No Stupid Questions

No raindrop thinks itself responsible for the flood.

if the rents > mortgage, or youre doing some mostly non-existant rent to own plan, then parasite. Fundamentally speaking, its pretty fucked up that fundamental basic needs are treated as investments. At least with food, theres virtually always alternatives to get something cheaper, but that doesnt exist with some of the other forms of basic needs, and shelter is arguably the most important one of them.

The stock market was meant to be the location where people put money into investment. it's just housing got lucrative that parasites decided to pool their money into that instead of business. A consumer has the power to refuse to fund a specific business, they have very little control over keeping a roof over their heads, which is a huge problem.

You can be less of a leech against people by of course, like you mention, charging less, but using property as an investment is part of the reason why the system is fucked to begin with.

For example, even if you're charging less for rent vs other players, landlords are still likely voting against the public favor in terms of local measures in order to get places cheaper, in order to protect their "investment". It's a system designed to keep some people in while keeping others out.

I would say that if you live on site, in one of the units of the rental property, then no, you are not a parasite. So, live in one side of a duplex, or in one unit in a quadplex that you own, no problem. But, if you're renting out a unit where you don't live, you're some degree of parasite, yes. Maybe you're just an an annoying little gnat, rather than a 40' intestinal worm, but yeah, you're still a parasite.

There are other, less-parasitical methods of investing involving real estate. Your aunt could offer the propert(y|ies) for sale with a private mortgage, or under a "land contract" (a sort of rent-to-own arrangement). Because equity is transferring to the occupant, and the terms are fixed for the life of the agreement, this arrangement is mutually beneficial, rather than parasitical.

As bad as lenders are, lenders are far less parasitical than landlords.

I would still consider this horizontal violence. That equity could be used to make the world a better place instead of extracting value from fellow workers to pay for their kids college and inheritance ... and where the debts incurred buying 5 properties?

You're right that they are good people, because no one sees themselves as the villain in their own story. That insurance CEOs wife isn't lying when she says good things about him. Capitalism not only alienates you from your labour but also from your exploitation of others.

The sheer weight of human misery in your immediate surroundings is immeasurable and you never pay it any mind.

Ideologies tend to sort people into a limited number of overly simplistic categories. This makes theorising easier but applying it to reality much harder.

Very few people could live in a capitalist system and remain pure. e.g. My pension fund is invested in the stock market so I very partially own thousands of companies. I've also purchased a small amount of shares in selected companies, a situation I had more agency in creating. Sometimes I subcontract work to other contractors who function as my temporary employees. And so on.

Based on the amount of vitriol I've personally received on this site for renting one property while I am temporarily relocated to attend school, the answer is yes.

For some reason everyone views being a landlord as easy money. But in reality returns on investment are worse than the stock market for being the landlord of a single family home.

Edit: Isn't it funny how the critics below didn't even ask questions about a specific situation where it does make sense to rent out an owned home? Instead of trying to understand why someone might make the choice they make, they sling insults and make wide sweeping assumptions to reinforce their skewed world view. Honestly it's this shit that's why Trump won. Leftists can't see the forest for the trees and are willing to engage in ever escalating purity tests that only alienate other sympathetic voters to leftist causes.

I worked hard to be able to own my own house. Saved money and took out a loan. I never received a penny from my parents or some inheritance from a family member that died. A greater return on investment can absolutely be made by investing in the SP500, returns on investment for single family homes will be worse. The SP500 can be expected to rise an average of 10% per year. A single family home on the other hand will increase by 4.3% per year. With interest rates being higher than that level appreciation, there is effectively no profit from the leverage that can be typically seen by borrowing money. Renting is typically 37% cheaper than buying on a month-to-month basis. Owners don't expect to Break-even on a home until after 5-10 years of ownership (depending on the city). Over 2/3 the cost of a mortgage go towards loan interest and taxes. Now what does a house get you then if there are all these downsides? Freedom. Freedom to decorate how you choose. To remodel, to build a deck, install Ethernet throughout the house, add an extension. But most of all, it gives long-term stability. After that 5 year period where a homeowner is taking a loss because of buying, they are finally ahead financially of a renter. This is why it doesn't make sense to sell a home due to short-term circumstances, because owning a home is inherently a long-term benefit. Especially when one loses 10% of the the value of a home selling it when it would take 3 years for the home to even grow to the point where that cost is covered by increases in home value, which is not even remotely guaranteed, as evidenced by home values only increasing 0.12% after falling by 5% the previous year.

If you do it for side money, you're only accomplishing that by fucking someone else over. Otherwise you wouldn't make money.

I'd say the only ethical way to be a residential landlord is if you are renting out the only house you own because you aren't in a position to use it as a house - say you've brought a house, but had to move somewhere for a few years for work and intend to move back at some point.

The moment you own 2 houses, you are profiting from a system that only works because of inelastic demand - you could have put your money into the stock market and made it do something productive, but instead you are collecting rent, making it harder for others to meet their own basic needs, and profiting from a speculative bubble

Ownership itself is not the issue per se but how landlords behave as a class of people is the issue.

They are able to obtain preferential treatment from the state, the front run everything, when market collapses they will walk away.

The property will essentially get gutted over time and turned into a slam unless it is elite.

That's why they are called parasites. They got a lot of class solidarity but say something about a renters coop and see how they react lol

I think it depends. If your mortgage payment is $1000 and you're renting the space for $500 then you and your tenant are both sharing the financial burden, and I don't really see it as parasitism like lots of other people.

If you're renting for $1,200 then yeah everyone is going to hate you, no matter how few tenants you have. Even more so if that's your only source of income. Why should someone else be living your paycheck to your paycheck?

Those buying up properties which prevent people from getting on the property ladder, not owning a couple. I'm left-wing; I bought land, built a small house (small as in the size of a one-bed apartment), current rent it out which pays for my rent in another place. The landlords I've had over the past few years have been great, they are also living in the same place they rent out, those people are good.

The only landlords I see that add any positive value to the world are those who run and maintain apartment complexes. If you own multiple single family homes to rent them out or hoard parcels of land just to try and sell for a higher price: you're a parasite.

There are lots of kinds of “leftisms” with lots of different attitudes toward landlords—but to take Georgism as a concrete example that exclusively focuses on land ownership:

Georgists would say that the portion of the rent equal to the market rent of the unimproved lot—including the value generated by the presence of the surrounding community and infrastructure—should go back to the community rather than the landlord, but the portion of the rent contributed solely by the presence of buildings and other improvements should go to the owner of the improvements.

In order for there to be any rental property at all, someone has to own it and be the landlord. Unless they think it should be the state. Or unless they think that everyone should always own the property where they live.

I didn't think there is much of a logical argument for having no landlords whatsoever.

Who owns a hotel? Isn't that just another type of landlord?

Don't take it personally, but landlordism is fundamentally parasitism. It's a matter of fact that private property, whether it's a townhouse or a factory, enables its owners to extract value from working people. If people personally resent landlords like your aunt, it's probably not so much because that's where the theory guides them as it is that almost everyone has had a bad experience with a landlord or knows someone who did. Landlords have earned a bad reputation.

There is no exception to stealing housing from other people.

I'd say even your aunt is included in that. Don't worry though, my mom is on the same list. They're extracting wealth from someone else's labor.

“Landlords provide housing like scalpers provide concert tickets.”

https://lifehacker.com/why-everyone-hates-landlords-now-1849100799

That said, I do think there need to be ways to rent housing rather than buy it, since many people need that flexibility. Looks like the answer to that might be community land trusts?

It would vary depending on who's saying it.