I envision a national land trust buying up forested and tillable land that would serve as nature corridors with adjoining legal campgrounds, suburban/city cohousing communuties, food coops, durable goods stores and health clinics with a sweat equity and/or buy-in program for members.. a cross between School of Living, Americorps and Habitat for Humanity. The org would be a reliably repeatable model for transition teaching skills, group consensus,.conflict resolution and providing basic necessities with a work requirement for families who lose everything for noncompliance with the technocratic neofeudal system being implemented. If Bill Gates ever snapped out of his strategic philanthropy and subscription based scam mentality he could donate his 10,000s of acres towards this end. If i wasn't so busy trying to stay afloat and afraid of being targetted or killed, I would approach some of these rich folks with a Hobbesian choice type explanation.. but they stuck in layers of left-right paradigm, identity politics and the big grift with a default of head for the bunkers when "the Event" happens.
I appreciate that there are individual situations in the current world that don’t fit general principles, and I’m glad if you’ve luckily found one that suits you.
However everyone in the world would be better off in a situation in which housing is available based on need, rather than the current situation in which there are over 150 million homeless people in the world, and 20% of people live inadequate or precarious housing situations. So we need something that doesn’t work for a few but for everyone.
I would take the origin story a step back. Feudalism was only possible because we had already changed our relationship to land from one of being 'part of it', (and all nature), to thinking we can 'own it'. It went from being 'relational' in nature to 'transactional'. For the majority of human history, up to the colonialist era amongst the Indigenous peoples, we knew that this was as stupid as saying we can own air or the oceans. We fought back against it, but now the notion has been normalised. It is this mentality that has made the theft, enclosure, and commodification of the commons possible in the first place.
For me, we actually have to address this issue if we want to inact real change.
Most of a lifetime renting the roof over my head confirms every word said. Landlords, like billionaires, have no redeeming social value. We really should get rid of them.
TL;DR: Small-time landlords are not the problem and many tenants suck.
In 2008 we bought a larger house. I’d remarried and we needed more space and a second bathroom. So I put my little house on the market. I could not sell it no matter what I did. I began renting it out in order not to lose it. I’ve never made money doing this. At best I break even. Tenants have so often destroyed things that I have to repair. Most of my tenants have had higher incomes than I have, incidentally.
I couldn’t even get anyone to buy it contract for deed.
And it’s a cute little house I kept very nice — before I remarried I thought I’d live there forever and did a lot of work. The neighborhood is safe and quiet.
My last tenant left as Covid began. My son was still living at home but was on the verge of being ready to move out. So he’s been renting from me ever since. He pays on time and never destroys anything. He doesn’t want to be a homeowner at this point in his life.
Most of my past tenants could have purchased a home if they’d wanted to — all of them had higher pay than I did, including the one on disability.
The amount of work involved in landlording is often considerable. You get calls at all hours for repairs. Sometimes it’s legit, but sometimes it’s that they’ve flushed a hair clip down the toilet and you have to spend a whole evening taking out the toilet, showing them that the problem was that they flushed a hair clip, and then reinstalling it. I have many stories like that.
You can spend a lot of time on background checks but bad tenants will still get in. You never know until they get in there.
I hate it. I never wanted to do this. But by no means am I taking advantage of anyone. Many of them fucked me over. If you’ve never done a cleanup after a tenant leaves, and had to repaint and replace carpeting and appliances, great. I have!
Tenants who just refuse to pay or leave are another headache.
I’ll add: Not all areas are the same. There’s not really a housing shortage where I live, and houses are still pretty cheap compared to elsewhere. You’re buying a house here, not an investment. I bought my current house for just under $100k and it’s only worth a touch more right now, after 17 years. Two young people working at Taco Bell could swing a house here if they were careful.
If I understand your situation correctly you have inherited a house that is a financial liability, that you cannot get out of legally, and are just trying to cover your costs until you can rid yourself of this burden. That is not a stress or quandary I have experienced, and my sympathies go out to you in trying to navigate that, until such time as you can get out of that situation, which for your sake I hope will be soon.
I also empathise with the tenants (as I'm sure you do) who are entitled to a place to live without having to rent one (whether they wish to buy or not), and should be able to rely on having a home of their own, one which they can treat the way they want (although we might hope they treat it well for their own sakes). Yet such is our economic and social system that this right is denied them.
Your example shows that the world we live in and the circumstances it puts us in compromises us in challenging ways that there are not always simple answers to, and we are left to choose between imperfect possibilities.
