this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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A Boring Dystopia
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In the case of the screenshot, absolutely.
I have a question though, and I am curious about the perception here so please be honest as to what you think about my situation. (EDIT: I have received a few responses, and they are terribly informative of all of your perceptions. I want to thank you all for contributing your knowledge to my understanding, as I think by ingesting it, it has made me a better person. Thank you!)
In my case, I own a condo. I worked my ass off doing technical shift work and my parents were fortunate enough in their lives to give me a gift of $20,000 dollars in my local currency to try to buy a home. I am floored. I never thought I would afford the opportunity to potentially own a home of any kind.
I buy a small condo. Two bedrooms. One living room with an attached kitchen. The floors of the building are thin. I can hear my upstairs neighbors walking around and opening and closing doors and drawers at all hours. The insulation is bad, it is cold in winter and hot in summer. I am happy. I have a roof over my head, and I answer to no one for the walls, the fixtures, the plumbing.
I lose my job because the business I worked for fucked up and lost some clients. Because of the lack of cash flow, I and many others are laid off.
I hold on for as long as I can but eventually the cost of mortgage, insurance, groceries add up. I go on unemployment insurance. The economy is fucked because of covid, no one hires me for a year and 6 months.
My unemployment insurance runs out after having submitted 4 resumes daily this entire time, maintaining a log of them for the government EI program.
When I only have a couple thousand dollars left in my bank account, if I want to keep the ownership of my home, I have to move in with my parents again and rent my condo out to keep it at all. My dream of being able to just exist in a home I own is at stake.
The government EI program calls me in for questioning to insure I am a legitimate case. I feel some of the most stress and fear I have ever felt. Logically I know that I have been doing everything I can, but somehow I still feel guilty for having to take advantage of it. I perform the interview, I bring a document detailing the URLs, Descriptions, Dates, everything of every job I have been applying to. The interviewer shows shock on her face. I get the impression that the level of detail I have been maintaining is uncommon. They let me leave without incident.
For rent I charge the exact amount that I have to charge to cover mortgage and insurance, legally required, to maintain my the ownership of my home and nothing more, no profits. I have lived under abusive land lords before and the way they operate disgusts me. I will never be that, I would die before I let myself become that.
A Ukrainian family, Husband and Wife with their 3 year old Daughter are the first to apply. I discuss the property and their lives with them and they are some of the strongest, most responsible, wonderful people I have met in my life who came to my country to escape the situation in theirs. I accept them as my tenants immediately because I recognize how absurdly lucky I am to have these people living in my home, given how smart, how responsible, how kind they are. I promise to myself that at the first opportunity, I will show them the same kindness.
I finally find a job, even though it doesn't pay much, and begin reducing the cost of their rent because I can finally afford it. I begin paying rent to my parents because they are owed that. My bank account begins saving about $100 a month in case I have an emergency I need to cover.
The interest rates lower and condos begin to become cheaper. I intend to lower the cost of the rent based on this when my tenants renew the lease.
This is the last 5 years of my life.
Am I a leech?
As someone without parents I immediately thought what kind of job pays enough to pay all your bills and rent. Then realized you probably aren't paying the starting rate of thousands of dollars each month to parents?
Correct, it is the only reason I am not homeless.
This is what people mean when they say there is no ethical consumption in capitalism. Yes, you are a leech, but only because the system has forced you into it. In a different system, neither you nor the Ukrainian family would have housing insecurity.
I don’t say this to judge you, btw, I think we should applaud every landlord who keeps rent low. Just pointing out that it’s impossible to both “keep your hands clean” and “get ahead” in capitalism.
Absolutely not. Do what you got to do to move back to your condo.
just FYI, when you use a dollar sign you don't also have to type out the word "dollars"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign#Currencies_that_use_the_dollar_sign
Technically, I guess so, you're profiting just by owning the property. And having tenants exactly balancing out the costs of owning property.
Morally? Fuck no. What you're doing you are doing to survive, not to live excessively.
Thank you.
