Mastodawn

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)

Who are these people that supposedly prefer to rent? The only good thing about renting is that, in theory, if something breaks its someone else's problem to get it fixed. But in practice what happens is that you now have an obnoxious middle man in between you and getting the problem fixed and they can just decide fixing it isn't one of their priorities and you just get to deal with shit being broken

So who. Who actually enjoys renting when they intend to stay somewhere long term? Feel like this is just some bullshit landlords came up with to justify why renting is okay and people fell for their propaganda

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

"Oh but you can leave any time your lease is up and that gives you freedom"

Uh-huh. And your landlord can decide not to renew your lease any time it's up too, so that's cool. Don't think a lot of people are super into feeling housing insecure on a yearly basis

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

And if you have a great landlord and or your apartment is rent controlled then that's great but that maybe means you prefer renting in that specific context but that's not exactly the default context so I feel like that ain't "I prefer renting (in general)"

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

Renting is, generally, fucking miserable and you don't get your money back out when you leave. Not even your fucking deposit. So I call bullshit. This whole thing smacks of "10 reasons why working from home is overrated" propaganda

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

Idk man I just really hate when people make up a fictional guy who somehow prefers renting when people point out genuine structural problems with the very concept of landlord existing

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

I think maybe people don't understand what the word "prefers" implies. Like if I prefer to travel by train but visiting my mom would take a week by train and 5 hours by plane then I can still take the plane and it doesn't mean I prefer to travel via air

If you're somewhere temporarily so buying doesn't make sense you still prefer to own. If you're moving to a new area and want to rent while you orient yourself before committing to buy, you still prefer to own. If you want to own a place but it's in the bay area and you can only afford a rent controlled apartment then you still prefer to own

smallfreak Jul 20, 2023

@eniko
In the end, all that matters is what you do, not what you prefer. And there is no such thing like "without alternatives". Each and every decision is a decision against at least one possible alternative - that you just don't like that much.

Michael Tea Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Great examples of usage of the word 'prefer' 😎

Jason Maltzen Jul 20, 2023

@eniko This has me thinking: landlord is a title obviously derived from old feudal nobility, and should have been thrown out as a concept at the same time as the other feudal lords.

yelling jackal Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Personally I do prefer renting. With ADHD and some other disabilities owning honestly seems like my worst nightmare, there's a high chance I'd ruin the place structurally just by not being able to like... get myself to employ someone else to do maintenance (and then get stuck with so much debt with nothing to show for it but more debt ey).

But there's a huge BUT there. Landlord can't throw me out. Landlord can't make large increases to rent. Other than like... structural changes we can do what we like with the place (paint, curtains, lighting, garden, flooring etc.). Landlord is responsible for fixing stuff and there's places we can go to to hold them accountable for it if they decide to be asses.

All of this is possible due to strict laws that are actually enforced, and honestly I'd prefer landlord not existing even with this structure. Just let it all be social housing. And even WITH those protections in place I'm still not going to ever rent from a singular landlord again. Either social or a company. (And in the country I'm currently in the cost of renting if you can't apply for social housing for whatever reason is so much that it's advised to just buy anyway if you're planning on staying somewhere for 5+ years. Mortgage is often cheaper.)

I've rented in other countries and in those contexts it's an instant "nope, buying is better" every single time because the freedom to just live is so restricted. It's stupid how different it is when there's halfway decent renters protection laws enforced.

Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷Jul 20, 2023

@eniko There are genuine reasons to prefer renting. Maybe you are happy with one room, and don’t want to spend more than you need to. Maybe you hate being responsible for repairs, insurance, redecorating and all the other hassles that come with owning. Maybe you like to change locations every few months…

MonstersGoBoom Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I guess I've been lucky, I've always gotten my deposit back.
I'm renting currently because we're not planning to stay in this town in a year or two.
I'd love to buy a place when I find "home".

MonstersGoBoom Jul 20, 2023

@eniko plus the last place I owned, took a LONG time to sell when I had to leave town for a job, so I had to pay rent and mortgage for a couple of months.
obviously remote work alleviates that worry, but it still burned me.

