this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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My FiL owns a few properties that he rents out. He "retired" at 49. Now he spends most of his day, every day, either improving empty/not ready properties, or maintaining the currently rented properties. The people he rents to simply cannot afford a house, at any price, or they do not have the time and skills or maintain their own home. He's only evicted one person in his time as a landlord, literally because the tenant didn't pay for 6 months, turned the property into a drug den and went on the run when the police tried to serve a warrant.
I get that landlords on the surface level can be seen as predatory, and I agree that there are a disproportionate amount of scum and anti-humam business drones in the rental business; but its important to remember that there are genuine people who buy, maintain and rent out properties so that their community isn't rife with dangerous dilapidated buildings filled with squatters.
Anyone who buys housing to rent it out is a part of the problem. Housing is a basic human right, not an investment.
Unless your fil was providing housing for free, fuck him, and fuck off with the classist shit about squatters. I'd take a million squatters over one landlord.
The housing literally wouldnt exist if he didn't maintain them. It takes work to keep a building standing. He deserves to get paid for his work right?
The people who owned and lived in it would maintain it, because it would be their home and they own it. He only has to maintain it because he's getting other people to pay for it for him as an investment. The building wouldn't just poof disappear if it were owned by a housing coop, and people could actually be earning equity with their living situation instead of paying for your FIL to spend 95% of his time fucking around doing nothing and 5% fixing leaks or whatever.