I don't think most people really think a vacation home or single rental makes you a leech, but when your entire portfolio is single family 2-3 bedroom houses you're kind of sucking the air out of the local market. I know in my city there are tons of "small landlords" with less than 30 houses, half of them don't even live in the city but in ex-urbs an hour away. They don't do anything for the neighborhoods and see their income stream as completely legitimate.
This is tough, because even though you are charging your tenants the exact amount of your minimum mortgage payment, you are still earning equity in an appreciating asset-- eventually you will be able to turn their rent payments into profits. Now, in my opinion, your level of exploitation is very low, and barely worth considering at all.
I would like to move back into my home when it is affordable, but these people are so wonderful that at whatever juncture I owned the property outright and was not paying mortgage, I would lower the cost of their rent to just the insurance cost if that happened, and allow them as much time as they required to find something that works for them before doing so. I know they would understand. I have been up-front about my situation with them from the very beginning because I am not a liar. I am incredibly fortunate to be afforded the potential ability to do such a thing, because my parents are not too concerned with the living situation. It would also bring me immense joy to only charge them $700 or $800 as rent if the mortgage were paid off, just to cover the insurance costs. It would bring me greater joy if I could charge them nothing without bankrupting myself.
Like I said, I never want to exploit anyone. I just want to try to survive like anyone else, to keep what I have. If there are opportunities along the way to help other people, I would much rather that, and if it costs me an absolute zero, or occasionally a little into the negative at this point, that is fine by me. I would love to have these people live in my condo forever for the actual lowest possible cost, or to have their own fully owned home, but if I go bankrupt, the fucking bank or insurer will just take the condo away from both of us.
Thank you for your opinion.
Its more of the levels and degrees of action taken rather than the action taken itself.
a person owning 1-3 properties, properly maintain the properties, not gouging the heck out of their tenants and looking for long term tenets who will be allowed to live in the property (hang pictures and make it to a degree their own) and generally stay 5-10 years, is in the realm of what i would consider a ethical.
As opposed to slumlords who buy properties to exploit for maximum profit, barely maintain it and cycle through tenants who merely occupy and never feel like they truly live there (out of fear of the expenses on the moving out) and pay for it for 1-2 years before moving because of constant rate increases.
Its the ethical and humane management vs exploitive management.
You will rarely ever hear a peep or complaint against the first. But the latter gets all the vitriol, and rightly so.
I don't believe binary logic is very useful. So I'm not going to answer "am I a leech" because I don't think it has a yes or no answer.
You have an asset that you can't afford, and to afford it you rent it out. That is absolutely valid in a capitalist society, and many people do it. This allows you to hold the asset instead of selling it. That means there's one fewer property on the market, which means that if somebody wants that home they have to rent it from you, where your equity increases and they get a place to live. Again, in a capitalist society this is absolutely valid. And it's not like you aren't taking risk, you could get a bad tenant and they could damage the unit, in turn decreasing your equity. One common "protest" I've seen among renters is to poor grease down the sink, damaging the plumbing over the long time, creating a huge long term cost for the owner. Or flushing cat litter down the toilet, causing a blockage, and similar results. You are accepting risk, and capitalist society says if you accept risk you deserve reward. But from a human-focused perspective you get a very different conclusion.
An issue many people have with this is that the renter is gaining no equity and you are while you aren't contributing production to society. In the world we live this is valid. Another example of this would be dividend stocks, if you hold KO (Coke) you get quarterly dividends, and really you're not actually contributing anything. These are capital gains.
My biggest issue with capital gains is that they're usually taxed lower than labour gains. I think that should be reversed. If capital gains were heavily taxed and that tax was used to better the community then I think it would have more justification. But I digress,
If you sold that property it would probably just go to an investor, but in a world where people couldn't own investment properties it would go to a person or family who would live it in, allowing them to build equity themselves. The number of properties being held and rented out has an impact on the homes available to people buying, or rather being forced to rent.
But ultimately I believe that renting and charging rent is bad for society as a whole. But I also don't think you selling your property wouldn't have any meaningful impact. I think it needs to be a systematic change to be meaningful.
