If the government owned the properties, they’d have the full income from them. The only reason I’d see why they allow private landlords is so they can continue hogging the income when they’re no longer in politics.

Furthermore, private landlords ruin the government’s ability to do adequate city planning. You have cities like Dublin, a vastly overpopulated capital city, which has extreme low rise buildings all over the city center. And anyone in the country can veto a building scheme, so people abuse it to keep the prices of their own property high or just to sabotage the competition. It’s mad. It’s so stupid.

I also hate how people keep being forced or refuse to leave the wrong housing type, e.g. strangers forced to live together in family units, which further hogs said family units from families who obviously need them. Old people living alone in very oversized family units, complaining about feeling lonely. Single adults should always be able to live alone. Family units should prioritize families instead of making up prices which can only be afforded by many adult strangers living together. Old people would highly benefit from independent elder housing which isn’t oversized and features common areas where they could socialize with each other (a model forced onto the young people, which hurts them, I believe would really benefit the elderly - of course done humanely, since no one should have to worry about bathroom access due to people who live around them etc.).

Post sponsored by my first time living alone, but the apartment is a mess and I fear reporting all to the landlady who is apathetic (e.g. told me to get a cable extender when the power socket isn’t working). My water heater has been leaking for ages and only tomorrow I might get someone to fix it. I hate people who simp for (private) landlords. If I owned my housing, I wouldn’t fear going homeless and wouldn’t had had to move countries!

  • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    This addresses your question under the heading ‘First Principles’

    Basically:

    1. lower barrier to entry and exit than social housing or buying

    2. attracts investors to housing stock

  • Comradesexual@lemmygrad.mlOP
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    9 months ago

    Not sure how it works in other countries, but in Ireland landlords evading tax is extremely common, so not only does the gov get less income from the properties, they frequently don’t get any, WHILE people claim tax subsidy for the rent.

    • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
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      9 months ago

      Even here in the netherlands, every single apartment I got or accepted my request for a viewing was blatantly evading taxes. I spent my first year here as an emotional mess because of how much instability their attempts at tax evading forced upon the tenant.

      I only managed to get a stable studio by turning to a corporate landlord would couldn’t screw around with the legal system because they would be caught right away. That’s how bad it has gotten here.

      • Comradesexual@lemmygrad.mlOP
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        9 months ago

        That’s why I hate when people are like uwu uwu smol bean small time landlords are okii uwu. No, they’re the worst. They treat the tenants the worst and are the most likely to tax evade. Corporate don’t do that AND they treat the tenants well, because they know the law. Corporate landlords are a proof of concept for how government “landlording” would work - but this time without the money getting wasted.

        • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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          9 months ago

          Similar to Amazon et al. Horrific to their employees today. But that level of efficiency deployed in service of the people would be a good tool under socialism.

        • bobs_guns@lemmygrad.ml
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          9 months ago

          Corporate are better with maintenance but they will never show an ounce of mercy if you don’t pay the rent on time. If you get lucky, that may not be the case with a non corpo landlord.

  • unperson [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    I’ve got a hang-over pet policy from when I was a baby leftist to abolish rents on land, but with a twist: Any exchange of money for the use of a property is a sale. It’s absolutely financial neoLIB bullshit but I can’t take it off my mind.

    The idea being that if, over time, you pay the landlord for maintenance + the value of the house, you get the title for the house, and this is the law and you can go to court, prove that you’ve paid for rent over however many years, and get the title of the house.

    If you leave before that there’d be some system where the “rent” payments are split equally and you get the value back from whoever is currently living there, because you’re selling your share to them. Since the payments are split equally minority “shareholders” leave first. If nobody lives there but you’re paying taxes and maintenance, you still paying for the house so you accrue shares of the house.

    I think it might be palatable for neolibs, destroy the value of homes for rent-seeking, but preserve it for construction, which is what libs always complain about when you talk about abolishing rent.

    • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.mlM
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      9 months ago

      I do not think so, atleast in the circles I am in with Neolibs, they will talk about how its the construction profits that they have to preserve untill you push harder on the rent itself then it all comes tumbling. and things like “It is not a bad thing to make a little money” come out. There is a fun thing libs do where they will say the nice sounding thing next to what they beilve if what they belive is too mean sounding

  • kot [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    9 months ago

    The governmemt is an entity that exists in service of the ruling class, not the other way around. It’s the liberals who think that the governmemt is this metaphysical entity that exists outside of class relations and which has or seeks absolute power. In reality it’s an institution propped up by the bourgeoisie to further their interests, and the only reason why internal political conflict happens is because different sections of the bourgeoisie want different things

  • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
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    9 months ago

    Silly Demoncracy, the government doesn’t care about effectiveness and smoothness or keeping the deficit in check, it exists to protect private property.