A better option is to regulate rental housing, as in Europe: cap the amount and frequency of rent increases, restrict evictions, and give tenants reasonable rights such as decorating and keeping pets. In such an environment, large corporate landlords, who have economies of scale and staff to handle obligations such as maintenance, can work better than many small landlords.
I don’t buy it, corporations are too inherently profit seeking, malevolent, and politically organized for that to not go wrong over time in ways that are resistant to regulation. Measures like use and ownership restriction would be much more effective than rent control because they would actually suppress demand (in monetary terms) by cutting off large pools of capital from accessing the market as an investment or store of wealth. Combine it with measures to directly increase the supply of housing where it’s needed and prices will go down on their own.
For maintenance issues it would be better to give tenants the rights to make minor repairs themselves without the risk of losing their deposit or being sued if it is not otherwise being handled and enable them to deduct any expense from their rent, especially if this is about single family houses rather than apartment buildings.
As fucked as it is in the US, it’s not all rosy and great here in Europe either. We too have greedy landlords and corruption and way too lenient roles for the owner class…
I don’t mean like a 10% increase, I mean “the landlord gets a maximum of $100 per month plus qualified expenses no matter what you charge”
Basically, make it undesirable to be a landlord unless you are just holding a house as a land investment and need to have someone in it to cover the costs.
A CEO will NEVER voluntarily give themself a pay cut to give you a pay raise, even when ordered to give you a raise by law.
frustrate the bullshit:
1: NO subdividing homes. you want a multi unit, BUILD ONE. I don’t give one turd out of a rats ASS if that house used to be owned by the wealthy businessman, and his 6 kids and army of servants back in the 1920’s That’s a single family home and a single family home IT SHALL STAY. (and that’s the ones that make sense: I’ve seen 3 bed 2 baths turned into efficiencies. which brings us to…)
2: Cap subletting by dictating the minimum amount of square footage an apartment MUST occupy. Set that number OVER 1,400 sq ft, and dictate it must have attached, discrete, private bathroom and kitchen facilities. (open floor plans are fine but apartments can’t share.)
3: National Rent Control Act. You cannot set rent any higher than 10% of the monthly earnings from Minimum Wage in your area. Want to raise rent? Petition for increases in the minimum wage.
4: Tell the auto industry to suck it, and bring back light rail and other forms of community owned public transit. If Mamdani can get it done in NYC, your local Board of selectmen sure as hell can once they get their corrupt heads out of their ass and grow a pair to confront the zoning board. Savings on gas ease burdens of Rent, and walkable cities are happy cities.
5: Ban “Landlord Specials.” Audit the move out process and ensure that proper abatement is enacted. White paint won’t cut it any more. This also ensures that the Securtity deposit scam is snuffed out.
6: Regulate Property owners such that before they can rent to tenants there is sufficient parking and/or access to outdoor spaces per tennant (this may need to be grandfathered exempt in some cases, but it should be a step in the right direction going forward).
7: Get a national/federal Tenants Bill of Rights passed. There will be some compromises, but at least there will be a clearly laid out social contract.
8: Clean up/expunge “squatters rights.” (which shouldn’t be a problem if you do everything else on this list)
9: Actually give a damn about Section 8 housing by giving cities and communities incentives (like grants/endowments) for WELL MAINTAINED and modern properties. Revoke the same for laziness and mismanagement. INSPECT, INSPECT, INSPECT, AUDIT, AUDIT, AUDIT.
10: Elevate the Head of the Department of Housing to a Cabinet level post and make damn sure there’s a congressional committee providing oversight. The answer is MORE government not less, you mafiistic dopes! Gravy train stops HERE.
11: (this is also a jumping off point for Most public construction and infrastructure projects, BTW) Get the Army Corps of Engineers to build homes. Force (order) the Military to piss money on this. Besides, it’d be much more well spent than ANOTHER god forsaken wild goose chase bombing a place halfway around the world, because one Billionaire or another has a Senator by the cajhones and the buttpains that the locals of said location decided to fight back, after he pissed them off for the millionth time. (That’s for damn sure) If it worked for FDR, it can work for US, TODAY.
