- cross-posted to:
- aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
The Berkeley Property Owners Association’s fall mixer is called “Celebrating the End of the Eviction Moratorium.”
A group of Berkeley, California landlords will hold a fun social mixer over cocktails to celebrate their newfound ability to kick people out of their homes for nonpayment of rent, as first reported by Berkeleyside.
The Berkeley Property Owner Association lists a fall mixer on its website on Tuesday, September 12, 530 PM PST. “We will celebrate the end of the Eviction Moratorium and talk about what’s upcoming through the end of the year,” the invitation reads. The event advertises one free drink and “a lovely selection of appetizers,” and encourages attendees to “join us around the fire pits, under the heat lamps and stars, enjoying good food, drink, and friends.”
The venue will ironically be held at a space called “Freehouse”, according to its website. Attendees who want to join in can RSVP on their website for $20.
Berkeley’s eviction moratorium lasted from March 2020 to August 31, 2023, according to the city’s Rent Board, during which time tenants could not be legally removed from their homes for nonpayment of rent. Landlords could still evict tenants if they had “Good Cause” under city and state law, which includes health and safety violations. Landlords can still not collect back rent from March 2020 to April 2023 through an eviction lawsuit, according to the Rent Board.
Berkeleyside spoke to one landlord planning to attend the eviction moratorium party who was frustrated that they could not evict a tenant—except that they could evict the tenant, who was allegedly a danger to his roommates—but the landlord found the process of proving a health and safety violation too tedious and chose not to pursue it.
The Berkeley Property Owner Association is a landlord group that shares leadership with a lobbying group called the Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition which advocated against a law banning source of income discrimination against Section 8 tenants and other tenant protections.
The group insists on not being referred to as landlords, however, which they consider “slander.” According to the website, “We politely decline the label “landlord” with its pejorative connotations.” They also bravely denounce feudalism, an economic system which mostly ended 500 years ago, and say that the current system is quite fair to renters.
“Feudalism was an unfair system in which landlords owned and benefited, and tenant farmers worked and suffered. Our society is entirely different today, and the continued use of the legal term ‘landlord’ is slander against our members and all rental owners.” Instead, they prefer to be called “housing providers.”
While most cities’ eviction moratoria elapsed in 2021 and 2022, a handful of cities in California still barred evictions for non-payment into this year. Alameda County’s eviction moratorium expired in May, Oakland’s expired in July. San Francisco’s moratorium also elapsed at the end of August, but only covered tenants who lost income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In May, Berkeley’s City Council added $200,000 to the city’s Eviction Defense Funds, money which is paid directly to landlords to pay tenants’ rent arrears, but the city expected those funds to be tapped out by the end of June.
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Berkeleyside spoke to one landlord planning to attend the eviction moratorium party who was frustrated that they could not evict a tenant—except that they could evict the tenant, who was allegedly a danger to his roommates—but the landlord found the process of proving a health and safety violation too tedious and chose not to pursue it.
I feel like people should really read this part and fully absorb what it means.
They like to use one case like this as their excuse to kick out a dozen people who are just trying to survive
It’s not that surprising, courts require specific hard evidence. Getting the roommates present to testify may or may not be enough, but it’s far more difficult than showing unpaid rent or a hoarding situation.
Oh, boo hoo. A landlord actually having to do work. How awful, this is truly a tragedy of unspoken proportions
Been a landlord for almost 20 years. I’ve rebuilt some of these houses myself from an auctioned off unlivable disaster to a safe, clean, maintained property. To imply landlords don’t work is such a narrow sighted view of reality. I got a glimpse during covid of an eviction moratorium a tenant that had quite a bit of hardship and I worked with her for 5 years pre-covid. Heating oil run out she couldn’t afford I filled it out of pocket for her and her family. If she needed flexibility on rent timing I worked with her. When she snuck an untrained dog classified as an emotion support dog that chewed up the house’s 70 year old woodwork stairs and balusters. I worked with her. When covid hit and the moratorium was about to go live her lease was up1 month prior. She ceased paying rent and utilities, I was informed I’d have to cover all her expenses during the moratorium. If she hadn’t had that lease end right before this moratorium she would’ve continued staying there for free while I covered her family’s entire housing and utilities. In the end my thanks for covering her and enforcing the lease end date was an entire house abandoned and full of trash and pest. Took my wife and I almost 2 months and close to $5000 to clean, repaint, repair/replace that property on top of the maintenance costs. This isn’t a black and white situation…
Tldr, I guess: Evictions are a last resort for people who have had an agreement no longer be met by the other party. Should never have mad a moratorium on that legal process imo, it needed to have flexibility to help both parties not just shoulder 1 party with all the responsibility. The party is in extremely poor taste but I can understand their relief if they have similar tenants they can hopefully divest of after years of what my example held. I wouldn’t have been able to do it for 3 years financially or mentally.The distinction is in the role of being the owner of the property versus the property manager and superintendent.
