Landlords Throw Party to Celebrate Being Able to Evict People Again
The Berkeley Property Owners Association's fall mixer is called "Celebrating the End of the Eviction Moratorium."
What's boring about people being potentially homeless?
“A Boring Dystopia” doesn’t mean everything in our world is boring.
It means we’re living in a dystopia, but instead of supervillains and the stuff like we’re used to seeing in future-dystopian media, we just get overcharged for bread and made to live in tents.
It’s evil, but in the most fucking boring way possible.
Not to rain on anybody's populist parade here, but as a landlord, I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective:
I own an appartment that I rent. Assuming my tenant is honest, takes care of the property and everything goes well, after I've paid taxes and condominium expenses, there isn't a terribly huge profit left.
The law prevents me from raising the rent beyond the rate of inflation. I'm not greedy, but even if I don't want to raise my nice tenant's rent for a given year, I have to because I won't be able to catch up later, with them or with another tenant. I literally must raise the rent every year because otherwise I won't be able to realign the rent to normal levels in the future. The pro-tenant laws make me do this, and - I shit you not - every year I apologize to my tenant (who's actually a nice lady, this one) because I have no choice.
That's when everything goes well with the tenant. When it doesn't and the tenant refuses to pay, or trashes the property, I can't throw him out. I've had one tenant who couldn't pay his heating bill make a campfire in the middle of the fucking living room with the floorboards he ripped out. Because why not! It's not his property.
He knew all the tricks in the book to avoid being kicked out too. It took me 3 years and an expensive attorney to get rid of him, and then I paid tens of thousands of euros to have the place renovated, because the guy left it looking like a warzone. I lost a truckload of money.
When I told the agency that manages the place not to put it on the market again and to leave it empty - because it's plain cheaper not to collect rent than to risk another sumbitch who's gonna cost me the equivalent of a car to make the place livable again, not to mention the headaches - the agency told me it's illegal and it could be forcibly seized by the French state (the appartment is in France) to house homeless people in the winter. W... Wait.... WHAT???
So I put a tenant in - and luckily for me, for once this one is decent - just to avoid having hobos camping in my appartment.
So you know what? I'm all for social justice and all. But landlord bashing gets fucking tiring too. Tenants aren't the only ones who should have rights.
Now go ahead, mod me down for being a capitalist pigdog. Or better: buy my appartment from me, because I'm fucking tired of dealing with bad tenants and it's up for sale. Just don't buy it to rent it unless you like pain and injustice... Fair warning.
Was the apartment bought with the intention to make profit? I understand what you’re saying, and maybe you inherited that apartment and it’s more effort than it’s worth. My overall concern is that as a whole, housing shouldn’t be seen through the lens of making someone else money - it should be a basic human right.
So surely you always have the option of just… not renting out a property?
I bought it to live in it when I lived in France for a few years in the late 90's. Then I kept it as an investment, and I put it up for rent to offset the maintenance costs and the taxes.
I didn't buy it to profit richly from my tenants, or make a living out of renting properties, if that's what you're driving at.
And you're right, I want out and I'm selling it. And you know who will buy it? Someone who wants to live in it. It's never going to be someone who wants to put it up for rent, unless they've gone funny in the head.
Meaning it's gonna be one less property that an idiot like me will put on the renting market. If the French government wanted to promote cheap rents, they're getting the exact opposite effect with their crazy anti-landlord laws: affordable places for rent are getting rarer and rarer because ordinary landlords like me looking to have a property to pass on to their children just don't want to deal with this shit.
You can relinquish your property if you do not like the conditions of your arrangement. No one is forcing you to be a landlord and "only" take in a meager profit. You shouldn't even be profiting off people simply living, so suck it up, buttercup. And nobody is referring to you when they're talking about greedy corporate landlords. They're mostly talking about Blackstone specifically, and other big companies that follow the Blackstone playbook.
No one is forcing you to be a landlord and “only” take in a meager profit.
You don't understand: I'm not even taking in a meager profit - let alone a fat one. I'm taking a loss.
If I have a tenant in the property, on average I'm taking a loss because on average, tenants cost me more than they bring in.
