Hacker News Reader

Comment by esotericn | Hacker News Reader

The idea of renting a property as a long-term solution to remaining on a specific plot of land fundamentally makes no sense.

A five or ten year fixed lease, if you can negotiate one, might.

It's completely unsurprising that on a year-by-year lease the rent might rise and you may want to move out. That's what a 1 year lease _is_.

All of the emotional pandering surrounding that is simply unnecessary. If you want to live somewhere for an extended period you either need a long lease or to buy a place.

That's not a politically popular viewpoint for reasons I can't quite understand.

View on HN

That's not a popular opinion because it's functionally the same as saying only the people who can afford to buy a home or enter a long-term lease should have access to affordable, stable housing. Since politics is about who gets what, and since most people don't have much in terms of savings or leverage, it's in the interest of most people to oppose your viewpoint because it's against their interests.

It's only emotional pandering if you don't think politics should be a useful instrument to people without money.

Yes, only people who can afford to enter into a long term lease have access to stable housing.

There is no "should" here. It's definitional. That's literally what a long lease is, as opposed to a short lease.

> It's only emotional pandering if you don't think politics should be a useful instrument to people without money.

It's emotional pandering because it's devoid of actual logic.

You've injected the 'people without money' bit here as if it's relevant when actually this is a matter that affects everyone.

>The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

One should realize that politics can be used to cement long terms societal stability, and not just make one rich as fast as possible.

Sure.

It can't make a short term lease a long term lease though.

You can, of course, eliminate or curtail short term leases.

Whether such a thing is preferable is up for question.

Leases are only a mechanism for achieving housing. People will need homes for the rest of their lives, so the length of the lease is not 'definitional' for establishing anything. The length of the lease is only the length of a commitment to living in some particular place. The overall housing still needs to remain affordable in aggregate, and that doesn't happen if everyone is expecting rent to increase after their lease lapses.

Moreover, moving is expensive and can take months of planning. If rent prices rise beyond affordability, you're pushing a heavy burden on your tenants, and landlords should have an obligation to exercise that power responsibly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com