Landlords that also assume the role of property manager or superintendent for the land or buildings they lease do work.
But their role as owner and collector of rent is divorced from upkeep. The wealthier the landlord, the more removed and absentee they can be from their property. And the reality of that specific dynamic is just shining in the example of this kind of party.
“We prefer to be called ‘housing providers’”
I’ll call you extortionists. Take it or leave it.
“We prefer to be called ‘housing providers’”
Landlords provide housing like scalpers provide concert tickets.
Concerts fundamentally have a limit or capacity. There is no such thing for housing. All current restraints are arbitrarily chosen and we can change them if we want to.
At the root, housing in the US and especially California is a tragedy of the commons where it is in no current owners interests to allow more construction. So all of them have created a homeowners lobby to make new construction illegal.
So you’re saying housing has a fundamental limit?
I mean you could say the same about concerts. They have a fundamental limit because the venue refuses to build a bigger space.
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We do have bigger venues. But no matter how large the venue, the concert has to be in a venue which has a capacity limit.
No such thing exists for housing.
No. We built our cities wrong, and artificially created a limit. If we were to admit that suburbs are nothing but an economic drain, and rezoned properly to mixed use medium to high density in the cities, and no more suburbs, or tax the suburbs properly and stop subsidizing them, we would have walkable cities with plenty of housing.
Just in Imperial Beach, we could turn these 4 sq miles from being able to support ≈26,000 people to being able to house ≈250,000 which would greatly expand the city’s ability to fund badly needed infrastructure. Doing this nationwide would cause a housing crash, and cost many rich people money.
You could say the same about a given venue for a concert, however. The city is the venue for housing
Then you don’t understand the difference between a city and a building. Cities are amorphous. Buildings are concrete, sometimes literally.
You seem to think that houses just spring magically from the ground without any huge financial cost to build them.
Hi, landlord here and I want to clear up any misconceptions. I don’t build any houses, I only buy them up and then rent them out at a profit.
“I don’t build them, i just pay the people who build the houses to do it”
You really think thats such a big distinction?
It’s quite a big distinction to me, I’m not a fucking construction worker. Gross. I also don’t usually pay anybody to build a house, I mostly scoop up already existing homes whenever there’s a market crash and the lazy poors get foreclosed on.
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So when you “Scoop up existing homes” you don’t realize you’re paying the person for paying the builders?
I like this “i didnt lay every single atom of the house” argument lol
No, I’m quite literally not, in any way. I’ll take just one of my many investment properties to explain to you how dumb you’re being. This house was built in a suburb of San Diego in 1979 and sold for $25,000. The people who built it are possibly dead by now and were, all together paid $25,000 for the land together with the house that they built. It changed hands many times, at some point a bank foreclosed on whoever was living there, and I bought it from the bank. The house is worth $775,000 dollars now and I rent it out for $3,500 a month. Every 7 months I make more money renting out this house than the people who built it were ever paid for doing that, and me buying it had absolutely nothing at all to do with it getting built.
Please stop trying to make me out to be a construction worker. I’m not, I’m a landlord and proud of it.
Hi renter here,
I just rent and want you to subsidies my living expenses so I can profit from you.
I do have an entitled given by god.
Happy to rent to you! Let’s not get confused though, you’ll be paying for all of your own living expenses as well as for mine. Due every month on the first.
