Liberals, Landlords, and Tenants

[Ben]

Another story out of Seattle, but it applies to a lot of other places, and the direction of the national rental market, IMO. This is one of the reasons I recently sold the last of my rental properties. While the county where my rentals are is not a bad place to be a landlord or renter, the state is passing enough legislation that it makes it tougher and tougher to be an individual landlord.

I think that's bad (as the story alludes to) for both individual landlords and for good renters. Being an individual landlord,  I needed to be picky regarding my tenants, because unlike a ginormous property management company, one bad tenant could kill my income for the whole year. By being picky, I also always charged under market rent, kept things in good condition, and in over 30 years of landlording, had around 90% good and happy tenants.

If the government tells an individual landlord they have to take some "government mandated" tenant, the landlord loses and the neighborhood loses, and other tenants lose, because if you have to account for "undesirable" tenants, that means raising the rent to cover expenses (or in hopes of weeding out undesirables, which has the unintended consequence of weeding out desirable lower income tenants). Or else selling, and when it becomes a losing proposition to be a mom and pop landlord trying to make a few bucks to cover retirement, then the big corporations will come in, and again rents will go up, and renters will have to deal with a faceless entity. "Lowest common denominator" tenants will also knock down property values for owned residences in the area, and pretty soon you'll have "the section 8 lifestyle" wherever there are rental properties.

It's just interesting that the liberal philosophy in this regard pretty much is a boon to criminals, people who can't get their *expletive deleted*it together, and big corporations that will come in to handle that demographic. The losers are the lower to middle income decent renters and the "family" landlords that rent to them, and what has for decades generally been a mutually beneficial partnership.


As a total tangent, while the author makes good points, I doubt I would rent to him. If stuff breaks, I fix it. If YOU break stuff (apparently through negligence) you're paying for it or looking for a new place to live. The author is the kind of renter that drives rents up.


http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/05/21/smug-seattle-to-mom-and-pop-landlords-criminals-are-welcome-your-rights-not-so-much.html

 

[230RN]

Right.

As the old expression goes, "Tell it to the Marines."

[dogmush]

I rent the first house my wife and I bought right now.  It's an "investment" in that the rent breaks even with owning it, and the land appreciates.  So it's part of my retirement plan.

Were those rules to pass around here I'd almost certainly sell.  I don't know if I'd kick out the family in it and dump it immediately, or wait for them to leave of their own accord, but I wouldn't be a landlord without the ability to be pretty picky on tenants.

[K Frame]

Mom and Pop landlords?

I'd say that the socialist member of the city council views them as filthy kulaks to be exterminated.

[K Frame]

Good friend of mine lives in Iowa, and he and his wife have invested in several properties -- several houses and one multi-tenant building.

He's had his share of issues with tenants over the years. One guy trashed one place to the point where it pretty much had to be gutted out.

Another in the apartment building introduced bed bugs, and that caused a huge amount of expense.

I would never try to become a landlord unless it was commercial property.

[Ben]

I rent the first house my wife and I bought right now.  It's an "investment" in that the rent breaks even with owning it, and the land appreciates.  So it's part of my retirement plan.

Certainly as an individual landlord, the rental income itself isn't something that will put you on easy street. The appreciation and tax benefits were a large part of it for me. Doing my own management, I was able to deduct all kinds of stuff. I'm really gonna miss deducting most every tool I ever bought. I was also able to depreciate my last three trucks (well 2 1/2, as I can't deduct the rest of my current truck), which was an enormous help every April.

[French G.]

Mom and Pop landlords?

I'd say that the socialist member of the city council views them as filthy kulaks to be exterminated.

If you have two homes it must mean you dispossessed some poor minority to get that wealth! You didn't build that!

[MechAg94]

I like the one comment I saw below the article "Harvard shouldn’t be able to check SAT’s ... see how stupid that sounds?".

[MechAg94]

A lot of people use home rentals as a way to build wealth separate from just working a job.  Passing all these absurd rules (for the poor and downtrodden) goes a long way to closing off that avenue of wealth creation.  Even if they can still make money, it creates another layer of legal liability they have to be wary of.

Why is it that Leftist policies always seem to have the goal of creating an impassible gulf between the wealthy and everyone else.  I don't see that talked about very often.

[Ben]

A lot of people use home rentals as a way to build wealth separate from just working a job.  Passing all these absurd rules (for the poor and downtrodden) goes a long way to closing off that avenue of wealth creation.  Even if they can still make money, it creates another layer of legal liability they have to be wary of.

Why is it that Leftist policies always seem to have the goal of creating an impassible gulf between the wealthy and everyone else.  I don't see that talked about very often.

Yup. That's the main reason I got into rentals. I wanted to build up extra equity as a means of protecting myself against social security possibly not being there. There are literally hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of people who have done the same thing. We want to be able to fund our own retirement and not have to count on the government, and the government does everything they can to hinder us.

And while hindering us, they actually create an avenue of wealth for large businesses and corporations that can handle the overhead of stifling govt regulation. Someone holding down a job and doing "landlording on the side" has neither the time nor money for it. More rungs removed from the ladder of the middle class trying to better itself.

[brimic]

Nearly exact reason why my ex-FIL sold off his properties about a decade ago. If you get a few properties in the neighborhood go to section-8, the neighborhoods start to fall apart, and the only renters you can get are the exact type you don't want.