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?
If you are operating rationally and you actually believe your ROI on the rental property is lower than the stock market, you would transfer your wealth to the market. Since you are not, you are either behaving irrationally, or you don’t actually believe your ROI is lower than the market.
Your ability to move back into the property is a return that you have not included in your evaluation. The 10% cost of selling is a sunk cost fallacy.
Yikes, what a nightmarishly unempathetic take on this situation
Emotionless is the better term. I am trying to focus on the argument. I am assuming the best intentions of the parent commenter.
Parent comment argued they were making less money from renting than they would from investing in the stock market. They could be making more money elsewhere. Think about that for a moment:
They have the option of making $100 from the customers of a business. They could buy shares of a company making luxury products. Their return on their investment could come from people using disposable income to make discretionary purchases.
Instead, they are making $90 from a tenant’s housing budget. (They are also creating extra demand on the housing market, inflating prices in that market, thus increasing costs for every person seeking housing, including their own tenant.)
Somehow, that actually seems worse to me. If money was the point, they’d choose the option with the higher return. If they are choosing a “rent” option, then that is either the option with the higher effective return, or they are acting irrationally, or they are paying for the privilege of exploiting a tenant.
Regardless, all three cases demonstrate the parasitical nature of landlording. The argument in the parent comment does not rebut a claim of parasitism.
Emotionless is the same thing as what I said. They are describing people struggling to make a living, you’re rejecting the human aspect and judging them
Unempathetic implies a certain disdain or malevolence toward the plight of the parent commenter.
Emotionless does not.
My judgment and contempt is reserved for the concept of renting, not the parent commenter’s condition or actions.