How nice to see a thrifty @MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee renting to the amazing @Pussydog… huh hold on a sec 😳
What are you talking about. Landlords build housing all the time. I can take a 5 minute walk and see several construction sites right now.
You’re confused. An honorable and successful landlord such as myself would not be caught dead walking around in a goofy looking hardhat swinging a wrench around or whatever construction people do.
I love this bit and I’m here for it.
It’s definitely grown on me lol.
extortionists
This only exists because almost every American city makes it illegal, or very difficult to build new housing. It’s very hard to extort people when the a proper supply.
Sounds like people are in bed with the government to stop competition
Yep, and voters can change that if they want to.
For everyone 1 person who want cheap housing, there is 10 who want the status quo
There are organizations that are changing this and forming voting blocs who are electing politicians who represent us
I really hope so and that they succeed.
Same. The majority of our cities having unaffordable housing… It’s just been a disaster.
Because of existing landowners.
The vast majority of landowners are not landlords.
stats on this? I would wager that far more land is owned by landlords than not, given the ownership percentages of the rich.
In 2018, 6.7% of individual tax filers (about 10.3 million) reported owning rental properties. Those filers reported owning 1.72 properties on average.
I mean, just think how many homeowners you know and how many are landlords.
Landleeches also works.
Plz seed, not enough houses
How about home scalpers?
It’s price gouging for dwellings.
Landsharks
Completely unrelated question but where can I buy termites, and where can I buy a slingshot, and how many Gees can you subject a termite to without killing it?
Assuming you mean “Gs” but I’m fascinated by what you have in mind for the last bit
No, they meant “Gees”
It’s a good question, since termite gees may be different from bee gees.
Yeah but they wanted to know how many before the termites weren’t stayin’ alive anymore
It’s the bees knees for sure
But did they mean “A Gees”, or “Bee Gees”?
A gee is Irish slang for vagina
We don’t need context, we need answers!
So, how many?
Wouldn’t need the slingshot. These things are tiny. Just casually sprinkle some in a dusty/ infrequently cleaned area
Getting a queen may be more difficult
The party is overall shitty I agree with that. I also don’t think people should be able to own more than one home just to get rental income and have someone else pay their mortgage. This depletes the housing supply and takes away wealth building opportunities for families trying to build their own wealth.
That being said, this could have been handled better. If tenants could pause rent then the banks should have paused payments on mortgages that qualify as well, or just all mortgages.
My view is that unless you have a heartbeat you can’t buy residential property. I’m not entirely against landlords because people want to rent, imagine having to buy everytime you went to a new city or place. But it should be diminishing returns from progressive tax policies that disincentivise multiple properties.
Renting out a home can make sense for other reasons too. I have a friend who moved to the UK for work and is renting out their house in the US for a few years as security in case the game company he got a job with goes under.
There are also people unable to deal with certain aspects of life and rentals give them freedom to live on their own but someone else maintains the property. It is a nice aspect of renting. Roof fails? Not my problem. Sewar issue? Someone else deals with it.
Good point. Do you think there should be any restrictions on who can own and rent these homes? Say only people from the community or state? It seems like there are a lot of foreign investors that buy a ton of homes. Then that rental money just leaves the community.
Foreign investors wouldn’t see much returns in buying if this was the case. They’d have drastically less profits and with each property they’d have a higher percentage tax to pay. So by the time they’d get to being a big investment firm that bought up properties on a large scale they’d be paying 80+% of their income in taxes which isn’t viable, by design, and the money would be invested elsewhere.
But strictly speaking absolutely no foreign investment funds should be buying up housing stock.
I don’t even want a home to build wealth I just want a fucking place to live in that I can build on and work on my hobbies. I couldn’t give less of a shit if the value never goes up.
Housing prices don’t need to change to build wealth. You are just keeping your money in your house instead of giving it away to a landlord. Then if you need to move you have all you’ve accumulated instead of nothing.
Housing value on your primary residence going up is actually a bad thing for most owner-occupied properties in most localities. Higher value = higher taxes.
Not in California as much though thanks to prop 13 (which should only apply to owner-occupied properties but doesn’t… So there’s good and bad).
If tenants could pause rent then the banks should have paused payments on mortgages that qualify as well, or just all mortgages.
