• Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Being mad at an independent landlord is like being mad at the dog shit you just stepped on instead of the motherfucker that didn’t pickup after his dog.

    Many independent landlords are people who decided to take her everything they had on a derelict home that nobody was going to buy, fix it up, and make it available. These are people that dream to get out from under the boot and are willing to bet it all for a chance. A landlord with one or two rentals are probably struggling to keep their head above water and almost for sure have a full time job as well as the maintenance of the rental, and probably the fixing up of another.

    This is how the system is rigged. If you want to mortgage a house, you need to have a lot of money down, steady income, and a good credit score. Mortgaging a fully remodeled house in order to rent it doesn’t work because you’ll never be able to rent it for that much. Mortgaging an ugly house to rent doesn’t work most of the time because you need to remodel it “nice” and you need to find a tenant willing to pay a premium for a pig wearing lipstick. Most times, even when the house is done up, the neighborhood isn’t. Next up, if you want to mortgage a derelict house that you plan to bring back from the dead, wether to rent or live in, YOU CAN’T. The only way to buy those homes is cash. In other words, neither homebuyers nor wannabe landlords have access to the only homes that might provide a good value. Wanna guess who can? Investment funds. They are the ones raping renters, not the poor schmuck that’s trying to play the game the way they were told it was supposed to work. That schmuck is fucked, they just don’t know it.

    My wife and I owe the current life we lead in great part to a lady that decided to rent her duplex to two college students for $275 twenty years ago. She died and her daughter sold all the houses the lady owned (she owned the entire street in that ghetto) to a fund. Each duplex (meaning, half a house) now goes for $1200 (still a ghetto) and now requires a credit check and two months deposit.

    Get mad at the rigged system, not at the other suckers stuck in it. Don’t be a crab in the bucket.

    EDIT: There are good independent landlords and there are bad ones. There is no such thing as a good real estate investment funds.

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      My landlord is a farmer. He’s out on the fields everyday. Comes to fix our boiler with his hands covered in fresh chicken shit. The rent is expensive, but it could be much worse considering.

    • RandomCucumber@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This is me.

      Bought a nearly 100 year old house earlier this year, 1.5 hours away from where I live. I work full time.

      I’ve spent nearly every weekend and ALL of my free cash (plus credit that I’ll likely be paying off for a few years) to replace the sewer lines, insulate the crawlspace and basement, replace the roof, replace the siding, replace the leaking windows, update the electrical, update the plumbing, replace old appliances, replace corroded cabinet hardware, seal holes around the house from rodents, paint the walls, ceiling, and cabinetry inside the house, remove and clean up a dilapidated wood shed, empty an incredible amount of rotten and corroded junk from the basement, CLEAN the basement, replace the broken door to the basement, fill in and repair cracked and broken concrete, replace the rotten hot tub, and ongoing efforts to prevent water from flooding the basement every time it rains.

      And I’m not finished. Not even close. There is so much to be done to make this place work and make sure it stays in good condition for years to come.

      The initial priority was pest control, deep cleaning, painting, and furnishing. Once that was done the place was listed on AirBnB. It’s helped to offset the costs, but will take decades to break even. After utilities, taxes, supplies, and expenses for cleaning between guests I’m pulling in maybe a couple hundred dollars a month. But it helps.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        AirBnB is also a big part of the problem. If you want to rent your fully furnished apartment for $1300 (net to you), by the time AirBnB is done with fees to you and the tenant, the tenant is being charged $2200. It’s obscene. AirBnB and VRBO were originally meant to help homeowners offset there cost of their homes by renting a room or the entire place while they were away. Now they are these monstrosities that do nothing but syphon money from homeowners and tenants.

        I’m glad you’re fixing up the place and keeping it off the hands of investment funds. Once it’s fixed up, if possible, I’d recommend renting it directly to a tenant for a bit under market rate. Management companies tend to price gouge tenants (and owners), and they con you into raising rent every year. They don’t care if the tenant can’t afford it or if the place stays empty for months. If you can find a tenant that is decent and treats your property well, stick with them, even if you make less than maximum on a monthly basis by charging less than market. Pass the savings of not having a middle man to your tenant and everyone (except the middle man) wins.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          renting a room or the entire place while they were away

          We need solid legislation getting us back to this. It’s a great idea, but now it’s abused to hell and back.

          OTOH, aren’t renters and owners alike leaving AirBnB in droves?

        • RandomCucumber@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          We are actually fixing it up for family to live in. We have overseas relatives who visit for 6 months a year. When they are not here, we might use it for ourselves as well - but more likely we will rent to traveling nurses.

          I’m not interested in being a long term landlord. I’ve lived with enough self-entitled roommates to want to never have to be on the other side of that relationship as a landlord.

      • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        > Spends loads of time and money on fixing up an old house
        > Rents it out to offset costs
        > Gets downvoted for being a landlord

        • turddle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Guessing so they can continue the work in between guests. Probably not in a state to lease out as then they are under a lot more obligations to quickly fix bigger issues

    • MonkRome@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I knew this guy years ago that bought up basically free property during the housing crisis. Houses were so undesirable in Detroit at the peak of the housing crisis, you could buy a house for $100, as they were considered a liability. His goal was to fix them up himself and then provide them to the community as extremely low rent residences, if anyone wanted to buy them after they were fixed up he would give priority to his renters at slightly above cost (cost of materials) as a rent to own system (not one of the scummy ones but a real system in their favor). He had no intention of making money, he just believed it was the right thing to do. Dude was just a good person through and through.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Nah man. The dude was a saint. It takes a special kind of selflessness to do something like that.

    • halferect@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How about not hording property? Did she have a house? Did she need to own a entire ghetto? I have no pity or empathy to people who own multiple houses and rent them.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        She and her husband literally restored an entire street that had been derelict since the Louisiana oil crash by using her husband’s pension and disability after having destroyed his body working on the rigs. Literally abandoned homes that they fixed, made livable and rented, without credit check or any other bullshit, for affordable prices. Our street was the only safe street in the entire neighborhood, and also the only one where the homes were in good condition. Nobody wanted this homes. Nobody had the means or desire to fix them. Stop trying to manufacturer villains around the narrative you’re being fed. People can’t afford homes because of funds and companies specifically designed to hoard shit. That’s why prices are skyrocketing.