With homelessness exploding due to how the asset-owning Parasite Class is jacking rents into the stratosphere, why is any residential property vacant at this time?
Vacant residential properties should be taxed out the nose - well above any rent or price appreciation - until they are occupied by legitimate tenants.
In many places, that just doesn’t exist. Places like most of Canada, where people are paying 60-80% of their income just to put a roof over their head. If a place is on the rental market, it will likely have people fighting tooth-and-nail over it even if it’s been condemned and it’s being illegally rented out.
Yup. Problem is, not too many people can effectively live hundreds of kilometres away from their jobs. And not many people want a 2-4hr daily commute. And anything that has electricity and water to the lot is already being snapped up by “investors” looking to flip the thing for a massive profit.
We have a really big problem with a lack of effective restraints on the asset-owning Parasite Class
Because when you sit on that property for 3 - 5 yrs, doing thenbare minimum to keep it functioning, you can then sell it for 20-30% more. You don’t have to anything.
Because the last tenant put holes in the walls, their dog’s piss caused the floor to lift, and the shower they plugged then overflowed fucked up the bathroom?
So there are repairs to do in order to make the place livable and then time to find somebody else who won’t just wreck the place again?
Yeah there are lots of shit landlords but one of the continuing factors is the remaining good ones with a basement suite etc bailed after terrible tenants.
A vacancy tax is a good idea but there needs to be caveats for timelines especially if stuff like reasonable maintenance/repairs is taken into consideration.
Ironically my friends who bitched about “shit landlords” also happened to be the drinkin’ smokin’ big-dog-ownin’ types who were the worst type of tenants and ruined shit for everyone else
Sorry, that’s actually already factored into the cost of the rent.
The real reason why so many properties are vacant is that even though landlords know they could fill the vacant apartments by lowering the rent, there are companies that make money by telling landlords how much to set the rent for, even if they keep the apartments vacant. showing that they will make more money with less overhead by doing so, so that the decrease in hassle will justify the decrease in profit.
There are a couple of various lawsuits and actions that are going on about these companies right now, and we have yet to see how it’s going to play out. But, the cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the bottle, the likelihood of rents returning back to something that people can afford with minimum wage income any time soon is pretty low.
Had to move for my job, but didn’t want to sell our house.
Decided to rent it. Lucked into some awesome renters.
We haven’t raised the rent on them in 7 years. We fix things when they ask. They respect the property.
If they moved or bought a house they’d be paying significantly more monthly. Instead they’re using their extra money to save for their own house and to get their business off the ground.
This feels like a win win? If we had sold, it’d probably be an AirBnB now. How does this make me shit?
You didn’t want to sell your home to a family who could have really used it, instead you wanted to keep it and make money off someone for 7 whole years.
You are keeping property you don’t need whilst talking about how you help people to get their own home, seems like a poor justification to me.
This feels like a win win? If we had sold, it’d probably be an AirBnB now. How does this make me shit?
You don’t know that it would have become an air bnb, you are just using whataboutism to make yourself look better by comparison. And if it did that’s not on you, but trying to justify renting additional properties by saying you “saved it” from becoming an air bnb instead is so shitty. Like wow you saved the house from being used in that way here is your rental payment.
You aren’t saving people money by taking rental payments, you aren’t a hero for potentially stopping someone from using the property as an airbnb, you are a landlord.
They didn’t know that it would probably become an airbnb, but the likelihood of such a place becoming one or being bought by somebody else wanting to charge higher rents isn’t exactly low either.
The whole “market rates” thing is used by corporate landlords to increase prices, and controlling available properties - including by leaving vacancies - is one way that do that. By the same token, charging below “market rates” could also help of enough did it, especially if the places are decent and money re-invested in proper upkeep. Many/most though are not even investing in proper maintenance/repairs while charging over an above the cost of entire mortgages, which IMO is just greedy bullshit
I mean I guess I could have left it empty while I myself rented from someone? I don’t see how that’d make me a better person though.
I’m not really buying your argument. You’re not making any real argument of how I hurt anyone or even caused a net negative on society. You’re speculating that because I didn’t hand the house to someone “who needed it”, that I somehow did wrong. I didn’t price gouge. I didn’t raise the rent. I repair things in a timely manner. The renter pays less than they would if they bought the house, aren’t responsible for anything major, and can leave at just about anytime. Seems like a net positive in my book? Sure, they paid me… but am I supposed to give it away for free? Selling it probably would have landed me more money. Are you pitching a world where everyone has to lock in to a 30 year loan and be stuck there? Or is this an argument where housing should be free or something? (Sure, whatever… but that’s a different topic)
You aren’t saving people money by taking rental payments, you aren’t a hero for potentially stopping someone from using the property as an airbnb, you are a landlord.
I don’t think I’m a hero. I do think I’m saving them money. They could have foregone a rental and bought a house. They chose not to to save money for a business.
With homelessness exploding due to how the asset-owning Parasite Class is jacking rents into the stratosphere, why is any residential property vacant at this time?