While it definitely could’ve been handled better, in the US at least you could pause your mortgage payments for a time. That doesn’t stop the property taxes though.
When I signed my mortgage I had to promise not to use those programs, I don’t know how legally binding that actually was though.
True but they should have been the same duration in my opinion. The property tax would have been ideal to pause too but wouldn’t that cause more problems for the local community instead of just the big banks?
AFAIK (NAL) any law supersedes a contract. So that doesn’t seem enforceable to me. They may be able to break the contract in that situation, saying you violated it. Then it would need to be handled in court with the bank likely having better lawyers.
Say it is written into the lease that the landlord only has to give one weeks notice for a tenant to move out. Both parties can sign it but the law says 30 days. The police would be called at the end of the week and say the tenant still has 2 weeks.
Yet you can give away certain rights like the right to sue so that may be a bad example.
Yeah I mean I agree that they should’ve been available for the same time, but I’m betting most landlords weren’t really in dire straits enough to use them in the first place.
I think that’s why they’re easily forgettable as available programs: most people that own never needed to use them.
Yes landlords can be awful scumbags…
But am I supposed to think that people should be able to live rent free despite agreeing to pay rent? Not seeing anyone pointing this “minor” issue out here.
Maybe people could actually pay rent if they were charging reasonable rates and didn’t intentionally keep housing scarce. Maybe we could instead stop letting NIMBYs get away with their bullshit.
Landlords do not deserve rent, they shouldn’t exist in the first place.
So who deserves the rent? The government ? That’s even worse taxes are damn too high why do you think neighborhoods are being gentrified? Real Estate Investment Companies and banks are buying all of the properties and land. I used to be homeless thanks to these jabronis
So who deserves to rent?
I’m not sure I understand your question.
why do you think neighborhoods are being gentrified?
Neighborhoods become too expensive to live in, and so minorities get forced out.
Real Estate Investment Companies and banks are buying all of the properties and land
Amd that shouldn’t be legal.
Your username makes me hungry… now I want pizza.
Honest question…if land lords don’t exist, and you can’t afford a house, where do you propose we get housing from?
I answered this a little lower down:
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Technically both. The former invariably turns into the latter.
My question stands though…without landlords, where do people live if they can’t afford a home.
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I don’t know many people that have 20% down in cash
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You had a point until you became uncivil
Reality is not your strong suit.
Jumping to insults when criticized shows how weak your position is.
there are certainly people who defraud them by not paying rent despite agreeing to it.
Landlords are scalpers. I have no empathy for them, nor should anybody else.
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Great argument. You really have me convinced.
It’s shit like this that led to the coining of “npc”
Non-player character?
Landlords are leeches. They make people pay for a basic human right.
Brain powered down, cool
I… I thought this was satire…
You mean it’s not?
Thought it was an onion article. Yup
They prefer to be called “Housing Providers”
Parasites prefer to be called “Sharing friends”
and I prefer to call them Guillotine entertainment providers
If that’s a reference to the French revolution… then you may want to read up about the French revolution.
it’s not, it’s a reference to fuck the rich.
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they prefer to be called “housing providers.”
no
It’s like calling blackmailers “privacy providers”.
Hey guys, we all hate landlords. A lot. The phrase that immediately comes to mind is “scum-sucking weasels.” But let’s not go overboard with the violent language, OK?
Skin and fry them I say!
If you fry them then skin them it becomes a tasty treat.
But let’s not go overboard with the violent language, OK?
Thanks for saying that, but also, you’re interrupting one hell of a circle-jerk.
So I noticed. And far be it from me to interrupt such a thorough group hand-insemination effort! Just don’t want things to get… ahem… out of hand.
Landlords provide no benefit to society, outlaw them
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I have benefited from being able to rent a house because there’s no way I would have been able to afford to buy one at 18.
Land lords aren’t the only option for short term housing. Housing can be provided by the state or the university without a profit motive for cheaper. You can look to systems like Singapore and Vienna where the public housing is robust enough to cover housing needs, without landlords leeching off the work of others.
I bet you’re going to say something like ‘but the government will provide it.’
See my comment below.
The government uses income taxes to build public housing, how is that not leeching off the work of others??
