The question is what they should do in order to be fair and non-parasitic.

Sell their properties to their tenants, or grant tenants equity in the property based on how much they pay in rent (ie, co-ownership).

So far, I understand that you’re convinced ownership is necessary if any payment is involved. What I don’t understand is why*.

For an exchange to not be parasitic, both parties must gain something equal to what they lose. This, by definition, means that a renter must be able to pay zero dollars for rent in months where the landlord doesn’t have to make a mortgage payment and doesn’t need to do any maintenance on the property.

We agreed that people should be paid for their labour. What makes home rentals special in that regard?

As I’ve already said, landlords don’t provide a service equivalent to the payment provided, and the indefinite nature of a lease makes it impossible for a landlord to ever provide value equal to what a renter pays. As long as a tenant lives in a rented space, they have to pay a fee for the privilege, even if they’ve paid enough to pay for the mortgage many times over. You can’t convince me that a landlord can provide potentially multiple properties worth of value over the span of a lease.

Dawg they are having an existential crisis. A bunch of us are, because just about every thread on the big communities on here remind us of how shit things are every day. I wouldn’t rather be numb to it, and I’m not suggesting other people to be numb to it. I’m saying it’s funny that someone wrote a comment about how much this site reminds them of all the shit going on, then someone replies directly to them with a list of more shit.

Please don’t get yourself into the mindset that because everything is shit, we all have to feel like shit all the time too.

Landlords don’t do that. Until they do, they’re parasites.

Also, I can’t tell if you’ve realized by now, but everything I’ve been describing as ways to make landlording “fair” is just a roundabout description of ownership.

Vegetable breeders for the veggies that you get in a normal grocery store don’t typically select for tastiness/flavor, they select for things that can maximize profits - hardiness, shipability, production, etc.

You’re taking the proposed solution to an extreme end of the spectrum in an effort to argue against it.

We don’t need all ~7 billion of us to become self sufficient farmers. We don’t even need 1 billion of us to become farmers.

What we need in the immediate short term is to encourage the adoption of better agricultural practices, such that the mega farms that currently support us can continue to support us, while minimizing their environmental* impact.

What we need in the medium term is to encourage people to create local food gardens in their communities, via education campaigns and subsidies. By no means does that mean every living being on the planet needs to take up a trowel and a hoe, but people should be encouraged to participate in the production of their own food.

What we need in the long term is to find solutions that turn those local food gardens into permanent, sustainable, long term solutions that can support entire communities. Vertical farming, indoor hydroponics, stuff like that. Which means publicly funded research and more subsidies.

There’s steps to it. It’s a process. It will take time, it won’t happen overnight. No one is suggesting that “a city of a million people abandon all the work they do and collectively invade rural areas to set up farms they have no idea how to run”. That’s a strawman you’ve made up in your head.

How nice of you to conveniently list out all the current events worth having an existential crisis over, in a reply to a person having an existential crisis

What I’m trying to convince you of is that there exists a non-zero positive value that is reasonable to charge someone as rent.

And I’ve already told you I don’t agree. Paying a non-zero amount of rent is always parasitic.

I feel like a rake would be a better alternative on all accounts

Then landlords should send me an itemized invoice that details each of the expenses incurred while I’ve been a tenant, a breakdown detailing how any rent payments cover the cost of those expenses, and a payment plan that we can negotiate to ensure both parties are getting fair deals.

Or they should give me equity in the property based on how much I pay in rent.

But they shouldn’t simply charge an amount based on nothing other than “the market”. That number never equates to the amount of work they put in, and makes them parasitic.

I encourage you to explore the wonderful world of indie games, and free yourself from the shackles and shitty anti-cheat implementations of the AAA/AAAA gaming industry

Think of all the work you need to do as a home owner and that you wouldn’t need to do when renting. These are the services you get.

Then a landlord can invoice me if/when that work is done. Work like that isn’t done every month though.

Services can be an equal exchange too. A laborer receives your money, you receive a service which requires that laborer’s active time and expertise.

Renting is not a service in the same way. You pay indefinitely, but you aren’t being provided a laborer’s time and expertise equivalent to the money being paid. Owning a thing isn’t something that requires a landlord’s active time or expertise, it’s something that happens passively.

Here’s some evidence for you: a 10 year old rape victim in Ohio was forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion, since Ohio had a blanket ban on all abortion at the time. The doctor that performed the abortion in Indiana was investigated and fined, and still faces harassment to this day. For performing an abortion for a 10 year old rape victim.

But why is that a problem?

Because whatever a renter pays in rent disproportionately enriches the landlord. Sure they get temporary shelter, but the landlord owns the shelter, plus they get extra money on top of that. The renter ends the relationship in the red, the landlord ends in the black. That’s definitionally parasitic.

Not everything is about physical possessions.

It sort of is though. In the case of renting, the renter pays money but ends up with zero physical possessions, but the landlord ends up with more money and physical possessions (in the form of increased equity in a property). That can never be an equal exchange. That’s the difference between renting and buying a meal (or the difference between renting and ownership in general) - when you buy something, the buyer loses money but gains a physical possession, and the seller gains money but loses a physical possession. That can be an equal exchange.

Do we at least agree that if the landlords sets the rent at $1/month, then the transaction will be to the benefit of the tenant?

No. A tenant never gains anything once the terms of the lease expire. The property owner is the only one that gains, as long as the price of rent is a positive number.

But resources aren’t being distributed fairly.

Right, because the system is broken.

That’s a rather arbitrary rule.

It’s basically co-ownership, which is already an established way to buy and own a property.

Assuming you do have all the right rules in place, what makes this setup more desirable than simply renting at cost?

At the end of your lease, if you choose not to renew, you still have equity in a property which is worth something, rather than ending up with nothing in the current system.

Just so we’re on the same page, we’re still talking about OP’s question, right?

The relationship between a landlord (parasite) and a renter (host) is absolutely a net negative for the renter*, because at the termination of the relationship, the landlord ends up with much more than they started with (equity in a property + profit from rent) and the renter ends up with less than they started with (lost money in rent payments).

Huh. Well that explains why those are my two favorite positions

You know, as unappetizing as this looks, it probably tastes close to dipping a grilled cheese into tomato soup. I’m keeping my mind open, but good lord they need help with their plating.

The whole system needs overhauling to make it work these changes alone won’t sort it out.

Correct, wholeheartedly agree.

If their rent went toward equity in the home they were renting, when the landlord sells, an equitable portion of the cash made during the sale would go to the renters. Ideally, the renters could then use that nest egg of cash to put a down payment on a home.

If a person is paying money for access to and upkeep of a particular home, I think it’s very fair for them to build equity in that home proportional to what they pay in rent. If landlords find that too risky or not lucrative enough, well, they don’t have to be landlords.