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?
Lots of perfectly nice, pleasant, and moral people do jobs that make the world a worst place because of the circumstances they find themselves in. I would separate out how you treat and judge people, from the problematic systems that they might operate in.
But unless your aunt is only charging them what it costs her to operate the buildings + a reasonable hourly wage for the actual time she spends on the house every year, then yeah it’s immoral.
If she puts in 10 hours a month and charges rent that is equal to her costs (not the property / mortgage costs, but just the ongoing operating and maintenance costs) + 120hrs of her time per year x ~$25/hr (or whatever wage is livable in your area) then it’s fair, but realistically, assuming $6000 of property taxes, that would mean she would be charging ~$800 / month for that town home, and I’m guessing she’s charging a lot more. In effect, that means that she is making renters pay for her mortgages while she’s not working, and at the end of the day she will end up a multimillionaire off of her tenants’ hard work.
On top of the fact that there are undoubtedly renters who would want to buy those townhomes but can’t afford to only because landlords have bought up a limited supply and driven up prices.
By your logic, what happens when the roof needs to be replaced and it costs $15,000 to do that? The rent goes up by $15,000 that year? That’s ridiculous.
This is why rent is higher than a particular year’s costs – it includes capital costs over a period of time. $15,000 over 15 years is $1,000/year or about $84/mo. Add that to the cost of landscaping, utilities, turnover costs, plus a wage for the owner. Why is the wage $25/hour? Why not $100/hour? It’s a skilled job.
I was including predictable ongoing building maintenance costs spread over time as part of operating costs.
Lmao, no it’s not. It does not require a degree or any kind of specialized training. And tell me what landlord actually spend 10 hours per month working on an individual property, every month. If you want to nitpick the example we should lower that to probably 1.
How long have you been a landlord to know exactly how many hours a landlord works in a month?
I’ve been in contract with them for 15 years and have a pretty exact idea of how much work they put in and how much they spend, read: far less than their own house, because they care more about keeping themselves comfortable than their literal job of providing housing for others.
Let’s list the total major repairs that our landlord has had to do in 15 years:
Over 15 years that is on average 1-2 hours of work a month, and those expenses do not even come close to adding up to the difference between his property taxes and what he charges us for rent.
It’s really not complicated. If landlording was an actual job that paid appropriate hourly wages, than OP’s aunt wouldn’t be able to landlord SEVEN houses while still working a full time job. The fact that she can and makes significant money off those houses means that she is essentially giving herself houses that are paid for by her tenants.