I just saw this post about landlords being parasitic. While I agree in some points - mainly that by owning more property than you need for yourself, you’re driving up the price for others who want to buy a property. However, I don’t want to buy property when I move. I don’t have the funds for it, and I’m happy with a rented flat. Sure I want to get my own property at some point, however I’m also sure I want to move at least two more times in my life. Buying and selling each time sounds like a lot of hassle. Also, I live in a shared flat, that just sounds like a legal nightmare if the ownership changed every time someone moved out. How does this fit together? Are there solutions to this that don’t require landlords to exist?
A part of the solution is “government owned housing” rented at fair price. Most countries have such housing for “poor people” but not enough for everyone. Let alone the whole “cut-down in welfare budget” means that these building are badly maintained and that even if you’re poor enough but not homeless (e.g. full time minimal wage) you still need years for your application to be accepted. I believe that Denmark and Austria are the few countries where this model is common even for middle class. It may-be a model to follow, at least for lower middle class
Denmark doesn’t have government owned housing rented at fair prices. It has housing orgs which are beholden to special laws but are still private businesses. Because these businesses own a whole block of apartments, they can strike good deals with the municipalities to house or accommodate the less fortunate. If you are middle-class then you do not live in a housing org that houses the lower class. We don’t share space.
I live in the cheapest apartment in my city in the best housing org arguably in the whole country and I still can’t pay rent and my landlord won’t come and fix the several missing doors. My neighbors are fruit-fly breeding enthusiast druggies who don’t have to get up in the morning for anything but groceries and love to party all night on any given weekday despite the housing org rules but the housing org won’t do shit about it so I regularly don’t get to sleep and the cops don’t respond to noise complaints from renters unless you live in a good neighborhood. I also don’t have hot water in my heating system but to be fair I haven’t told my landlord that because I can’t afford heating anyway.
Denmark does not have a housing model that should be an inspiration to the rest of the world, especially not since the jobcenter is also partly responsible for housing you if you’re out of the job market and entirely responsible for you and your rent if you are handicapped, both of which are conflicts of interest and they have been documented to hold this power over vulnerable people so they can continue to have their labor exploited through “activation” programs. I’m perfectly capable of working despite my handicaps. Alas, the jobcenter has struck deals with local businesses and they won’t give me any of those jobs I can do because the jobcenter can just force me to do it and then not pay me so I can’t ever hope to move to better pastures.
You might have been thinking of the Netherlands, but their government housing isn’t exactly a perfect system either but it’s better.
Decomodify housing.