profit from selling food
The righteous revolutionaries stepped in to stop that, and 6-7 million people starved as a result
Article 25, ¶1
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
It is generally the case that landlords tend to rent our existing structures as opposed to building new ones, meaning what they create is merely a means for money to circulate.
It IS more complex than “just let people live where they want” or “give away houses”
Since hikes must be constructed, to be safe they must be to code as to not endanger not just the occupants but other homes around, and they take upkeep- if money isn’t spent preventatively or on active wear they rot away.
The average rent is higher than the mortgage and upkeep costs of a property, meaning that credit and assets for a down payment are the primary things preventing ownership for renters who cannot buy. The fact they pay rent higher than ownership costs tells us they can afford the home, but..
That being said there are many liabilities and such for landlords. It isn’t always just “easy money,” it isn’t the land lords faults for participating in the system when that is one of the tools that is almost a requirement of financial well being in the modern economy. Most people of given the choice between being a land lord or a renter would choose landlord all things being equal, so the landlords aren’t necessarily the ones who should get the brunt of negative attention. I’d say most landlords operate as fairly and honestly as one can when participating in the system as it currently exists.
The entities that profit the most from the practice, banks and developers and investors are to blame.
Comparing land commerce to farming doesn’t work because a farmer produces something that of the farmer didn’t exist, you would need but not have. The house existed before the landlord and would likely exist if the landlord died tomorrow. If the land lord is gone the “middle man” is lost. The person who is feeding the wealth of some bank somewhere and generally making a profit or personal gain for their part in it is gone. There isn’t a functional necessity for middle men, their place exists in economics as an entity that serves to redistribute wealth. it’s like paying someone to wash your hands for you. The world works fine without that job existing but if it was created and there were 100,000+ people making their wage washing others hands, and then schools and uniform companies and contractors and…
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with, and there are many benefits to, a system of leases and rentals and such for residential property, but as the system we have is designed it acts as a highway to traffic money from those with less to those who already have more. It acts as a type of gate keeper to help exercise socioeconomic status quo. It is not a system designed with the concept of a place to live as a necessity humans should have but designed knowing that a place is to live is an essential and thusly can be leveraged as a source of power and benefit against those in need.
It is not generally a case where you can legally live in some “inferior” home like an 8x8 per person little shed or high density massive housing tower for free and the real estate market is where people go for the luxury of larger or nicer homes. It’s the only place. There aren’t really “open” legal alternatives.
.
Should someone be taking doctors as slaves from western countries and shipping them to 3rd world countries to make sure that poverty stricken people have their Healthcare right? Or maybe those doctors get ensentivised to go, with money perhaps? But who pays them?
.
My point is that a service cannot be deemed a right without infringing on the service provider's right to not do it.
The UDoHR doesn't say how to accomplish utopia, it just states what rights and freedoms people should be able to expect from their home countries, or other countries if their home country is an oppressive one. It doesn't say everything should be free or tax funded, just that people have the right to what they need to live and seek happiness on their own terms, as long as it doesn't interfere to much with anyone else's ability to do so. It says that you have a right to clean water, nutritious food and shelter, healthcare and a just legal system. How that's arranged is up the nation in question. Sure, it works better in Sweden than in a third world country right now but it wasn't this good a hundred years ago. We do what we can to reduce suffering.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
This tweet just comes off as entitled, and I'm pretty sure they're thinking of a name while tweeting this.
I write contracts for a living now, and can tell you, if EVER I own a rent house for people to try to freeload on me.. they. will. NOT.