MonstersGoBoom Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I did try and buy a place a few years ago, I earned enough for the mortgage but because my partner can't work, it got complicated and they wouldn't approve us as a unit, only I was approved, but also they tried to up the costs because of that. totally fucked up situation.

Muro deGrizeco Jul 20, 2023

This is truth.

It was a year or two after we left our old apartment when we realized the landlord had quietly not paid us back the pet deposit for the cat.

It was years ago. The cat, bless her, has since died. Maybe the landlord too, by now.

I wish I'd asked our cat to go pee on the landlord's stuff in the afterlife.

"He owes us a few hundred dollars still, kitty. Find that jerk and go soak everything!"

Andreas Jul 21, 2023

@eniko Wait. There are landlords that DON'T give you your deposit back?

Where I am that would be considered illegal. Germany has a renting quota of around 60%, but renters here have a whole bunch of protections they don't seem to have elsewhere is the main lesson I've been taking away from renting discourse over these past few years.

Tom Forsyth Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Yeah it's like arguing you prefer staying in hotels. Like OK dude, but that's just you.

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

@TomF yeah its like... do people not know what a preference is? Like. Sometimes people do deviate from their preferences because something else is more important, but that doesn't change the preference

Ölbaum Jul 21, 2023

@eniko @TomF Well, I prefer living in a place for free, but that’s not possible. Does that indicate the problem is that housing is not free?

Tom Forsyth Jul 22, 2023

@oscherler @eniko No.

Disaster, Gay of Crisis Jul 20, 2023

@eniko also there's no guarentee that the landlord just won't sell to a major property group. That's what happened in New Jersey, we had a ton of small landlord companies eventually get bought by big named multi-state property groups that immediately raised the rent.

Kinjal Kishor Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Yes this the truth in practice.

Kinjal Kishor Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I was paying guest with such great family for 10 years that they are like second family of mine. Their house was also very good. Never find such combo again.

Dwemthy Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I have never had a landlord actually renew a lease. After the initial term it just becomes a month to month ongoing thing. Had to move on NYE one year because on Dec 1 landlord told us he was selling and we had to get out in 30 days.

novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I mean, I think the crucial bit is that you said "for long term housing" in your original post. Most people are thinking about short term housing (maybe they move often for jobs, or they want to rent a place near their university, or they just don't like being tied down to one place) when they say they prefer renting for the freedom. Because yeah, even with the added risk of the lease not being renewed, if you're only staying somewhere for a year or so, the benefit of only having to rent instead of buy an entire new house is MASSIVE, and totally outweighs the risk. I know because that's my situation.

gumbyscout Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Landlords and realtors are the biggest lobbying groups in the USA, so anything you hear published that is about people loving boots on their neck, they probably had a hand in it.

The dishwasher in my apartment had it's bottom arm pop off and melt to the heating element the first week I was here, took them two weeks to come and pop the melted arm back on and say it was good enough. This was after me having to email and call. Definitely no convenience here.

Serenus Jul 20, 2023

@eniko It’s also useful if you’re staying in an area short term, I guess? Like university students staying near campus. Can’t imagine anyone preferring it as a long term option, though.

Gabe K Jul 20, 2023

@eniko It can be nice to essentially “try out” living in a certain area or with a certain level of accommodation. But that really only works if you have the privilege/up-front capital to support an experiment like that. And it also doesn’t justify how shitty most landlords are, as you’ve mentioned. It’s scuffed for sure

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

@dabe yeah but that doesn't mean you prefer to rent. Rent is just the only option available if you're not quite ready to commit to buying. Your goal in that scenario is to buy a place so clearly that is the preferred option

@eniko is 3y long term or short term ? my mom's job requires her to be in a single place between 3 to 8 years, and she tried going with buying places then selling at first but it wasn't really working bc finding ppl to get new house is hard and would need money to get new one, so at one point she just snapped and went with rent instead

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

@SRAZKVT that sounds a lot more like buying is logistically untenable so she rents not that she prefers to rent

@eniko yea she doesn't like it, the previous two landlords we had were uhhh not great, and the current one is uh, not looking great either

OkazuYuri Jul 20, 2023

@eniko We actually wanted to rent when we moved here, but rents were so high at the time, a mortgage was cheaper, so we bought a house.

