Had an old landlord keep my deposit when I moved out just because they could. We left the apartment absolutely spotless and never damaged anything. In fact, we added value by fixing a couple small things. Didn’t matter.
Fuck landlords.
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Had an old landlord keep my deposit when I moved out just because they could. We left the apartment absolutely spotless and never damaged anything. In fact, we added value by fixing a couple small things. Didn’t matter.
Fuck landlords.
Yup, I'm at the point where I gave up on cleaning at all because I get screwed every single time.
We wet-vacuumed the carpets and everything. We were pissed. Never had any issues with the landlord and were always good tenants. They just decided they liked money over everything else.
They know they can get away with it and almost nobody will take them to small claims court.
Double property taxes on owners, but give back a property tax credit on owner-occupants, so that the effective tax rate on owner occupants falls, and the only people paying the doubled tax rate are investors.
Statutorily increase the tax rate and credit when owner occupancy is below 80%, and reduce the tax rate and credit when owner occupancy rises above 90%.
Wouldn't landlords simply pass those costs onto their renters?
No because not all landlords are capitalized equally. A new investor with a huge mortgage would. An old landlord with paid off property wouldn't. Unless they collude.
Introduce rent control
When my city raised property taxes, rents went up across the board.
Being a landlord is supposed to be a job though. They're supposed to maintain the property and handle property related disputes between the tenant and the community. The problem is landlords aren't held to their obligations and are allowed to treat it as a passive investment. Liability for landlords and their property managers needs to be increased. Require a licence for landlording that can be revoked.
Imagine believing this.
So owning a fleet of rental cars is being a social parasite and not a job?
yes
"Owning things" is not a job, correct. Making a living owning property is not a service to society.
Doing the labour to repair property is a service. Doing the filing to keep records of usage and repair is a service. Taking a cut because your name is on a deed? That's just stealing from the people who did the work.
No, because people won't die without affordable rental cars.
I have to agree with those others who suggest that banning landlords is not the way to go.
However, the power dynamics should be significantly shifted. And if those shifts mean some landlords decide to exit the market? So be it.
And tangentially, to prevent property owners just leaving their homes without a long-term tenant: significantly increased rates/taxes for homes that are unoccupied long-term, or which are used for short-term accommodation (e.g. Airbnb). Additionally, state-owned housing with highly affordable pricing should make up a substantial portion of the market, on the order of 30%. This provides a pretty hard floor below which privately-owned housing cannot fall, because people should be reasonably able to say "this place isn't good enough, I'll move".
If a property owner is willing to deal with the fact that a home's first and foremost purpose should be to provide a safe and secure place for a person to live, then I have no problem with them profiting.