A better option is to regulate rental housing, as in Europe: cap the amount and frequency of rent increases, restrict evictions, and give tenants reasonable rights such as decorating and keeping pets. In such an environment, large corporate landlords, who have economies of scale and staff to handle obligations such as maintenance, can work better than many small landlords.
I don’t buy it, corporations are too inherently profit seeking, malevolent, and politically organized for that to not go wrong over time in ways that are resistant to regulation. Measures like use and ownership restriction would be much more effective than rent control because they would actually suppress demand (in monetary terms) by cutting off large pools of capital from accessing the market as an investment or store of wealth. Combine it with measures to directly increase the supply of housing where it’s needed and prices will go down on their own.
For maintenance issues it would be better to give tenants the rights to make minor repairs themselves without the risk of losing their deposit or being sued if it is not otherwise being handled and enable them to deduct any expense from their rent, especially if this is about single family houses rather than apartment buildings.
As fucked as it is in the US, it’s not all rosy and great here in Europe either. We too have greedy landlords and corruption and way too lenient roles for the owner class…
Or tax the ever living hell out of rental income, and use it to fund community outreach programs.
Especially AirBnB’s.
Taxing rental income alone will have the opposite effect because landlords just pass on the cost to the tenants.
I don’t mean like a 10% increase, I mean “the landlord gets a maximum of $100 per month plus qualified expenses no matter what you charge”
Basically, make it undesirable to be a landlord unless you are just holding a house as a land investment and need to have someone in it to cover the costs.
A CEO will NEVER voluntarily give themself a pay cut to give you a pay raise, even when ordered to give you a raise by law.
frustrate the bullshit:
1: NO subdividing homes. you want a multi unit, BUILD ONE. I don’t give one turd out of a rats ASS if that house used to be owned by the wealthy businessman, and his 6 kids and army of servants back in the 1920’s That’s a single family home and a single family home IT SHALL STAY. (and that’s the ones that make sense: I’ve seen 3 bed 2 baths turned into efficiencies. which brings us to…)
2: Cap subletting by dictating the minimum amount of square footage an apartment MUST occupy. Set that number OVER 1,400 sq ft, and dictate it must have attached, discrete, private bathroom and kitchen facilities. (open floor plans are fine but apartments can’t share.)
3: National Rent Control Act. You cannot set rent any higher than 10% of the monthly earnings from Minimum Wage in your area. Want to raise rent? Petition for increases in the minimum wage.
4: Tell the auto industry to suck it, and bring back light rail and other forms of community owned public transit. If Mamdani can get it done in NYC, your local Board of selectmen sure as hell can once they get their corrupt heads out of their ass and grow a pair to confront the zoning board. Savings on gas ease burdens of Rent, and walkable cities are happy cities.
5: Ban “Landlord Specials.” Audit the move out process and ensure that proper abatement is enacted. White paint won’t cut it any more. This also ensures that the Securtity deposit scam is snuffed out.
6: Regulate Property owners such that before they can rent to tenants there is sufficient parking and/or access to outdoor spaces per tennant (this may need to be grandfathered exempt in some cases, but it should be a step in the right direction going forward).
7: Get a national/federal Tenants Bill of Rights passed. There will be some compromises, but at least there will be a clearly laid out social contract.
8: Clean up/expunge “squatters rights.” (which shouldn’t be a problem if you do everything else on this list)
9: Actually give a damn about Section 8 housing by giving cities and communities incentives (like grants/endowments) for WELL MAINTAINED and modern properties. Revoke the same for laziness and mismanagement. INSPECT, INSPECT, INSPECT, AUDIT, AUDIT, AUDIT.
10: Elevate the Head of the Department of Housing to a Cabinet level post and make damn sure there’s a congressional committee providing oversight. The answer is MORE government not less, you mafiistic dopes! Gravy train stops HERE.
11: (this is also a jumping off point for Most public construction and infrastructure projects, BTW) Get the Army Corps of Engineers to build homes. Force (order) the Military to piss money on this. Besides, it’d be much more well spent than ANOTHER god forsaken wild goose chase bombing a place halfway around the world, because one Billionaire or another has a Senator by the cajhones and the buttpains that the locals of said location decided to fight back, after he pissed them off for the millionth time. (That’s for damn sure) If it worked for FDR, it can work for US, TODAY.