I notice that over the past maybe decade, I see a very negative sentiment towards landlords (in the UK), people seem to fucking hate them, it's like a dirty word, rents are higher than ever, but fiat inflation is to blame for that, not that Joe pleb cares to understand.
Now, while there are scumbag landlords, there are also scumbag tenants, but that fact is also lost.
So for the older stackers, was it always like this? Like in the 80, 90s etc or is everything just being amplified by social media? Like just another aspect of the culture wars?
I think hating on landlords has increased if for no other reason than that rent is taking a larger portion of renters' income.
source
When things go bad, you want to blame someone, and the obvious easy target is the person who you have to pay the higher rent to.
this also makes sense, especially when you are old enopugh to remember rent not taking up such a large percentage
Block discusses slumlords in his great book Defending the Undefendable, which I believe is from the 70’s.
1976, to be exact! Seems like a good contrarian book! It's available in PDF. When I have time, I’ll take a look. Thanks for the suggestion!
It’s a quick easy read and can be read in small chunks.
this is a good one, reminds me of a scooby doo episode and when they take the mask of, it was the government all along!
It might have always been so. In movies they're often the bad guy kicking out the innocent family.
In Australia real estate is a mess. People have used negative gearing to buy either multiple properties or properties they can't afford. When interest rates went up a few years ago landlords were caught out being over leveraged and simply passed the extra costs onto the tenants.
I feel like the attitude towards landlords is getting worse. When the pendulum swings the other way (post Trump) landlords could be in real trouble.
makes me think of the old Russian posters with a capitalist pig and a monicle lol
Something similar happened in 2008 tho didnt it, with people taking on too big mortgages and getting wiped out.
shit, my dad had 6 houses in the 90s and there was some bank crisis then and he lost them all and we almost ended up homeless when the bank tried to come after the house we lived in too.
i've seen some viral videos in auz of lines around the block of people waiting to view a property, looks very dystopian
Inflation is not to blame. Excess bank lending is to blame.
Which is driven by investors who want to make passive income from ordinary joes wanting a roof over their head.
Nobody is forcing these people to leverage up and keep increasing prices bidding against others with monopoly money. Now interest rates rise and they gotta increase the rent because they overpaid.
Ordinary joe just wants to live a peaceful life but the greedy leaches keep leaching.
Burn it all down.
I see a general increase in hatred of everything because people are f-Ing miserable
like a tide of misery rising all boats
I remember in the early 2000s rent and mortgage payments weren't far from being at parity. And without the same amount of landlord taxation back then it was pretty obvious that as a tenant you were essentially working to buy the landlord your home while they sat on the beach counting the size of their property portfolio.
In respect of my feelings towards landlords, I didn't find the situation particularly endearing. I had opportunities later to become a landlord but I would've felt dirty.
While I don't have sympathy for them nowadays, things aren't as easy. The state saw its opportunity to skim off their profits and so its not such a free ride.
The tenants are still slaves to the system though, and they know they are, they should just direct their resentment towards the state (i.e. the central banking system)
Landlords have always been one of the top villains to leftists
I think it depends. Personally, I have experienced some frustration with them when trying to purchase a home in a very particular area within the US. They squat on family homes in good neighborhoods making it difficult to purchase a home in that area. When a select few do eventually decide to sell the home they list it for an astronomical price and the house itself is in such poor condition. They should really limit how many homes a landlord can posses within a given area.
Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.