And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn't moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially "downsizing" to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?

Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young'uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren't in a position to buy a house and wouldn't want to.

This whole "no good landlords" reeks of the same mentality as "no good lawyers." Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (12 children)

This whole "no good landlords" reeks of the same mentality as "no good lawyers."

Not the same at all, as lawyers do work to get paid.

Landlords rent-seek by charging access to important and scarce property that they themselves don't use. They extract value through ownership alone, and add no labor value of their own to the process, that the tenants as owners couldn't do for themselves.

If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?

What gives you the right to these people's paychecks? If you're not using it, then sell it, and don't rent-seek.

There is nothing defensible about being a landlord. Its not exactly the same as owning slaves or owning capital, but all three are based on absentee ownership and extracting value from working people.

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