Reason I’m asking is because I have an aunt that owns like maybe 3 - 5 (not sure the exact amount) small townhouses around the city (well, when I say “city” think of like the areas around a city where theres no tall buildings, but only small 2-3 stories single family homes in the neighborhood) and have these houses up for rent, and honestly, my aunt and her husband doesn’t seem like a terrible people. They still work a normal job, and have to pay taxes like everyone else have to. They still have their own debts to pay. I’m not sure exactly how, but my parents say they did a combination of saving up money and taking loans from banks to be able to buy these properties, fix them, then put them up for rent. They don’t overcharge, and usually charge slightly below the market to retain tenants, and fix things (or hire people to fix things) when their tenants request them.
I mean, they are just trying to survive in this capitalistic world. They wanna save up for retirement, and fund their kids to college, and leave something for their kids, so they have less of stress in life. I don’t see them as bad people. I mean, its not like they own multiple apartment buildings, or doing excessive wealth hoarding.
Do leftists mean people like my aunt too? Or are they an exception to the “landlords are bad” sentinment?
Treating a basic human need as an investment is, and has always been, abhorrent. It has royally fucked over economics as a whole by making people’s retirement funds dependent on housing costs going up infinitely.
On the other hand, rented homes has lots of demand, and that is only possible if someone else owns it.
Landslords provides a service that people need. Although not all landlords does it well.
Many people (not all) rent because they can’t afford to buy, not because they don’t want to own property.
Given a rental apartment with an affordable rent where I could live as long as I want, why would I want to own property instead?
I don’t want to worry about the plumbing being replaced or the floor having water damage, and that putting tens of thousands of costs on me randomly. I don’t want to speculate what the price of the apartment is in ten years and how that affects my mortgage. I don’t want to not have housing anymore if I get a pest infestation.
I think it’s the other way round, people own property because it is seen (and often is) the only way to have reasonable housing costs and not worry about having to move if you don’t want to.
So your issue is that owning a house is too expensive because housing is artificially scarce but you don’t think that privately owned investment properties is the fault of that? Renting will always cost more than the upkeep of a house because otherwise nobody would lease. The only reasons housing prices changing is a worry to homeowners is because housing is artificially scarce and the artificial scarcity changes based on how much of the artificially scarce housing investors decide to put on the market. All your issues with personal ownership of a house stem from other people treating housing as private property that can be invested in.
Housing is not artificially scarce, because land is naturally scarce.
On average yes, but you also do not need to account for variability in price due to for example, having to replace the plumbing every 20 years or so.
This addresses none of the things I listed.
But in both cases they need landlords, right?
Alternatively, the government can own it and provide it at very low to no cost because they care about their people having somewhere to live.
Until that exists, we need landlords. Right?
Chicken or the egg?