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Comment by beckman466 | Hacker News Reader

> I can't imagine going through life like he did, how much I would hav missed.

Yeah your granddads story is impressive. I cannot imagine not being able to read and write.

> He was the kind of guy that can take a dollar on Monday and give you back $100 on Friday. He owns, I believe at this point, 8 properties including his own home.

So he owned other peoples homes? Ugh I hate this system. Why is absentee ownership a thing, why is it seen as ‘success‘? Lording over others isn’t ‘success’ in my book. I think it’s inhumane for some to be able to extract a toll from others for such a basic need. Yes the system makes it legal, but ‘landlords’ shouldn’t kid themselves that they are providing value to others.

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"Yes the system makes it legal, but ‘landlords’ shouldn’t kid themselves that they are providing value to others."

A landlord who takes care of building and maintainig the house etc. is not providing value?

You think that happens automatically?

I mean sure, it would be nice to live in a world where everyone is wealthy and capable enough to own and maintain their home. But there are actually people who like to rent to not have that responsibility. They just pay money regulary and have a home. And there are surely lots of sharks in the housing and renting market, but that does not mean renting per se is evil.

> But there are actually people who like to rent

I've never met any. Have you?

I guess maybe rich people who could afford to buy but choose not to, like to rent. I live in Sydney, don't know anyone who owns their house or even dreams of it one day. Saying there are people who like renting, sounds to me like saying there are people who like pain, or a terminal illness, or a death sentence. But hey, at least our money is going every week to people who already own more than one house?

I prefer to rent, and am not rich. I live in a large metro area in the US where rent is not insanely high, though. As someone who is single, it comes with a lot more freedom and less to worry about. Probably not the best long-term, but it's less stress in my life in my opinion, so the trade off is currently worth it.

Ok, well, if not rich, it sounds like you have the choice of buying or renting. Lucky you! I don't know anyone who has that choice. The person I responded to initially only meant, I guess, that some people who have the choice, prefer renting. Hm..but they were also talking as if people without the choice, like renting:

> it would be nice to live in a world where everyone is wealthy and capable enough to own and maintain their home. But there are actually people who like to rent

It just sounds like landlord's rationalizations. Also, the landlords here don't "take care of building..the house"—that happened 100-150 years ago or so.

I strongly doubt GP has a choice. Not rich + insane rent means he's probably building up saving too slowly for a house near where his social group is.

It sounds like you've been burned by a landlord in the past and are taking it out on all of them unfairly.

I hate the concept of a landlord, paying a lot without building any equity, unlike a mortgage on property. But I've never had one that does absolutely nothing.

Between tenants, my landlords vacuumed, repainted, sometimes re-carpeted if needed, removed old tenants belongs left behind, etc.

I've had landlords be good about replacements of major appliances too. One thing I learned is you need to be assertive and advocate for yourself. Persistence and following up until they do something is key.

But I've had multiple washing machines, laundry machines, and garbage disposals be replaced for no charge to me, without me doing anything but letting them into the house.

I'm still getting a bit ripped off with inflated rent, but that type of convenience takes a lot off my plate.

I rent, and am plenty fine with it. One thing I like is that we get a yearly home inspection. Some people surely dislike the thought of people trouncing through their inner sanctum, but what it means is that every year they find things that need fixing, and fix them. Last year we got a new (and better) stove out of it. The year before we got our washer/drier dismantled, fully cleaned, and rebuilt with a few new parts, and a new water heater.

They want to keep their units in good condition, and I don't have to do much of the hard work to keep it that way. Air filters are pretty much the only utility maintenance we have to do.

Also, if you have rowdy neighbours, there isn't a whole lot you can do about that if you own and they aren't actually breaking any laws. Our landlord has been rapid at addressing neighbour complaints. However, I have rented a number of different places, and this particular landlord is the first and only one I've had that actively tries to maintain peace and order as well.

>Also, the landlords here don't "take care of building..the house"—that happened 100-150 years ago or so.

So landlords haven't painted, repaired the roof, added appliances, etc in 100 years?

I don't think we really disagree, I think we just live in very different places. My point was that renting has benefits in some places, whereas you implied it does not.

I've lived in many countries and while I own a home in my original country to retire to (should that happen), I need places to rent when I don't want to be there. And my home is rented at those times, sometimes for years.

> while I own a home in my original country to retire to

You’re proving their point...?

