Real estate investors, both individual and institutional, bought one-third of all single-family residential properties sold in the second quarter of 2025.
Investors should NOT be allowed to own houses, period. People should own houses. I don’t care if a few people have more than one house and rent that out, small time land lords are fine.
These investment companies are the worst and they destroy everything they touch, everything is immediately scorched earth. Meanwhile we’re in a very preventable global housing crisis, but hey, let’s sell homes to investment companies, because what could possibly go wrong?
So everyone who has enough money to rent, but not enough to own, should be homeless? That middle ground of renting has to exist, or we’re overall in a much worse state of affairs. And you can’t rent unless there is a homeowner to rent from.
Also, a lot of people deliberately choose renting over owning, because they value things like not having the financial burden of house maintenance/repairs, or it being orders of magnitude easier to relocate, for whatever reason, and so on.
So everyone who has enough money to rent, but not enough to own, should be homeless?
The concept of someone having enough money to rent but not enough to own is ghoulish in the first place. If my landlord can pay $<1,200 for this house’s mortgage and upkeep, and I can pay $1,200 a month for the right to sleep in it, then we should simply cut out the middle man and have me pay that $<1,200 a month for mortgage and upkeep directly.
The entire concept of “rent” needs to die in a goddamn fire. There are much better arrangements to fill the niche you are talking about. What is lacking is a regulatory environment making those arrangements preferable to rent.
“Rent” is typically a year-to-year arrangement. Every year, the deal is renegotiated and the tenant ends up paying more.
A “Land Contract” is (initially) similar to rent, but it is negotiated only once, and the monthly fee is fixed for the life of the agreement, like a mortgage.
For the first three years of the agreement, you pay your monthly fee, and you live in the home. You are free to walk away at any time.
If you stay longer than three years, the entire agreement automatically converts to a private mortgage, with your first three years of payments considered the down payment. You continue to make the same payment, but now you are earning equity.
All that is well and good, but landlords won’t offer land contracts, because land contracts favor the tenant/buyer.
Not to worry. We’re going to restructure property taxes. We’re going to have landlords begging tenants to switch to land contracts. The way we do it is by offering an owner-occupant exemption to property taxes. This is called a “homestead exemption” in some states. Basically, if you occupy a home, you pay a tiny fraction of the property taxes that you would owe if you didn’t occupy that home. Or, more accurately, if you are an investor, your property tax rate is going to the moon.
Land Contract tenants/buyers are considered “owners”. The property you are living in is owned by the occupants, and financed by the landlord/seller. The property taxes are at the owner-occupant rate, not the investor rate. Property taxes on “rentals” melt all the profits the landlord could be earning, so they are incentivized to switch to land contracts.
No, the system should be changed to not arbitrarily restrict people’s access to necessities.
Housing, and other necessities, should be community property. If you don’t live in the house, you forfeit ownership of that house so someone else who needs it can live in it. Fuck the exploitative system of private property ownership.
Renting is only necessitated because we live in a capitalist system. All your complaints only exist because of the capitalist system. It doesn’t need to exist.
Housing, and other necessities, should be community property…Fuck the exploitative system of private property ownership.
So you’d want it to be the case that anyone can enter and live in the house you’re living in, and you have no say in the matter because you don’t own it?
Do you really see no massive problems with such a system?
Holy bad faith Batman. What a blatantly ignorant misrepresentation of what I said.
You have no concept of what a community property system is. For the love of God, go read fucking theory and educate yourself on alternative political and economic systems.
If you live in the house, it becomes your personal property. Meaning you own it while you live and reside there. No one can just come into your personal space. Yet, when you no longer wish to live there and are moving away, the house transfers ownership back to the community until someone needs it.
So, if I am going to college and I am sick of living in a dorm, i would have to buy a house to live off campus?
Or I get a job offer in another city or state, I have to buy a place to live before I even get to find out if I want to stay long term?
Blame the system that makes it arbitrarily difficult to transition between houses, which is in part exacerbated due to the fact homes are being used by parasites as vehicles for profit generation through rent seeking models artificially increasing the floor price of homes.
What you’re mad at is the private property system inherent to capitalism restricting what you’re able to do because of arbitrary bullshit. Why do you need to purchase a house in the first place? It is empty and not being used, so why does the previous owner still retain control over it and be allowed to arbitrarily prevent others from using it unless we can satisfy their greed? Why do we support a system that arbitrarily restricts our access to basic necessities in such a way and just glazes over such blatant exploitation?
Instead of trying to justify exploitation under the current system, how about we think about changing this system to one based on the needs of people instead of one based on imaginary, monetary interests and the whims of greedy fucks who retain illegitimate control over what should rightfully belong to the community?
In a system of community property, any vacant homes would be readily available and the ownership of units transferred from communal to personal property based on usufruct where, so long as you live in the home, it belongs to you but, when you vacate to a new home, the ownership is transferred back to the community.
So can we stop this? Please?