So I'd say you do you, but you are taking advantage of the system and renters. But that's the reality of the world we live in. Doesn't mean it's OK, but does mean you can do it. Also means I won't have sympathy for you if somebody damages your property. But maybe that's because I'm a bad person, I don't know.
I firmly believe homes are for living in, not generating income - even if that income is only to maintain your ownership on your asset. But if you follow that perspective your life will be a bit worse.
Like I said, I don't take the binary perspective.
This is exactly the issue. It is what divides the upper from the lower classes. When you are the asset any issues in your life are compounded and there is no liquidation option like you have when its all assets. The safety nets are so drastically different between with what level of "becoming whole again" that its ridiculous we have gotten this far with capital gains not being seen as a real privilege. But that is why we are seeing a major generational gap between the realization of how bad things have gotten.
This is true and I understand.
There is however a government program in my country where people newly immigrated to the country who are renting can rapidly increase credit based on input from their landlord.
While my tenant cannot gain equity as a result of this situation, I notified them of this program and they signed up, allowing me to increase their credit in this way.
I am fully aware this is not a great trade-off regardless, but I wanted to do what I can because I recognize that any rental deal sucks. When I rented from a shit landlord, every day of my life felt like hell because my money went into a black hole from which there was little benefit. I was not even making enough/paying enough to make credit to get a mortgage at the time.
In addition to this, my tenant wanted to try to set up their own business, and needed an address for the purposes of a business license, so I absolutely allowed them to use the condo's address (whether or not I am legally required to - I did not even bother looking it up because I want to do everything in my power to help this person and their family out without bankrupting myself).
I agree with you as well that selling to an investment firm/for-profit landlord would be worse, and that there has to be some systematic change. A world where one cannot profit from property is one I would want to live in, because if this were the case, I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
I disagree with you, and I won't get into it with you because you write things like "I agree with you" and proceed to disagree with me.
Believe whatever you want.
On the one hand you're getting someone else to make full payments on your mortgage. On the other hand, it's your sole property and the only way you could maintain ownership of it. You weren't profiting over cost, or collecting money from the renters that would go to maintenance (the only actual service/labor that landlords perform). Your choices were practical, not profitable. At least less profitable than you might think. Profitable to the minimum that the system required for you to keep your one home. Short of a revolution where all mortgages are zeroed out, it sounds like you did the best you could.
You are a person in a bad position, nothing more nothing less. If you are providing a competitive rate for rent you are benefiting these people, especially since you were up front with them. Your plans were not to be a landlord but this is where you have been forced. Hopefully you are able to return to your home soon
there is one separating detail that is not shared between most of us. It really depends on how long that tenant lives there. if they are living there for a long period of time and like the place, then yes you are a leech, but a good one since they enjoy living there enough to stay. On the other hand, if you switch tenants often because of high rent costs or bad housing(maintenance included), then you are just simply a leech and not a good one because you are not even providing anything, you instead are holding the property that is simply rotting away with no way for the family holding it to be able to make changes or work towards making it better as they don't own it. If they leave for other reasons outside of your control, then you are not a leech and provided good housing for someone.
Since this isn't usually known by most and takes time to build that moral ideal, it is usually up to you to consider how to act and there is not really an incentive or demand for you to act morally good. Your current living arrangements, life choices and poor job market is not applicable here, you held a home and still operate on living on someone's paycheck. I hope the best for you and anyone who might be put in a bad spot, I know I am in my own bad spot. Would I try to hold myself to a moral high ground? maybe, though pain is short and I will likely still act not morally good at times, though I am not going to consider myself otherwise but a leech if I do. I would rather make sure I can get new tenants by making sure I get the current one is able to get one that is better or their own property, and help someone new with housing. That is what I think a good landlord could do but if the family likes the house then I can help them afford to buy it off me. See it is just business.
That is only for leeching aspects. I bet there are more complex thinking involved but this is what I think who a financial/real state leech is.
Obviously that depends on how you define "leach" and this community is going to give you a fairly skewed perspective.