When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords?
When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords?
Reason I'm asking is because I have an aunt that owns like maybe 3 - 5 (not sure the exact amount) small townhouses around the city (well, when I say "city" think of like the areas around a city where theres no tall buildings, but only small 2-3 stories single family homes in the neighborhood) and have these houses up for rent, and honestly, my aunt and her husband doesn't seem like a terrible people. They still work a normal job, and have to pay taxes like everyone else have to. They still have their own debts to pay. I'm not sure exactly how, but my parents say they did a combination of saving up money and taking loans from banks to be able to buy these properties, fix them, then put them up for rent. They don't overcharge, and usually charge slightly below the market to retain tenants, and fix things (or hire people to fix things) when their tenants request them.
I mean, they are just trying to survive in this capitalistic world. They wanna save up for retirement, and fund their kids to college, and leave something for their kids, so they have less of stress in life. I don't see them as bad people. I mean, its not like they own multiple apartment buildings, or doing excessive wealth hoarding.
Do leftists mean people like my aunt too? Or are they an exception to the "landlords are bad" sentinment?
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It's complicated, for me personally having one or two extra properties you're providing a service, not everyone wants to buy a house at every moment, e.g. I recently moved to another city and wanted to live in a neighborhood for a while before buying something. The more you have, the more part of the problem you become, because when someone wants to buy somewhere they now can't because people own it for renting. Also, again personally, if the value of rent is higher than the value of the mortgage, then you're ripping people off, because you're essentially buying the house with their money while they can't buy a place of their own. As an example, I want to buy a place of my own, but every place here is so expensive because people buy them to rent, because the rent is higher than the mortgage so if you have the initial money buying a house is essentially free money, however rent is so high that getting the initial money is really hard and people are stuck with paying more to own nothing.
Except this logic only works if only a small percentage of homes are owned by landlords, but thats not the case because of the financial incentive. Say there are 100 people living in an area. Maybe 10 of them would prefer short term housing for whatever reason and dont want to own a house. 40 of them would love to own a house but cant, because 50 people all own 2 houses each. Now those 50 people can claim theyre 'providing a aervice' by making sure theres short term housing for those 10, but the people being forced to pay rent and never building equity aren't going to see it that way. Our society has many more people that would love to own a home than it does people who prefer to rent