this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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LOL. Try owning a house. The mortgage is just the start of costs.
People always say this as if renting isn’t the exact same way but without the benefit of equity.
Whatever it is you’re paying for when it comes to your house, (Mortage, taxes, insurance, roof repairs, etc) the renter is also paying. Landlords do not “eat” any of the costs associated with owning a house. The renters pay for everything through rent.
I've left a ton of comments in this thread that essentially boil down to this. You're exactly right. Owning a property comes with some operational costs, renting it out adds some operational costs too, but the whole point of being a landlord is that rent exceeds the sum of the operational costs, then there is some surplus that goes toward covering the capital expense of buying the property in the first place; once the capital is paid off, that surplus is pure profit that goes to the landlord for providing absolutely 0 value to the world.
That's not what Lemmy wants to hear. These people want 6 figure salaries , 'work' from home 3 days a week and endless weed.
If you own a condo, and that condo roof caves in, everyone gets a $20,000 bill. If you own a rental property and are not giving away rooms for free, you are stealing. The $8000-9000 municiple taxes, utilities, upkeep, are all supposed to be paid by the landlord at a net loss.
Clueless. A new roof is $25,000, a water heater is $2000+, and the list goes on and on, and " The renters pay for everything through rent." is bullshit from some kids who have lived with their parents their whole lives and are upset when they can't smoke weed on the couch all day.
What these losers want is to live with no responsibility and point fingers to anyone who does. I got out of renting for this reason, and I never made money to make it worthwhile, so I can see why so many are leaving housing empty rather that fighting self-entitled assholes who don't even clean where they live.
Can you link to the comment where anyone said this? On my own, all I've said is that if you do rent out a property and generate a profit, that profit is appropriated surplus value.
I say this all the time as some who has bought/sold two houses and is currently a renter.
It IS really nice having the "forced savings" of buying a house, and knowing that if you pay off enough and SHTF you can always sell for a chunk of change, but holy shit, people VASTLY underestimate the maintenance costs.
Most people think: "Haha, I would rather have a $10K roof replacement every 20 years" or "I could handle a $1K water heater NBD", but its not that. At all.
We had a pipe bust underneath our house that home insurance wouldn't cover because it didn't directly affect the house itself, and that was an unexpected $30K hit and digging under our home in multiple locations. People like to tout the foundation/roof being good, but I'm telling everyone, dont sleep on the hydrostatic leak tests. And if I ever buy a house again, that is something I'll get done like every other year, because our pipe burst after we had owned the home for over 10 years.
Right now though, I am HAPPY knowing that the only "emergency" I'd have to cover would be vehicle issues, and my savings are going to largely stay my savings.
Building codes have changed a lot in the past 50ish years. Besides being cheaper to buy, houses also required more easily attainable tools/skills to build/maintain.
For real.
$2800/m total with insurance, taxes.
$400 of that goes to principal. The rest is burnt.
120 year old house.
then a pipe bursts and you send the bill to the tenants? right? and put them up in hotel? 17 upvotes can't be wrong!
Math is hard.
Much easier to just be ignorantly outraged about how anyone who owns a home is an evil leech on society, or something.
it couldn't be that some people are shitheads and would remain shitheads regardless of they own or rent or are landlords. and that most people are just trying to get buy best they can and dealing with a complex housing system and often sometimes their self-interest in in conflict with other people's self interest.
Oh no my free money machine sometimes needs some of the free money it makes me so I don't get to keep all of it
WHY AREN'T YOU PIECE OF SHIT PEASANTS CRYING FOR ME???
houses aren't free money machines. they are very costly to own. but you are clearly ignorant of the responsibilities of home ownership and the complexities involved.
If houses were costly to own (and rent out), landlords wouldn't exist.
It is quite literally a free money machine that rewards you with money for simply having money to begin with. So much so that the term “rent seeking” was popularized to refer to things outside of real estate that are designed to extract wealth from other people without providing any actual value in return.
so a warm house , water and roof has no value.
Whether or not I'm ignorant of a thing I literally just commented on, you're pressing a point as if it weren't literally just commented on.
It's because you've developed such a sickening degree of entitlement you think you can just say shit. When you become a parasite you become an objectively bad person, and it's not just limited to your rent seeking. It infects your whole personality.
Behold.
pretty much. the person you are replying to is entirely delusional and has decided 'money is evil' so therefore they shouldn't ever have to pay anyone for anything.
And yet I wonder if they go into the grocery store and steal food... probably not. it's almost as if they are just rhetorically grandstanding to feel superior to us 'idiots' who think money isn't 'evil' and can don't vastly overgeneralize everyone who we don't identify with in this very moment. I've been a renter, an owner, and a landlord, and I've been poor and I've been middle-class. I have not been wealthy, and I never aspired to be wealthy.
apparently when i was a starving student i was a good person! but the second i got a decent income and was able to live in a nicer place and eventually buy a place, which i could only afford at first by renting out the spare bedroom, i cross over into becoming an evil greedy capitalist villain who is destroying and oppressing my former self, or something.
Money isn't itself evil. Appropriating surplus value is what's being criticized.
Did you mess up your whole bit in the first sentence? The person I'm replying to or the one you're replying to?
And apparently 'money is evil' isn't something widely believed anymore?
I am fully in support of people stealing food from the grocery store if they can get away with it. Not even just poor people. Everyone should steal from the grocery store.
A puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
Oh. So you used someone else's money to buy something for yourself because you had the advantageous position in a society that deliberately limits housing so that it can be commodified. You both lived and worked and payed into the mortgage, but you were putting money from your hand into your pocket and he was just putting it in your pocket.
Is your morality limited to, and inclusive of all law? Is it moral because it's legal? You're not even attempting to provide a justification. You just say you're entitled.
ok, so if i come over and murder you and steal all your shit, you're perfectly OK with that? As long, as I think it's moral to do that, we're good right?
Good to know. All you are making an argument for is total chaos where everyone's feelings are all that matters, and it's ok to do whatever i want to anyone as long as any of us feel it's good to do that thing.
I bought a home and then rented my spare bedroom. No theft was involved and nobody's money was involved other than my own and my renters. I also paid taxes on my rental income. Taxes you benefit from and I'm sure I pay a lot more tax than you do.
So your answer to my question of justifying your morality is to hysterically rant that I'm saying there is no morality.
I'm glad you think you're coming off so well in this interaction that your affectation alone will make your point.