IF the employers are happy with the work, or even not, nobody is getting exploited here. IF the work suffers, they are free to fire.

For the properties, people need to rent from someone. Landlords are only scum if they mistreat their tenants.

I have no issue with employers being exploited, they would exploit you too. But the housing thing is gross — the reason housing is so distorted is that the wealthy are actively trying to deny folks access to housing. There are so many better ways.

Landlording is always a scum action. It is a personal choice to seek rent with no benefit to society while enriching oneself and preventing others from building their own wealth. Landlords hobble the middle class wealth generation, extract most of the gains from industry and then refuse to maintain their properties.

We need to make it so uncool to be a landlord. They are all scum, no exceptions.

I'm sorry to hear that you have had bad experiences with landlords. I have had some really good ones, and some mediocre ones.

Both groups helped me have a place to sleep when I saved to purchase a house, so to that extent, they upheld their part of the bargain.

I would rather work with them than live in a charity shelter or rent from the government.

I’d rather that housing didn’t cost a death pledge for 30 years of labor — like say every other time in human history pre-1980s.

I get that they provide you a house, me too, however if they didn’t exist housing wouldn't be a problem. It’s the best of a bad situation. At best a landlord that treats you well is the abnormality — they are still scum who deprives everyone else from ever owning a place.

I'll admit, it is an interesting thought experiment to explore what a society would look like with a 100% moratorium on rentals. It seems like you would have to do away with down payments or there would be widespread homelessness. I imagine mortgage rates would be through the roof, as new occupants wouldn't have equity in the house to protect.

Owner occupation rates are about the same since the 1960s, and worse before. I wonder if there are examples that approach this ideal. Perhaps family homesteads during the US westward expansion, but even then there was a lot of landless workers.

Sir, This is a Wendy's, not TikTok. Please don't call people names.

I was going to spend some time justifying my rental portfolio but alas I fear it will fall on deaf ears.

Thank you for your somewhat constructive criticism. I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way. Given your username, I assume you are just as worldly as I am. In that case, I hope your HODLing habits lead to success. Eventually, you will become the same "evil" that you despise... you will eventually become... me. HODL!!

Thank you! My post was overly emotional and it triggered me when I read you were landlording. Like — I have no issue with you drawing multiple wages, but then using that money to extort rent from working class folks just was a bridge too far for me.

As a renter I have experienced some really dirty actions from landlords, and given the drop in housing inventory, landchadding just seems exploitative with no gain for society.

There are many better investments that do not involve such depriving folks of the housing stock, don’t have the stress of dealing with people and better returns. Leasing property is like lazy stupid money that could do better elsewhere.

I don’t think money makes one evil. But one can use it in evil ways. I have done well over the years but I always to to consider what impact my investments have on the world or society.

Just because you have had a bad experience with a landlord does not make all landlords bad. Just like you probably had a bad experience at a restaurant, does that mean all restaurants are bad?

This isn’t a good analogy. And landlords like to delude and justify that they are not one of the bad guys to themselves. They say oh that’s just your experience with bad ones. No, the entire system is rotten.

If restaurants went round gobbling up the food supply and then the only place to eat was at exploitative prices, then yeah, all restaurants would be scum.

I think it's an apt analogy. You seem to be implying that all landlords are huge corporations that are gobbling up all the properties out there.

Individual landlords like myself are small time. I'm pretty much a mom and pop restaurant and you're criticizing me like I'm the McDonalds corporation.

I personally know 80% of my tenants and they've been renting from me for years.

Every house bought to rent to someone else is a owner occupier denied. It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small.

15 houses ain’t small time. You could house a small army. If you could sell them to your tenants, would you? Or do you need their blood?

He could be a good guy who donates the money made from that.