Government, at least democratic ones, are controlled and accountable to the people, landlords aren’t. If your going to be forced to pay someone to exist then it’s better if you get some say in how that’s done.
A landlord and the government also have completely different incentives. A landlords incentive is to raise your rent to:
- Get more money
- Raise the price of their property. The more you can charge in rent the more the property is worth
- Prevent you from being able to save up for a down payment to exit this exploitative system. They are also incentivised to obstruct any new construction as it would increase the housing supply and therefore decrease the price they can charge for rent and their property.
A democratic governments interest is to keep voters happy. They can do that by building housing for voters and keeping rents stable for the voters in public housing. These incentives are muddled by corruption but even with that they are more aligned with your average person then a landlords.
Oh man this thread. Believing every person renting a house out is exactly as you lay in your description is fascinating in how wrong it is and fascinating how sad it is you’ve driven your thoughts so far down. This is not real world reality for the vast majority of landlords.
I do not believe every landlord is like this, I believe this is the incentive structure for landlording. Individual landlords can act against their interest and not raise rent, just as an individual CEO can take a pay cut instead of firing workers, but they usually don’t because it goes against their material interests. But if you believe this isn’t the incentive structure tell me a reason a landlord will decrease rent or promote new construction, besides the kindness of their heart which I’m not willing to bet on.
There are some stupid fallacies, but this one deserves a medal.
Even though it’s hard to tell what is the most stupid, the fallacy or the reasoning behind it.
You would if landlords werent a thing.
Explain to me how, at age 18 with no money and minimum wage, I would be able to build a house. If there are no landlords, then there is no housing excess houses so I would need to pay for a house to be built. How can I afford to pay the workers to build the house and pay for the construction materials? You seem to think houses just magically spring from the ground at no cost. Taking away landlords doesn’t remove the cost of construction, materials and connection to utilities.
I bet you’re going to say something like ‘but the government will provide it.’
The theory is that without landlords, there are a lot more houses on the market, driving down prices.
Edit: I’m just relaying the theory. Take your arguments and downvotes elsewhere. So glad I’m done renting, though. I don’t envy anyone that is stuck with it.
How does that theory work? Landlords don’t just sit on empty houses. They make no money if it’s not rented.
I’m afraid they do, and I’m completely against it. They make money on capital gains. And also by using the houses as equity to make other investments. Those are the big fish though, most landlords own only one or two houses.
They make money on capital gains. And also by using the houses as equity to make other investments.
That requires them to sell the property. Just like stocks don’t actually make money until you sell them. And that kind of appreciation comes as ebbs and flows… I bought my house at 259k… According to Zillow it’s now worth ~410k. In order to actually realize the 150k worth of value I have to sell the house, or take money out against the house. Then when the market inevitably bursts… I’m negative in the house.
If you’re negative in the house and miss a single payment you probably don’t have a house anymore. Nothing of this is making money on a house while it’s empty. And if they’re not paying the mortgage on it… the bank will simply take it, including the loans you’re assuming that they can borrow against houses for other investments… ultimately this ONLY works if the house is rented (or they’re working some other job that allows them to pay the loan payments.)
Ohhh right, so now that we have had landlords bear the cost of building extra housing, and therefore providing a benefit to society, only now do we not need landlords. I get it.
You can make things to sell, you know
So you wouldn’t have taken a 0% deposit house at the same price you rented, thus giving you invested value instead of spending your hard earned cash on someone else’s retirement plan?
Then you’re a chump.
Providing homes for people is, in fact, a value to society
I totally agree. We should provide homes to people to live in instead of giving them to landlords to rent seek with
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Porque no los dos?
Because they’re antithetical? Every home owned by a landlord is one unavailable to renters, creating artificial scarcity in the house market, and driving up prices
That’s not artificial scarcity. That’s just scarcity. It’s literally already owned.
It’s scarcity in the sense that the market of available houses for people who want to live in one is lower than the number of houses not being lived in; because landlords own houses that they don’t live in …
This removes purchasable houses from the buyers market and inflates prices, as landlords make a return on the ownership in a way that house owners that live in their own house generally don’t, meaning they can afford to outbid the average homeowner.
