baquerd posted:

I think you're confusing the economies of scale that come with building denser housing and the competitive forces that actually reduce rents. You can go full socialism and try to give everyone affordable rent, but then you start down the road of having to pay for that poo poo when there is no incentive for anyone to work harder just to pay more and extensive corruption where those who "know" the "land lord" in this case get extremely preferential treatment. That way lies actual socialism and societal collapse, as compared to capitalist countries that have strong social safety nets. That way is why monopolies are illegal.

baquerd posted:

It's the classic problem with any giant bureaucracy - who watches the watchers and how much does it cost? Either you get corruption or massive inefficiencies and cost overruns. Sometimes both! If you think rent is bad now, wait until you need to also pay the salaries of 4 overseers to audit the poo poo out of everything that's going on between you and your landlord, and if it's not you specifically paying, someone is.

Regulations need to be in the housing market, but over-regulation can be just as damaging as under-regulating.

Simpsons Reference posted:

Alright, I'm reopening it without handing out probations, but with a word of caution:

The thread is for discussing owning rental property and its issues. Occasionally the non-financial aspects as well. Sending the wealthy to the guillotine is a funny running gag that I imagine even the thread regulars enjoy.... in moderation. When it begins to prevent actual discussion about the thread topic, that's where I have to step in.

So if you're just here to brigade from C-SPAM, stop. No one goes to your place of business and knocks the hammer and sickle out of your hands.

ThatBasqueGuy posted:

Does collective ownership count for the purposes of the thread topic?

Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:

whole lot of private landlords whining, is there a social housing thread for comparison?

what are your 5, 10, 30, 50 year plans for your stock anyway?

what statutory standards do your houses have to hit in those timeframes for you to be allowed to house a tenant in there?

what regulator do you respond to and what's your interpretation of a necessary repair vs just inconvenient for you to arrange?

OwlFancier posted:

Are there any examples of successful efforts to build cooperative structures that work to keep rents down and pool excess capital into acquiring stock out of the hands of usurers and making it more social? Like a sort of cooperative social housing intitiave? Obviously the UK has/had good state run social housing but given its propensity for being flogged off at the drop of a hat by poo poo governments it'd be nice if there were some sort of model that saw success without needing to be government backed, as insurance.

Simpsons Reference posted:

Alright, I tried. Going to have to handle this the way we handle derails that just keep coming up in another thread I'm not even mentioning so that it doesn't get ruined too.

Discussion about the social impact or morality or whatever about renting gets its own thread, and this one is for, well, what it's always been- landlords and potential landlords asking questions, etc. Direct all your societal concerns to the other thread, and continuing to post about it in here or coming here from other subforums to troll will lead to probes. Probes for proles.

Here, for your slapfights: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3885970

Speleothing posted:

How much should I raise the rent on a family that's lived in the same place for 8 years? 100 or 300 per month? Keep in mind that I have never and will never meet them, as they live four states away.

TheLizard posted:

I'm moving soon and don't want to sell my place, so I'm going to be a landlord soon enough. DC area; my realtor takes the first month rent and 7% commission each month. This seems to be standard in the area.

My biggest concern is that in MD you can't discriminate on criminal history or section 8 status. I do NOT want section 8 renters in here; this is my first house, I've owned it for 9 years and put a bunch of work into it, so I don't want trashy people destroying it. I'm sure I'll get heat for that, but I don't care. Every place I've lived that has had section 8 renters in the community you could tell which house was theirs.

Authentic You posted:

Raise the rent. My friend's parents own a rental duplex not far from me, and were renting it for what was a pretty drat good deal for the nice neighborhood it's in. When they were looking for new tenants, they'd get a shitton of inquiries about whether they accepted Section 8 (not sure about how Section 8 discrimination works in PA) and lots of low-quality applicants in general, so they just arbitrarily raised the rent by a few hundred a month. After that, only folks inquiring were quiet grad students, young professionals, and well-to-do young families.

Also, don't ever rent to undergrads. Ever. My downstairs neighbor is one of my landlord's maintenance guys, and oh god the stories he tells.

Simpsons Reference posted:

Correct. There's a line between shady slumlords and people renting out a duplex. I don't want the actions of the former to get the thread shut down for the latter.

quote:

There was some concerns about doxxing if someone posted the new OP with their account, so I asked around to crowd source it. If other threads have been filling in the gaps, maybe we can go with that.

Gonzo McFee posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ywp1e_nRnQ

Simpsons Reference posted:

There was some concerns about doxxing if someone posted the new OP with their account, so I asked around to crowd source it. If other threads have been filling in the gaps, maybe we can go with that.

IrvingWashington posted:

I'm a great tenant.

My landlords all love me until I've moved out because I make sure the place is spotless, get them to sign off on it, and then I check if they've protected my deposit. Then I let them know I'll be seeking compensation, because literally none of them have done so far.