All of this is another reason for us to work toward the end of such a system. When food, housing and other needs are commodified this will lead to other moral conflicts and compromises, that we are left to navigate while trying to survive under such a dysfunctional system.
My articles tend to focus on general principles, and issues that are broader than individuals (but ultimately will benefit all of us individually and collectively). In this case the general principle is that private commercial property should not exist because it creates unfair and unjust and immoral hierarchies and inequalities. This remains true, but your example shows that in some cases reality is less simple and straightforward and we have to do the best with the choices we have, and show our compassion to those who do not have those choices.
I didn’t inherit it. It was the little house I bought after a divorce induced me to scale to a cheaper place. I only wish I’d inherited a house! I don’t expect to ever inherit anything.
I just wanted to introduce the other side of this. You and I no doubt agree on many things, but I wanted to show you another side to this issue. Your mom-and-pop landlords aren’t the same as mega corporations.
Instead of rental property we could have housing co-ops. And for individual houses a neighborhood council could own them. Housing in a socialist society would be a resource rather than a commodity. It would still be your home, but if say your family situation changed & you needed a bigger or smaller house or a handicap accessible one that could be worked out. Perhaps a home with really nice features could be like a publicly owned time-share that different people could sign up for. Everyone gets some time at the beach house or cabin in the mountains etc.
I've recently written a novella in which the characters speak in one of the chapters about property and landlords, and they make a narrow exception for their nice old landlady (based on my last one). But corporate landlords seem to rapidly be becoming the new norm as less young people can afford to buy a home, and those who had one they hoped to leave to their children are remortgaging or selling to pay for old age related costs.
Thing is, we do need rental property. Some people are living somewhere only temporarily or don’t want to buy, like my son. I’d give him the best deal I could if he wanted to own that house. So far, he doesn’t.
I envision a national land trust buying up forested and tillable land that would serve as nature corridors with adjoining legal campgrounds, suburban/city cohousing communuties, food coops, durable goods stores and health clinics with a sweat equity and/or buy-in program for members.. a cross between School of Living, Americorps and Habitat for Humanity. The org would be a reliably repeatable model for transition teaching skills, group consensus,.conflict resolution and providing basic necessities with a work requirement for families who lose everything for noncompliance with the technocratic neofeudal system being implemented. If Bill Gates ever snapped out of his strategic philanthropy and subscription based scam mentality he could donate his 10,000s of acres towards this end. If i wasn't so busy trying to stay afloat and afraid of being targetted or killed, I would approach some of these rich folks with a Hobbesian choice type explanation.. but they stuck in layers of left-right paradigm, identity politics and the big grift with a default of head for the bunkers when "the Event" happens.
It depends
In my neighborhood to own a home costs 50 percent more than renting
I can invest that 50 percent
This fifty percent is due to property taxes and home owners insurance and mortgage interest
So I am grateful for a landlord to provide me this
Plus a home is not a liquid asset as Warren Buffett outlines and has a huge transaction cost if want to sell it
So in my current situation I love landlords
I appreciate that there are individual situations in the current world that don’t fit general principles, and I’m glad if you’ve luckily found one that suits you.
However everyone in the world would be better off in a situation in which housing is available based on need, rather than the current situation in which there are over 150 million homeless people in the world, and 20% of people live inadequate or precarious housing situations. So we need something that doesn’t work for a few but for everyone.
Great stuff.
I would take the origin story a step back. Feudalism was only possible because we had already changed our relationship to land from one of being 'part of it', (and all nature), to thinking we can 'own it'. It went from being 'relational' in nature to 'transactional'. For the majority of human history, up to the colonialist era amongst the Indigenous peoples, we knew that this was as stupid as saying we can own air or the oceans. We fought back against it, but now the notion has been normalised. It is this mentality that has made the theft, enclosure, and commodification of the commons possible in the first place.
For me, we actually have to address this issue if we want to inact real change.
Most of a lifetime renting the roof over my head confirms every word said. Landlords, like billionaires, have no redeeming social value. We really should get rid of them.
Michael Hudson calls it the "rentier economy"
TL;DR: Small-time landlords are not the problem and many tenants suck.
In 2008 we bought a larger house. I’d remarried and we needed more space and a second bathroom. So I put my little house on the market. I could not sell it no matter what I did. I began renting it out in order not to lose it. I’ve never made money doing this. At best I break even. Tenants have so often destroyed things that I have to repair. Most of my tenants have had higher incomes than I have, incidentally.