Most landlords don’t rent houses, they rent apartments, and apartments are built by landlords fronting a shitload of capital.
No landlords, no apartments, which is a significantly worse housing issue than you see now.
Housing speculation (what you’re talking about) is a consequence of a housing market that’s been kneecapped by local zoning policies. These policies were not put in place by landlords, but by homeowners who wanted their homes to always go up in value. Landlords oppose these policies because they want to build more housing, because that’s how they make money.
If you look at a “housing nightmare” like San Francisco, you can also add in that property taxes were frozen at purchase price, which means you’re mad at grandmas in SF who have owned their home for 60 years and watched the value go up tenfold or more and laugh all the way to the bank, but then fall back on being grandmas when the idea of taxing them appropriately comes up.
What Is the San Francisco Property Tax Rate? The base tax rate in California is 1% of the assessed value of the property. The assessed value is usually the purchase price of your home which is adjusted annually for inflation but no higher than 2%
Edit: you also have “Progressives” like Robert Reich who oppose building multi-family housing in their neighborhoods because they think it would make their neighborhood less attractive if the Poors were there.
https://freebeacon.com/satire/robert-reich-nimby/
And his actual letter, screenshotted https://systemicfailure.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/screen-shot-2020-08-04-at-7.47.05-pm.png
No one ‘gives’ landlords houses.
Except their parents.
Youre thinking carpenters
Coming soon: the end of the guillotine moratorium.
(This is happening worldwide.
In Canada the average rent
for a 1bdrmis now over $2k5 years ago I paid 800 for a 2 bdrm.
You’re lucky to rent a room for that now.
That’s why.)
Respectfully, the average rent for all new leases is over $2000, not explicitly 1 bdrm, which should on average be lower than $2000.
100% Land Value Tax pleaseeee, way better than guillotines
the end of the guillotine moratorium
Aside from the fact that you’re advocating mass murder, it’s worth pointing out that the guillotine’s association with executing wealthy nobles is largely fictional.
the guillotine’s association with executing wealthy nobles is largely fictional.
that can change
A much more likely scenario is just a repeat of the aptly-named Reign of Terror.
Wealthy elites are running a reign of terror right now, have been for centuries, If we can’t reason with them (which has been tried, and failed) then there’s only one option left.
The “Reign of Terror” is so called because the revolutionary government literally adopted “terror” (as in murdering people who disagreed with them) as an official government policy.
Yes, kind of like how things are now.
Um, no.
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One could say that by making housing unaffordable, by making groceries unaffordable, and by privatizing healthcare, mass murder is already being committed.
I’m talking about literal homicide.
Observing and stating what is an obviously exaggerated result is hardly advocating.
But, yes, I do believe the likes of people who put profit over lives deserve the worst.
Not advocating. I wouldn’t be sad if it happened. But, definitely not advocating.
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If you’re not advocating for political violence, then why mention the guillotine in the first place?
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Do you have anything actually intelligent or sincere to say?
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Go back to Forbes or whatever.
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Then, it must be smally factual.
My kingdom for an intelligent response.
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Feudalism was an unfair system in which landlords owned and benefited, and tenant farmers worked and suffered. Our society is
entirelynot different todayThere, fixed it
Listen up everybody, they prefer being called “housing providers” instead of landlords now.
If I lived nearby I’d organize a bunch of people to buy tickets to their event and ruin it.
I was thinking the same thing. Or organize an event adjacent to it for tenants and play obnoxious music loudly enough to ruin their refined evening, but not so loudly as to violate noise ordinances. Perhaps if the landleeches… I’m sorry, that is pejorative… Property goblins saw all of their income slaves gathering in the same place they would understand that they are far outnumbered. And hell, make a city-wide tenants union while at the party. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_union
Landlords are leeches on society. Play the stockmarket if you want to make money, don’t (continue to) make housing a source of gross profit.
invests in REITs
OK, but who else is going to provide it? The government?
Yes.
The government provides rental housing in dozens of other countries, yea. It’s not ideal, ideally renters could buy into a cooperatively owned share of housing and then there isn’t any inefficiently wasted value. But there is a successful model of states providing housing, yeah.