There's a lot of students around here so I presume they break the law in the hope their mostly first-time renters won't be familiar with the law, maybe? The only thing that's clear is the desire for a quick buck now outweighs any other idea.

When I moved back to the UK I was on my own while my family took care of things on their end, and I found myself in one of those 'rooms above a shop' places where it turned out they made a habit of it. 3x deposit in compensation plus the original deposit for every contract in that place. There are now student-focused online resources for anyone thinking of, or possibly already renting from that company.

I thought they were unique, but it turns out there's a lot of landlords at it.

I'm lucky enough to have a good job, so what I make goes to a homelessness charity. Last time was Centrepoint, next time probably Shelter.org.uk, or maybe one of the shelters in the local area - nowhere near enough to balance the scales at all, but it's something to do in the meantime, isn't it?

That's some free advice for any UK landlords here, you're welcome.

Don't have too many sleepless nights over a 3x penalty plus forfeiture of the deposit in full, though. What you should be losing sleep over is that if you failed to protect the deposit in time you also now can't serve a Section 21 (reposession) notice until you've settled with the tenant

Something Offal posted:

I'm a supporter of housing assistance in general, but Wiggly Wayne DDS you seem a bit insufferable. Landlords discriminating applications based on Section 8 status or criminal records is legal in some states and I don't think you should get to decide what is or is not 'acceptable discussion' on this here gay comedy forum. Sure if it's illegal I agree it should not be allowed in the thread, and there shouldn't be content that denigrates or attacks anybody, but other than that I don't see a need to censor people's opinions.

Something Offal posted:

This is slightly out of scope for this thread but I'll answer because I think it's a discussion worth having. My definition of housing assistance would be whatever the current version is provided by fed, state, local govts. I'm not well-read enough on it to have, like, an ideal state or alternative definition that the current status quo doesn't hit.

I think a landlord should have some say in determining which applicants they'd like to offer a lease. The world is a big complex place so the decision on whether to offer a lease can have myriad factors. Obviously, one should not be able to use 'protected classes' to influence that decision, unfortunately there will always be bad actors who will find ways around even protected class laws to be assholes.

Whether you agree or disagree, those with Section 8 or criminal records aren't a protected class in many states and localities, so I think a landlord should be allowed to use anything they want outside of protected classes or anything else that would be illegal to consider. Now, you might think it's in bad taste or being a jerk, and I may too, but there's a very important difference between objectionable and illegal.

Not only is censorship of ideas a slippery slope but I also wouldn't want to legislate a million protected classes, like student status for example. I think a landlord should probably be allowed to target maybe non-undergrads if that's how they feel -- hopefully they aren't jerks about it and make it clear in the ad. Nothing stopping the applicant from lying about it, though.

DaveSauce posted:

Is this the place to discuss vacation rentals?

My wife's family has frequented a vacation spot for basically the last 30 years, and since I've joined the family I've been a part of that now and I quite like the area.

The idea here is to see what sort of costs we'd be looking at to own a place in a reasonably popular vacation spot and rent it out, with the perk of having a place to stay (yes, I know there are tax implications to using a vacation property for personal use).

I guess the two biggest questions are: what costs do we need to consider, and where do you even begin to put numbers on things like insurance, maintenance, occupancy rates, etc. for a general area without having a specific property in mind? Obviously there's going to be property taxes, probably HOA fees, and all the other normal stuff that goes in to a house, but I don't know all the things that go in to a rental property.

This wouldn't be a get rich quick scheme, or even a get rich slowly scheme. Just trying to see where to start the calculations to find out where the costs end up being.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Hey, my friend lost their job due to a panic attack. They gave their landlord a heads up so they would work out how to pay rent while they're job searching and the landlord is just evicting them instead. Anyone got good advice on how to keep them from becoming homeless and peg that leech to the wall? They live in Maine.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Nope, they have not missed one yet. I don't know the lease terms but my understanding is that they warned ahead of time that they wouldn't be able to make rent for July and the landlord said he was going to start drafting the eviction notice instead of any sort of repayment plan. I don't believe it's rent controlled.

Simpsons Reference posted:

Pibur posted:

For real though having a conversation about the abuse inherent in the landlord-tenant relationship is important. There seems to be this disconnect between the societal violence that landlords inflict on their tenants, especially when they're advocating for and participating in institutions and structures that are quasi-legal, and highly immoral, and the plucky Ur-Landlord that this thread tries to create. That one of the first posts after re-opening this falls perfectly in that category tells me that nothing good for humanity could come from this thread unless it explicitly becomes a "how do I gently caress over my landlord for being the amoral scumbag we all knew they truly were" thread.

Ruzihm posted:

Hello fellow landlords, got a landlording question here.

Hypothetically if a monthly $1000 ubi were established tomorrow, how would you change the rent for your next leases? What if you knew your competitors were raising theirs by $900 with no loss of occupancy?

Thanks for answering my landlording question landlord buddies

*a gigantic wire & antenna is obviously bulging from the back of my collar*

Ruzihm posted:

committee huh?