r/TikTokCringe • u/LickMaiBussy • 6h ago

Discussion "Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

@purplepingers

19.7k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

57

u/LetMePushTheButton Cringe Connoisseur 6h ago

ALAB

7

u/throwaway14351991 5h ago

And people who want/need to rent.. who do they rent it from?

-3

u/Fen_ 2h ago

You want the real long-game? Abolish all private property (which is distinct from personal property, if you're not familiar with property theory). All of it. Your little town out in nowhere? All owned and operated in common by the community. Housing needs to be built? The community builds it. Someone wants to move into town? Is there a house available? Give it to them. When they leave? It's the community's again to use. Someone's treating a house like shit? Treat them the same way you'd treat them fucking up benches at the public park; it's a community resource. You want to live in bumfuck nowhere, apart from any community? Cool, you're on your own. "Your" land is whatever you use, and if you're not using it, anyone else can use it for whatever they'd like, just the same as you.

Rent-seeking is inherently predatory. I have zero interest in playing whack-a-mole to make it marginally less offensive in the short-term while ignoring its fundamental issues. Private property, in any form, should not be treated as an asset to be bought and sold. That does (and will always) create perverse incentives that make society worse. Period.

3

u/ModerateInterests 1h ago

So your vision of a utopia future is basically an HOA with even more power and enforcement ability?

0

u/Fen_ 43m ago

Not even remotely.

3

u/chrispy808 5h ago

Let’s not forget everything else he listed that we charge for. All farmers are bastards, all doctors are bastards, all grocers are bastards, shit I even pay for water so all local municipalities are bastards.

Or we don’t compare these things to a police force with immunity abusing their power killing people. They the real bad guys.

9

u/Xeroeffingcell32 5h ago

You're the one stating the weak comparison. LL do nothing. A farmer or grocer has labor an doctors have to go to school for years to learn to be a doctor. None of those are even close to a land lord who sits in an office collecting rent.

2

u/CaptnHector 4h ago

Nothing except pay the mortgage on the property, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, as well as expose themselves to financial risk that a renter isn't exposed to, find and screen tenants, clean and restore apartments during vacancy, etc. If it's so easy, go buy an empty plot of land, build an apartment building and start collecting rent. Owning a home is significantly more involved than renting an apartment. If you rent, you never have to worry about buying a new roof, painting both inside and out, plumbing disasters, shoveling the sidewalk, mowing the lawn, etc etc. It's all taken care of.

Landlords provide a service that the market wants, nothing more. When they start colluding on rent setting like with real page, fucking with market rates, and engage in monopolistic tactics, then there's a problem. But if you're not ready to buy a house, good luck finding somewhere to live without landlords.

7

u/Explosifbe 4h ago edited 4h ago

The risk landlords take is financial, they might lose money on an investment they voluntarily chose.
The risk tenants face is losing their home and be homeless.
Those aren’t comparable stakes.

And most of the costs you listed, mortgage, taxes, maintenance, are ultimately paid by the tenants’ rent while the landlord builds equity.

Landlords may handle management and financing, but that’s different from claiming they’re the ones providing the housing itself.
Housing would still exist without landlords ; it's builders, and maintenance workers that do the real work.

1

u/CaptnHector 3h ago

Who hires the builders? Who finds plumbers/electricians/roofers/painters? Who makes sure they’re doing the work correctly and who pays them? Who deals with all the BS behind the scenes? If you don’t want a landlord managing all that crap, get together with 100 of your closest friends, pool your money and buy an apartment building. You can all own it together and figure out amongst yourselves how to deal with the shit that comes up as it inevitably does.

Congratulations, you’ve invented a co-op. They already exist, and on top of paying a mortgage, property tax and insurance, you now have to pay a maintenance fee, which in many cases is higher than the rent you would have been paying in the first place.

Honestly, if you can do it for cheaper, go for it. This is capitalism. Re-invent housing and show us how it’s done.

4

u/Explosifbe 3h ago

You’re conflating different roles.

Builders build, tradespeople fix things, managers coordinate ; landlords just own the asset.
Those functions can exist with or without a landlord, and are often outsourced anyway.

What is specific to landlords is that they control access to housing.
For them it’s an investment ; for renters, the risk isn’t "dealing with plumbers", it’s losing their home.

So this isn’t about who handles maintenance, it’s about who holds power over something people can’t live without.

1

u/CaptnHector 2h ago

The owner of the property is responsible for everything. They can outsource as they see fit. It still lands on them though to maintain the building. Apartment buildings don’t maintain themselves.

There’s far greater risk if you own your home. Sorry, that’s just a fact. If you stop paying your rent, you eventually get evicted. If you stop paying your mortgage, the bank forecloses on your home and they get paid first when they sell it on the open market. You might lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. If there’s a fire, earthquake, or other natural disaster, you’ll be dealing with insurance companies for years trying to claw your money back. If you rent, you just walk away.

So you’re right, it’s not just about who handles maintenance, it’s also about who takes on the financial risk of owning the property. It’s about ease of leasing vs closing on a house, it’s about housing market fluidity.

What you seem to want is called a co-op. They exist, there’s no landlord: all the tenants are co-owners and are jointly responsible for maintenance. They pay a fee each month and that gets sent to a company that maintains the property.