Investors should NOT be allowed to own houses, period. People should own houses. I don’t care if a few people have more than one house and rent that out, small time land lords are fine.
These investment companies are the worst and they destroy everything they touch, everything is immediately scorched earth. Meanwhile we’re in a very preventable global housing crisis, but hey, let’s sell homes to investment companies, because what could possibly go wrong?
Nah, all landlords are leeches. Rent-seeking is literally parasitic by nature.
So everyone who has enough money to rent, but not enough to own, should be homeless? That middle ground of renting has to exist, or we’re overall in a much worse state of affairs. And you can’t rent unless there is a homeowner to rent from.
Also, a lot of people deliberately choose renting over owning, because they value things like not having the financial burden of house maintenance/repairs, or it being orders of magnitude easier to relocate, for whatever reason, and so on.
The concept of someone having enough money to rent but not enough to own is ghoulish in the first place. If my landlord can pay $<1,200 for this house’s mortgage and upkeep, and I can pay $1,200 a month for the right to sleep in it, then we should simply cut out the middle man and have me pay that $<1,200 a month for mortgage and upkeep directly.
The entire concept of “rent” needs to die in a goddamn fire. There are much better arrangements to fill the niche you are talking about. What is lacking is a regulatory environment making those arrangements preferable to rent.
“Rent” is typically a year-to-year arrangement. Every year, the deal is renegotiated and the tenant ends up paying more.
A “Land Contract” is (initially) similar to rent, but it is negotiated only once, and the monthly fee is fixed for the life of the agreement, like a mortgage.
For the first three years of the agreement, you pay your monthly fee, and you live in the home. You are free to walk away at any time.
If you stay longer than three years, the entire agreement automatically converts to a private mortgage, with your first three years of payments considered the down payment. You continue to make the same payment, but now you are earning equity.
All that is well and good, but landlords won’t offer land contracts, because land contracts favor the tenant/buyer.
Not to worry. We’re going to restructure property taxes. We’re going to have landlords begging tenants to switch to land contracts. The way we do it is by offering an owner-occupant exemption to property taxes. This is called a “homestead exemption” in some states. Basically, if you occupy a home, you pay a tiny fraction of the property taxes that you would owe if you didn’t occupy that home. Or, more accurately, if you are an investor, your property tax rate is going to the moon.
Land Contract tenants/buyers are considered “owners”. The property you are living in is owned by the occupants, and financed by the landlord/seller. The property taxes are at the owner-occupant rate, not the investor rate. Property taxes on “rentals” melt all the profits the landlord could be earning, so they are incentivized to switch to land contracts.
Who said that? Other than you?
It’s not that complicated. Without landlords, there is no renting. Without renting, owning is the only way to have a place to live.
So if there’s no renting, and you’re unable to own, you have no place to live.
No, the system should be changed to not arbitrarily restrict people’s access to necessities.
Housing, and other necessities, should be community property. If you don’t live in the house, you forfeit ownership of that house so someone else who needs it can live in it. Fuck the exploitative system of private property ownership.
Renting is only necessitated because we live in a capitalist system. All your complaints only exist because of the capitalist system. It doesn’t need to exist.
So you’d want it to be the case that anyone can enter and live in the house you’re living in, and you have no say in the matter because you don’t own it?
Do you really see no massive problems with such a system?
Holy bad faith Batman. What a blatantly ignorant misrepresentation of what I said.
You have no concept of what a community property system is. For the love of God, go read fucking theory and educate yourself on alternative political and economic systems.
If you live in the house, it becomes your personal property. Meaning you own it while you live and reside there. No one can just come into your personal space. Yet, when you no longer wish to live there and are moving away, the house transfers ownership back to the community until someone needs it.
So, if I am going to college and I am sick of living in a dorm, i would have to buy a house to live off campus?
Or I get a job offer in another city or state, I have to buy a place to live before I even get to find out if I want to stay long term?
Blame the system that makes it arbitrarily difficult to transition between houses, which is in part exacerbated due to the fact homes are being used by parasites as vehicles for profit generation through rent seeking models artificially increasing the floor price of homes.
What you’re mad at is the private property system inherent to capitalism restricting what you’re able to do because of arbitrary bullshit. Why do you need to purchase a house in the first place? It is empty and not being used, so why does the previous owner still retain control over it and be allowed to arbitrarily prevent others from using it unless we can satisfy their greed? Why do we support a system that arbitrarily restricts our access to basic necessities in such a way and just glazes over such blatant exploitation?
Instead of trying to justify exploitation under the current system, how about we think about changing this system to one based on the needs of people instead of one based on imaginary, monetary interests and the whims of greedy fucks who retain illegitimate control over what should rightfully belong to the community?
In a system of community property, any vacant homes would be readily available and the ownership of units transferred from communal to personal property based on usufruct where, so long as you live in the home, it belongs to you but, when you vacate to a new home, the ownership is transferred back to the community.