If you believe profiting from housing is unethical, why did you buy and rent housing to tenants at a profit in the first place?

Given how much later they seemed to have done it, I'd imagine either they didn't come to the conclusion about it being unethical until later, or needing the money at the time enough to do it anyways and later having enough financial safety to be able to pay it back.

Both of those, actually. As I have become more financially stable myself, my opinions on the nature of wealth have evolved. I'm not the person I was 12 years ago both socially and financially.

I'm lucky my career has worked out, it's given me opportunities to help others and really sit with the question, "what do I feel is right and moral?"

Edit: I think I had read about someone doing this via hacker news, actually, and asked "what would it cost me to do the same"

Pardon me saying so, but it seems awfully convenient to adopt morals only when you can afford them. What about people who aren't as well off as you are...do you think it's immoral for them to make a living from providing housing?

It wasn't the "can afford them" that changed my mind. I genuinely used to think "being a landlord is normal" until I had time to sit with it.

While I sat with it, I did become more financially comfortable, but it wasn't the money that changed my mind.

And yes, across all income levels, I do believe making a profit from housing others is immoral. But like, as long as we have major corporate landlords I'm not going to spend much thought on mom and pop landlords. If you are renting a spare room out it's like, "hey, I don't agree with what you are doing, but I understand it."

I get many landlords are bad and the entire wealth extraction industry around it. However what other way is there to provide temporary housing for people that want it? My SO just got done with a residency for a year as an example, with no intent to permanently move there.

The trouble of buying a house for a couple of years is more costly and time consuming than just renting. Living in a decent hotel for a couple of years would be crazy expensive and is illegal in many places.

There are no easy answers, no silver bullets. We could cap rents, and limit the profit of rentals. We could limit the number of rental properties one company or individual can own. We could nationalize a bunch of housing. We could put more housing in community trusts. We could build more social housing. We could subsidize property owners who provide lots of high quality housing at below market rates to provide downward pressure on rental rates.

There's a lot of different levers we could pull, none of them solve the problem, all of them introduce other challenges. But we could definitely make a better system than we have today (for renters and individuals. Less so for landlords.)

It's easier to refund the overpayment than chase down underpayment.

I've often thought that would be something useful to do, especially since renters often have such a hard time saving (but often are quite able to pay rent on time) - just collect some portion into an account (the deposit account you likely have anyway) and then when they leave fund it all back to them (minus any repairs).

Looks on people's faces when you say "so we needed to repaint, so your $1,000 deposit has left over ... $3k."

Agreed, deposits should be returned with interest at a minimum!

Even better, if the company has increased in value, your deposit should be returned with that increase reflected.

What if the company has decreased?

Unlikely, given the rise in property values and the relatively steady income of rentals, but I'm (unsurprisingly) ok saying they should return your deposit or greater.

... Do you have any current vacancies?

Sadly no, our unit is in use! We have adapted to a model of "here's what our costs are to maintain and insure the space. Adjust your payments based on your income and ability to save."

We've had people rent for nothing, rent in exchange for teaching a skill or hobby, pay at cost, or pay more (the money is held to offset people who cannot afford to pay the full cost of room).

In general, our rental timelines are short, 3 to 12 months usually. People often need a stepping stone to get themselves a leg up and move on to something else. We're happy to make that possible.

Fascinating. I was just thinking that this would be incredibly risky to do in SF. If you rented to them for very cheap for more than 30 days, they'd have the right to live there forever for that much (plus 7% / year which will be nothing).

I think in SF you'd still be able to operate an annual lease. Considering the lowest I've gone on rent is $0, I'm not worried if a tenant stays till the end of their year.

When I explain how I operate, people tend to understand pretty quickly that it's special. If someone was, say, a Google engineer and trying to pay $0, I'd just not renew or whatever.

In general, poor folks aren't going to cheat. If money's tight, they should pay less, that's not cheating it's just sliding the scale to meet them where they are.

Whether you are cleaning toilets, flipping burgers, staffing a call center, or any other thankless job out there, you still deserve your dignity. We as a society have decided we think the job you do is important enough to pay someone to do it. You should be able to live your life on that pay. Or even if you are unpaid because you are a refugee, stay at home mom, student, or anything else, you are still a member of my community. You are still my neighbor. And therefore it's worth making sure you are surviving with dignity.

Oh no, in SF, tenants get automatic lease extensions month-to-month at the original rate (adjusted downward for free weeks etc.) with annual increases capped at 7% (by the state). I've never sign a lease past the initial one. So if they were doing poorly, and this let them go to a bootcamp or whatever, they'd likely just want to stay and I can't do anything about that.

Interesting, I was under the impression that month to month leases were automatically continued and rent increases were sharply limited, but a landlord could indicate they would not be renewing the lease with 60 days notice.

Ah no. You have to do the move-in / rebuild / demolish no-fault thing or you have to do the with-fault thing for which the tenant has to have fucked up.