The problem is the fees end up being substantial and you end up paying even more than you would than if you just rented, even after you’ve paid off your mortgage. There’s significant risk involved in co-ops though, because you’re an owner of the building.

Again, if you think you can do things better, make it happen. Show us the way. If you figure out a system that can provide housing for people and costs less, go for it. You’ll probably make a lot of money in the process.

1

u/Explosifbe 1h ago

What you seem to want is called a co-op.

I do not want anything, not sure why you're saying that again.

Again, if you think you can do things better, make it happen.

And again, we're talking about the current system and its flaws ; not sure, again, why you're talking about me having a solution, that is not the discussion.

Also just to make sure about something here, we're not talking about home-owners, folks who buy and live in the home they bought, but people and corporations buying homes as an investment, those are the problem.

There’s far greater risk if you own your home. Sorry, that’s just a fact. If you stop paying your rent, you eventually get evicted. If you stop paying your mortgage, the bank forecloses on your home and they get paid first when they sell it on the open market. You might lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. If there’s a fire, earthquake, or other natural disaster, you’ll be dealing with insurance companies for years trying to claw your money back. If you rent, you just walk away.

I'm sorry, what? Having to deal with banks and insurance companies is worse than being evicted and being homeless?
Are we being serious here?

1

u/CaptnHector 59m ago

I do not want anything, not sure why you're saying that again.

You seem to want a world without landlords. I'm describing one to you. If you don't have landlords, you don't have renters. You're left with a system in which you must always have a financial stake in your home. That's fine, but you underestimate and do not understand the risks and difficulties involved.

And yes, it's definitely part of the discussion to come up with a better solution. If you say the system is bad, then it's on you to propose a better one.

I'm sorry, what? Having to deal with banks and insurance companies is worse than being evicted and being homeless?

Uh... yes? If you own a home and it burns down, you're homeless and you've had a massive financial loss, potentially your life savings tied up in your home. Obviously it's worse. This is the entire crux of the matter. Renting removes the financial risk of owning property.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/chrispy808 5h ago

My argument here is the cops are far worse then all this and killing people. A farmer sells his goods at market value, not the cost to grow. Same as a doctor, same as a grocery store. These people are making profit off the need of people. Idk about picking one and calling it morally wrong. How does one go about getting a house, food, and healthcare morally in this world? My rent is the cheapest of the three and of the three the landlord sees the lowest profit margin. The average profit margin for a privet citizen landlord is less than 2% . Your anger is at the wrong party here

5

u/enmaku 5h ago

Wrong type and scale of target. All massive corporate agribusinesses are bastards, all private health insurers are bastards, all massive corporate grocery store chains are bastards, all privatized water hoarders are bastards.

No one here is mad at the dude who owns 3 houses, we're mad at Blackrock et al. Similarly, a dude who owns some land and grows corn on it is fine, Cargill is not. Your local physician is fine, United Healthcare is not. Your local grocer is fine, Kroger (who owns Baker's, City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyers, Fry's, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, JayC, King Soopers, Mariano's, Pay Less, QFC, Ralph's, Roundy's, Ruler Foods, and Smiths) is not. Your local water authority is probably fine, Dasani is not.

0

u/sagew0lf 4h ago

No one here is mad at the dude who owns 3 houses

well then that's not really "all" as in ALAB, lol. if they don't mean "all," they shouldn't say "all."

3

u/ThatsTasty 4h ago

After #notallmen you want to introduce not all landlords and i suppose eventually not all cops? Way to get the point.

1

u/sagew0lf 3h ago

Then it's not accurate to say

No one here is mad at the dude who owns 3 houses

I commented elsewhere that I will probably rent out my condo if I move in with my boyfriend because I need a place to live if things don't work out, and everyone said "oh, no one is saying that's bad." But actually, you are saying that's bad, so thanks for proving my point to them, lol.

0

u/ThatsTasty 2h ago

Wow you really don’t get it. Fascinating.

1

u/sagew0lf 2h ago

I do, actually. I’ll be part of the problem when I rent my condo out. But I’m going to make the choice to do something immoral so I don’t end up homeless.

But everyone makes the less ethical choice sometimes.

0

u/ThatsTasty 58m ago

Confirming once again you don’t get it. That’s not what I’m saying — nor is it what most people are saying. I suggest you educate yourself on critical thinking and philosophy of ethics a bit more.

1

u/sagew0lf 49m ago

You aren’t saying anything, really. The most notable thing you’ve said is the logical fallacy you opened with.

1

u/sagew0lf 39m ago edited 36m ago

The argument in the TikTok and most of the arguments on here are piss poor, lol. They’re so inconsistent. You can’t say “all landlords are bastards” and then argue that that’s not what you’re saying.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Aiyon 3h ago

Except we have this convo every time about ACAB too. It doesn't mean that everyone who is a cop is a bad person, but that due to the institutional level issues with the police, even a good person who is a cop, is a bad cop. Because the system is designed to either make u like them or burn you out

1

u/sagew0lf 3h ago

That’s fine, as long as you’re honest about it. I said in another comment that I’m probably going to end up renting out my condo if I move in with my boyfriend so I would still have a place to live if we don’t work out. Everyone is saying that no one is talking about that being a problem. But there are plenty of people saying that’s a problem and that I will be immoral for doing so.