From OP:

> I guess maybe rich people who could afford to buy but choose not to, like to rent.

> at least our money is going every week to people who already own more than one house

Where would I, or some other temporary migrant, live if not in someone's house who rented it to me? My owning a home is irrelevant.

> Where would I, or some other temporary migrant, live if not in someone's house who rented it to me? My owning a home is irrelevant.

Why does the housing need to be supplied by private landlords? There are places that have a lot of social housing, like Sweden. Let the government build and own property, it works well. It also means people from different backgrounds and occupations can all live together, instead of e.g. redlining, which devastates minority communities.

As it stands now only the rich are able to move into cities, with low-wage workers having to commute from far outside the city, which is a pretty disgusting shift if you think about it. Imagine having a crappy cleaning job, cleaning offices at night, and you have to travel hours for your job because you live so far out [1]. It's a reality for more and more people, as the assault on labor intensifies.

[1] https://taliajane.medium.com/a-week-in-new-york-city-on-13-5...

I have a residential realtor friend who rents their family house. Yes, he earns his living selling houses, and rents his own house to live in, and they have lived there a few years. good schools, friends, like the neighborhood, etc.

>> "A landlord who takes care of building and maintainig the house etc"

How many actually do this? I don't know anyone who complains about landlords who do something useful. For example: there are people who build/buy and maintain properties to house queer people who've been kicked out of their homes after coming out or being outed. Often by landlords.

No one would hate landlords as a class if useful ones were at all representative.

If you saw a typical apartment unit after people moved out you wouldn’t be asking that.

My parents own a 12 unit apartment building in a small town, and my dad is up there multiple times a week. There’s regular stuff like cleaning hallways, and then there’s stuff like “the tenant on the top floor installed a dishwasher themselves and it leaked while they were gone flooding their unit and the one beneath it.”

After most people move out the carpet needs to be replaced and the walls repainted at the minimum.

Respect is a two-way street. How many of those problems came from the ways people coped with absent landlords not fixing things? How many calls to fix the dishwasher preceded the self-install? How many of those people are on their nth slumlord and long past giving the new one the benefit of the doubt? You only have one side of the story from one apartment building.

Maybe your parents are good ones. Nothing I've heard from the other side gives me reason to trust this account.

"Absent" landlord here. I pay a management firm to handle repairs. If I find out they aren't responding to tenant maintenance requests, I'm going to start looking to replace them with another firm.

But I love my management firm. They get me discounts on appliances, repairs, carpet & paint because they have agreements with local suppliers. If I had been the one to call for a quote to replace the air conditioner, not only would it have been much pricier, I would have gone to the back of the line (because of COVID equipment shortages...) to get the work scheduled. Instead, it was replaced in only 2 days, they did a great job, and it's more efficient - saving my tenant money on their utility bills.

Are there slumlords out there? Of course. But you're painting with a pretty broad brush here and it's unfair.

Why is my broad brush unfair and not that of the person I replied to? That's quite a thing to skip over. Mine is at least based on much more than one 12 unit building. Your bias is showing.

The unit didn't have a dishwasher and they decided to put one in themselves. When someone has an issue my dad is there ASAP.

My entire point was that if landlords did nothing most apartment buildings would be unlivable in a matter of years. I'm not going to defend all of them as I've never been a renter myself, but I have seen what amount of work goes in to a small building just to keep it livable and safe for the tenants.

Owning a property has risk. By renting you are paying to defer risk.

Only true in those instances where rent is significantly cheaper than mortgage + maintenance costs.

Shouldnt it be the other way around?

This attitude expanded just a little also applies to farmers who produce a surplus. They're also extracting a toll from others for a basic need. When it's actually used to guide policy farmers get kicked off their land and everyone fucking starves.

>>So he owned other peoples homes? Ugh I hate this system. Why is absentee ownership a thing, why is it seen as ‘success‘?

The more investment capital goes into real estate, the more impetus there is to expand housing supply, and thus the more affordable rental rates, which is the cost of having housing, is.

There are of course numerous other factors involved in determining housing costs, like the municipal government's permit processing efficiency, zoning restrictions on building density, accessibility of residential neighborhoods to job centers via road networks and public transportation, etc, but ceteris paribus, more investment increases housing supply and reduces rental rates.

Beware of the anti-profit bias:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/08/04/we-have-an-ingrained-an...

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