Vacant residential properties should be taxed out the nose - well above any rent or price appreciation - until they are occupied by legitimate tenants.
Undesirable location
In many places, that just doesn’t exist. Places like most of Canada, where people are paying 60-80% of their income just to put a roof over their head. If a place is on the rental market, it will likely have people fighting tooth-and-nail over it even if it’s been condemned and it’s being illegally rented out.
Doesn’t Canada have a shitload of uninhabited wilderness?
Yup. Problem is, not too many people can effectively live hundreds of kilometres away from their jobs. And not many people want a 2-4hr daily commute. And anything that has electricity and water to the lot is already being snapped up by “investors” looking to flip the thing for a massive profit.
We have a really big problem with a lack of effective restraints on the asset-owning Parasite Class
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation
No, a lot are vacant because they’re purchased as “investments” and just sit there empty. No work is being done on them.
Paying rates, insurance, taxes, and maintenance on an empty property isn’t an investment, it’s a liability.
This is almost certainly a myth, and I don’t know why so many people believe it.
Because when you sit on that property for 3 - 5 yrs, doing thenbare minimum to keep it functioning, you can then sell it for 20-30% more. You don’t have to anything.
Because the last tenant put holes in the walls, their dog’s piss caused the floor to lift, and the shower they plugged then overflowed fucked up the bathroom?
So there are repairs to do in order to make the place livable and then time to find somebody else who won’t just wreck the place again?
Yeah there are lots of shit landlords but one of the continuing factors is the remaining good ones with a basement suite etc bailed after terrible tenants.
A vacancy tax is a good idea but there needs to be caveats for timelines especially if stuff like reasonable maintenance/repairs is taken into consideration.
Ironically my friends who bitched about “shit landlords” also happened to be the drinkin’ smokin’ big-dog-ownin’ types who were the worst type of tenants and ruined shit for everyone else
Sorry, that’s actually already factored into the cost of the rent.
The real reason why so many properties are vacant is that even though landlords know they could fill the vacant apartments by lowering the rent, there are companies that make money by telling landlords how much to set the rent for, even if they keep the apartments vacant. showing that they will make more money with less overhead by doing so, so that the decrease in hassle will justify the decrease in profit.
There are a couple of various lawsuits and actions that are going on about these companies right now, and we have yet to see how it’s going to play out. But, the cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the bottle, the likelihood of rents returning back to something that people can afford with minimum wage income any time soon is pretty low.
Don’t landlords dislike vacancies because empty units get broken into and vandalized, creating more cost?
No, being a landlord makes you shit.
Had to move for my job, but didn’t want to sell our house.
Decided to rent it. Lucked into some awesome renters.
We haven’t raised the rent on them in 7 years. We fix things when they ask. They respect the property.
If they moved or bought a house they’d be paying significantly more monthly. Instead they’re using their extra money to save for their own house and to get their business off the ground.
This feels like a win win? If we had sold, it’d probably be an AirBnB now. How does this make me shit?
I know i am going to be down voted but here goes.
You didn’t want to sell your home to a family who could have really used it, instead you wanted to keep it and make money off someone for 7 whole years.
You are keeping property you don’t need whilst talking about how you help people to get their own home, seems like a poor justification to me.
You don’t know that it would have become an air bnb, you are just using whataboutism to make yourself look better by comparison. And if it did that’s not on you, but trying to justify renting additional properties by saying you “saved it” from becoming an air bnb instead is so shitty. Like wow you saved the house from being used in that way here is your rental payment.
You aren’t saving people money by taking rental payments, you aren’t a hero for potentially stopping someone from using the property as an airbnb, you are a landlord.
They didn’t know that it would probably become an airbnb, but the likelihood of such a place becoming one or being bought by somebody else wanting to charge higher rents isn’t exactly low either.
The whole “market rates” thing is used by corporate landlords to increase prices, and controlling available properties - including by leaving vacancies - is one way that do that. By the same token, charging below “market rates” could also help of enough did it, especially if the places are decent and money re-invested in proper upkeep. Many/most though are not even investing in proper maintenance/repairs while charging over an above the cost of entire mortgages, which IMO is just greedy bullshit
I mean I guess I could have left it empty while I myself rented from someone? I don’t see how that’d make me a better person though.
I’m not really buying your argument. You’re not making any real argument of how I hurt anyone or even caused a net negative on society. You’re speculating that because I didn’t hand the house to someone “who needed it”, that I somehow did wrong. I didn’t price gouge. I didn’t raise the rent. I repair things in a timely manner. The renter pays less than they would if they bought the house, aren’t responsible for anything major, and can leave at just about anytime. Seems like a net positive in my book? Sure, they paid me… but am I supposed to give it away for free? Selling it probably would have landed me more money. Are you pitching a world where everyone has to lock in to a 30 year loan and be stuck there? Or is this an argument where housing should be free or something? (Sure, whatever… but that’s a different topic)
I don’t think I’m a hero. I do think I’m saving them money. They could have foregone a rental and bought a house. They chose not to to save money for a business.