If I don't rent the property (assuming it was even legal) then I lose money in maintenance costs and taxes.
Your little quotes around "only" hint at what you think: that all landlords get filthy rich on the tenants' backs. Many politicians like to spread that idea. While there are some tenants and agencies who make obscene profits and should be reined in, the vast majority of landlords are small property owners like me who put their money into something to avoid losing it to inflation, and instead are losing it to bad tenants.
But by all means, keep thinking landlords are sitting on piles of money and profiteering from the poor tenants. It's so much more convenient to see the world in black and white.
Yeah! All these renters can simply go buy a house! What exactly is your plan here? Crashing this market with no survivors?
Some landlords are decent people and they're offering a service for which they deserve a profit. Save your ire for the banks and major corps buying up all the housing, driving up prices and making home ownership unviable.
You really should not be in the landlord business then.
Not everyone is cut out for such hard work.
Are you really crying to loser socialists about how hard it is to rent? Get better tenants. I do everything for my tenants that i can. The state helps me pay for modernisation and my tenants get new bathrooms while their rent stays the same. I raise rent 5% every year. Everyone's happy.
How bad are your properties and how little do you get to know your future tenants?
Well the whole system is corrupt and it's not your fault because you didn't make the system, all you can do to relieve yourself of being a villain in the real estate industry is to get out of the real estate industry. Sell that apartment to someone who needs to live in it.
"Being a villian" lmao. It totally wasn't the guy who trashed the place, or the government for stupid laws. It was the guy renting out the apartment. Because as we all know, the alternative is that the guy would give the apartment to you for free instead of renting, right? With no strings attached, everybody would get a house if only landlords weren't villians!
Oh no! Poor landlord. You can only raise rent with inflation and not above it? I feel so bad for you. Know what doesnt rise with inflation? Wages.
Landchad
Lmfao
What an appropriate username
Stopped reading at "as a landlord".
Kys social parasite.
So you know what? I’m all for social justice and all. But landlord bashing gets fucking tiring too. Tenants aren’t the only ones who should have rights.
boo fucking hoo, parasite.
And just to burst your self imposed bubble - no, you are categorically not for social justice if you see charging someone else for the right to exist, as a legitimate "investment".
Now go ahead, mod me down for being a capitalist pigdog. Or better: buy my appartment from me, because I’m fucking tired of dealing with bad tenants and it’s up for sale. Just don’t buy it to rent it unless you like pain and injustice… Fair warning.
It's incredible how you greedy privileged fucks never miss an opportunity, you literally can't help yourself! but whine and try to claim victimhood wherever you fucking can, when you are the one literally lording over others...
Pathetic fuck.
You live in a property owned by a parasite like me.
By all means, buy your own property too then. Oh you can't?
Tell me: who's gonna put a roof over your head? I'll tell you who: it's either me, or the state.
If it's me, you're going to pay me rent, because believe it or not, I worked hard to buy my appartment and it's not yours to enjoy for free.
If it's the state, other taxpayers will pay for the property and you'll pay them to live in the property, because they too worked hard to buy the property the state owns and it's not yours to enjoy for free either.
Yeah, a lot of people don't seem to understand that being a landlord means assuming a very large amount of risk.
LOL, this is the wrong place to make a simple and truthful statement like that. Somehow, someway, everyone deserves a free home. The, uh, "plans" are a little sketchy. OK, no one really knows what that looks like, but we'll get there! Um. Somehow.
FFS, studies and real-life experiments, one after the other, show that we can save money by simply housing the homeless. Ask yourself why we're not doing that. I'm all for taking a hit on NIMBY stuff, but homeless tearing up my hood and shitting on the streets is about the one thing where I'll say, "NIMBY".
Part of my retirement plan is to rent this house out and go camp in an RV, or maybe make my 2.5 acres of swamp livable. Tell me lemmings, do I not deserve to make a few bucks on the deal? Shall I just let people tear my house up for free?
Yes, we need solid renter protections, but go too far, and the good guys will drop out and leave nothing but sharks who can absorb the risk, and that absorption is going to cost. Already getting there fast.