I couldn’t even get anyone to buy it contract for deed.
And it’s a cute little house I kept very nice — before I remarried I thought I’d live there forever and did a lot of work. The neighborhood is safe and quiet.
My last tenant left as Covid began. My son was still living at home but was on the verge of being ready to move out. So he’s been renting from me ever since. He pays on time and never destroys anything. He doesn’t want to be a homeowner at this point in his life.
Most of my past tenants could have purchased a home if they’d wanted to — all of them had higher pay than I did, including the one on disability.
The amount of work involved in landlording is often considerable. You get calls at all hours for repairs. Sometimes it’s legit, but sometimes it’s that they’ve flushed a hair clip down the toilet and you have to spend a whole evening taking out the toilet, showing them that the problem was that they flushed a hair clip, and then reinstalling it. I have many stories like that.
You can spend a lot of time on background checks but bad tenants will still get in. You never know until they get in there.
I hate it. I never wanted to do this. But by no means am I taking advantage of anyone. Many of them fucked me over. If you’ve never done a cleanup after a tenant leaves, and had to repaint and replace carpeting and appliances, great. I have!
Tenants who just refuse to pay or leave are another headache.
I’ll add: Not all areas are the same. There’s not really a housing shortage where I live, and houses are still pretty cheap compared to elsewhere. You’re buying a house here, not an investment. I bought my current house for just under $100k and it’s only worth a touch more right now, after 17 years. Two young people working at Taco Bell could swing a house here if they were careful.
It's like with food, there's enough of it, but since it's a commodity it's badly distributed. Or it needs to be redeveloped.
If I understand your situation correctly you have inherited a house that is a financial liability, that you cannot get out of legally, and are just trying to cover your costs until you can rid yourself of this burden. That is not a stress or quandary I have experienced, and my sympathies go out to you in trying to navigate that, until such time as you can get out of that situation, which for your sake I hope will be soon.
I also empathise with the tenants (as I'm sure you do) who are entitled to a place to live without having to rent one (whether they wish to buy or not), and should be able to rely on having a home of their own, one which they can treat the way they want (although we might hope they treat it well for their own sakes). Yet such is our economic and social system that this right is denied them.
Your example shows that the world we live in and the circumstances it puts us in compromises us in challenging ways that there are not always simple answers to, and we are left to choose between imperfect possibilities.
All of this is another reason for us to work toward the end of such a system. When food, housing and other needs are commodified this will lead to other moral conflicts and compromises, that we are left to navigate while trying to survive under such a dysfunctional system.
My articles tend to focus on general principles, and issues that are broader than individuals (but ultimately will benefit all of us individually and collectively). In this case the general principle is that private commercial property should not exist because it creates unfair and unjust and immoral hierarchies and inequalities. This remains true, but your example shows that in some cases reality is less simple and straightforward and we have to do the best with the choices we have, and show our compassion to those who do not have those choices.
I didn’t inherit it. It was the little house I bought after a divorce induced me to scale to a cheaper place. I only wish I’d inherited a house! I don’t expect to ever inherit anything.
I just wanted to introduce the other side of this. You and I no doubt agree on many things, but I wanted to show you another side to this issue. Your mom-and-pop landlords aren’t the same as mega corporations.
Instead of rental property we could have housing co-ops. And for individual houses a neighborhood council could own them. Housing in a socialist society would be a resource rather than a commodity. It would still be your home, but if say your family situation changed & you needed a bigger or smaller house or a handicap accessible one that could be worked out. Perhaps a home with really nice features could be like a publicly owned time-share that different people could sign up for. Everyone gets some time at the beach house or cabin in the mountains etc.
I've recently written a novella in which the characters speak in one of the chapters about property and landlords, and they make a narrow exception for their nice old landlady (based on my last one). But corporate landlords seem to rapidly be becoming the new norm as less young people can afford to buy a home, and those who had one they hoped to leave to their children are remortgaging or selling to pay for old age related costs.
Thing is, we do need rental property. Some people are living somewhere only temporarily or don’t want to buy, like my son. I’d give him the best deal I could if he wanted to own that house. So far, he doesn’t.
We don't 'need' rental property. Community provision of all housing is not only possible, it is entirely preferable.
Doing whatever you please with your own wealth, especially when inherited, is not providing any benefit to society or the economy.