this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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This post is insane. Sometimes I feel like Lemmy is an echo chamber for the maniacal. I rented for nearly 10 years of my life because I didn't want to own a place and be tied down. Not everyone wants to be a homeowner. Once I got to the point that I wanted a home I bought one... And guess what, I save money every month on my mortgage versus renting. Renting is a convenience, home ownership is not dead... People buy up the houses near me faster than they can build them.
Congratulations on renting out of choice. That's a choice most renters never have.
Well it was partially out of choice and partially the stage of my life. I was in my 20s and working in fast food or between construction jobs. My career didn't really start until my late 20s/early 30s. I guess I didn't really consider buying as an option until later in life and my income in my earlier working years was inconsistent and a bit too low for my lifestyle.
That's one way to say that you couldn't afford to buy but you don't want to admit you were forced to rent.
Maniacal is a strong word but the lemmy community does seem to have a particular bent to it.
Where did this post say renting shouldn't be allowed?
By saying being a landlord is not a job and implying that everyone should get handed a house to live in - this post is saying renting should not be allowed / an option.
If there is no financial incentive to maintain the house, then there is no reason anyone would become a landlord / rent out their property.
Most people also fail to consider how expensive it can get to own a home, even if you're renting it out. Rent covers unexpected costs of the home. For example, through no fault of anyone - a tree put its roots through your main sewer line and now the house has been filled with back up nastiness. In this situation - is the landlord / homeowner expected to come up with the money out of their own pocket when the rent is capped at the mortgage? Something like that can easily cost upwards of $20,000. Landlords just magically make money appear to cover the maintenance?
Renting is more like insurance. You pay a fixed rate while the landlord takes the risk of potentially having to put out a large sum of cash in a short period of time. Just because you didn't get in an accident today doesn't mean your insurance company didn't pay out claims today. It's a shared risk for all renters of the property instead of them being directly on the hook.
You're thinking within the confines of the capitalist market, but why limit yourself? We can have systems where you can easily switch homes with people, or keep rent but keep it reasonable and without the huge extractive element, or so many other potential systems.
The problems you mention are problems created by capitalism, we have the power to fix them by playing by different rules, because the rules are made up.
So... The sewage backfills into the house and you put in a petition to the government to come fix the problem? You just move out and until the government gets around to fixing the house, it just sits vacant and the problem exacerbates itself?
I'm renting from a nonprofit housing agency right now, and they are way better at fixing problems than any private landlord I've ever had.
If your government is controlled by neoliberal capitalists, that is what might happen yes, and that is why we should do as much as we can to get a government that actually acts in the interest of the people.
Government isn't inherently bad at doing things, you've just been conditioned to think that by this system that forces the government to self-sabotage. Of course, the self-sabotage only applies to social programs, they're actually very good and efficient at subsidizing and lowering taxes for the wealthy, for instance.
How do you rent if there are no landlords? Someone has to own the property and rent it out, aka a landlord.
The other option is a housing coop. Where you still rent, but it's owned by all the renters collectively.
A co-op is not renting. It's basically a building with condos/apartments that has a built in HOA. If the roof needs repaired every apartment needs to chip in for the sudden payment if the co-op isn't properly saving for those capital expenditures.
There are a great variety of co-ops. If you define renting narrowly enough, then they are of course different. But the point is that for some (and the co-ops I've seen personally) you don't have to make a down payment for a mortgage like you do with a condo or house. You instead pay a monthly fee that covers the co-op's mortgage/repairs/taxes. Or if the place is fully owned by the co-op, then just the repairs/taxes.
But you retain the flexibility of renting in that you can leave reasonably easily since you're not personally responsible for the mortgage.
I think there are also co-ops (possibly more commonly) where it's essentially just a condo where the building is collectively owned by the tenants instead of a for profit company. In that case, it's much less like renting.