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We'd have a lot of empty houses and maybe cheaper houses.
Look. Personally, I love renting. Its fleksible.i can move whenever i want to and not think about selling. Also i can live in places where houses are practically unsellable and not worry that I can't sell once I want to live somewhere else
Also, I don't have to worry about repairing and maintaining the house. If I window breaks, I call the landlord. If a pipe breaks a leak, I call the landlord. For me, renting is great!
@cosmicrookie @stabby_cicada you could still have rental houses in a system with no landlords
@cosmicrookie @stabby_cicada I mean for example with housing cooperatives
Just imagine paying the half of it, for supporting local workers for maintenance and fixups instead of a random nobleman's holidays in paradise...
wow look at mister lives in the good part of town over here where landlords pick up the phone
My brother in Christ you're the one paying for those repairs and more yourself, it's not like the landlord does it personally. Some might to save a buck, but you're still paying the bill.
Oh and all those repairs are tax deductible so they will pay less than you will on taxes usually.
Oh and if they would have to pay taxes, you're paying the taxes for them.
This is how everything you buy works. When you buy bread from the store you're paying more than it costs to make.
My point is, that I am willing to pay the landlord, to handle these responsibilities and risks
Edit: and inconvenience
I'd be happy to rent if the value of houses didn't double every decade.
Here in Australia you really just work so you can pay your mortgage. The wealth you accrue through your life is mostly the value of your house rather than the money you save.
Government housing
Have you seen what that looks like in the US? It ain’t pretty or comfortable.
That’s like buying something that’s “military grade” thinking it’s good. It’s not.
I grew up in a government subsidized co-op, and I loved it. It's still going, and some of the rents are as low as $8/mo.
Government/public housing can be good. You just need to protect it.
I already was born unlucky enough to not be rich. What are the chances of being lucky enough to get one of those subsidized co-op homes?
Where I live, affordable housing is distributed on a lottery system. So I mean literally, what are the chances one has to obtain such housing? I can't imagine there are enough homes for every applicant.
Buying and selling houses is a nightmare to make you feel like rentals are necessary.
When my parents wanted to move as young adults it was easy for them to sell their property and use that money to buy a new one in the place they were moving to. That's now way more difficult just for the benefit of landlords.
Saying that you add nuance with that comment, is like saying anti-vaxers add nuance with their views.
It is proven time and time again that when something is done against landlords the normal people benefit. See Vienna for example, or the early ccp or the whole movement of and views of Henry George.
You can also see full video about the topic in Britain here
If I window breaks, I call the landlord. If a pipe breaks a leak, I call the landlord. For me, renting is great!
Here I'm responsible for all that. Renting is not so great... lol
Thing is, someone owns those houses and it's certainly not poor people like me. Also we need more housing in most western countries and private entities are definitely not going to build it if they can't rent it out. We need to figure out a way to force public entities like the state to build more housing.
A communist (or similar) revolution might take care of it, but that's a lot more involved than "all landlords disappear".
If all those people that have money to build houses were forced to give it away (taxes), we the people (the government) could just build the houses and not charge exorbitant rent.
The hard part is how to actually make the government do that. And ideally without turning your state into a stalinist or maoist dystopia.
Mortgage payments are often cheaper than rent. The barrier for poorer people to owning is usually downpayment requirements and credit. There are many reasons for the "housing crisis;" most stemming from real-estate being treated as a speculative asset or "investment," which incentivizes all kinds of phenomenon harmful to society.
Such a paradox isnt it. We have declining birth rates in the west, yet somehow we have a housing shortage. Its like they deliberately drove down building to drive up prices.
sexist against landladies
it's better to use the gender neutral term, more inclusive, please use landparasite
I'm no sexist. They can also evaporate.
There's a lot of smug "well actually" commenters in this thread, who have completely missed that the meme is making a rhetorical point about the nature of rent-seeking rather than sincerely advocating for the sudden disappearance of all landlords.
All y'all need to read about Georgism.
Yeah Henry George is a true American treasure. I've been a Georgist for about 17 years now. Seems like the movement is finally gaining a little bit of momentum. Or at least people are talking about it.
Let's some to simplify every person gets to buy only one home and this is only for them and their families to enjoy.
Now they still have more money than you. They just won't invest in a house but somewhere else instead. Now nobody can rent, great all the banks now get a ton of revenue for all that money they lend out because everybody needs to buy. (Making them insanely rich)...
Inequality is the problem, just peddling a simple solution like getting rid of one symptom is not gonna fix this. Also changing the system has historically done nothing in that way either.
Taxing the rich would. ;)
Landlords are easy to hate, but they are necessary. Having them paying high taxes and having strong protections for renters will keep them honest and contributing and the market balanced.
Let's start with some constructive work instead of hate flaming memes.
I would argue that being able to rent a house is necessary. That doesn’t mean we have to rent them from private landlords.