OkazuYuri Jul 20, 2023

@eniko That was 20 years ago, though. I expect both renting and buying a house here are much more nightmarish.

GlaireDaggers Jul 20, 2023

@eniko our apartment got a leak in the roof several months ago and it developed into a big ass hole. It took them nearly a month to even look at it, and they didn't do shit about it and still haven't and now we've moved out.

lulolwen Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Devil's advocate / American Moment: in dense housing (like a large/multi-story apartment building), I'd rather rent than own a condo unit or something. It seems like getting all condo owners in a building to agree to fund maintenance on buildings is often impossible and results in _no_ maintenance being funded (even critical structural maintenance), instead of the bare-minimum that rental units receive. I'd rather the building I'm in not collapse.

Still sucks all around though.

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

@lulolwen okay but that doesn't mean you prefer to rent, just that safety considerations are changing your calculus

lulolwen Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I guess? I guess it comes down to "prefer" vs "enjoy"- I prefer the option where the building doesn't collapse, but I definitely don't enjoy any of them.

Jacqueline Jul 20, 2023

@eniko yeah I've had to spend my own money to fix critical shit that the landlord refused to do anything enough time to know that you're right and it *never* works out well in practice lol

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

@krypt_skiddy I mean its a relationship where one party is financially incentivized to *not* fix shit

Neil E. Hodges Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Sounds like renters with Stockholm syndrome.

Berkubernetus Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Depends on what you mean by "prefer". Like ... we currently prefer to rent, *because* we have a good landlord and because home buying prices in Portland are ridonculous now. But if either of those wasn't true, we'd be homeowners already.

So ... "prefering" to rent is always driven by a high cost of ownership.

Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)Jul 20, 2023

@fuzzychef if you would rather own than rent if all things are equal then you prefer owning over renting

Berkubernetus Jul 20, 2023

@eniko yeah, by that definition, the only people who prefer renting are "digital nomads".

Piper has moved Jul 20, 2023

@eniko There's value in convenience. But if there's any convenience in renting that's not accessible in owning, that just proves there's an unrealized market. I know property maintenance as a service exists because landlords use them. What renting does is lock you into a package deal. You can live in this house, but you HAVE to have whatever was the cheapest people your landlord could find to do maintenance (and the landlord is taking a cut, too).

Eric Eggert Jul 20, 2023

@eniko I strongly prefer to rent, but I also know that renters in Germany have vastly different (better) rights compared to most other countries. For example, I can withhold part of the rent if something doesn’t get fixed. (Never needed to do that.) And landlords cannot just terminate the contract, only in very narrow circumstances.

Eric Eggert Jul 20, 2023

@eniko Also I strongly prefer _not_ to own. I wouldn’t want the mortgage burden, and I have no one who I need to accrue wealth for, so owning means nothing to me. Plus there is always so much that needs to be done when you own to keep things in shape, I don’t want to care about that. Mowing the lawn? Someone else’s problem. Cutting hedges? Someone else’s problem. New paint for the house? Someone else’s problem. (But again, highly individualistic.)

Ciggy Bringer of Smoke Jul 20, 2023

@eniko this exact scenario is the only time i lament being in a co-op where anything inside your unit in terms of appliance is yours to replace or fix.

Oven went out in late 2019, stove still worked. After scraping together savings and making a budget to accrue more savings for replacement that included a few other updates and upgrades since we were gonna be moving one major appliance...

Covid hit, I lost my job, and from late 2019 to March 2023 we didnt have an oven and it sucked and was stupidly expensive with everything we had to do to supplement or replace the function of it but not as expensive as all the planned replacements were going to ring out to...which were predicated on a reliable stable job which I didnt have.

We eventually did just replace oven and sink and left everything else alone but it took a contract with signing bonus and absurd hourly before we agreed to part with the cash money for it.

Blue Appaloosa Jul 20, 2023

@eniko So l was talking to someone the other day, in her 60's, has owned homes before, and she just doesn't want the hassle of home ownership anymore. She doesn't need a huge space, prefers someone else handle yardwork/maintenance/etc so she can just enjoy living. She's capable of doing that stuff still, just doesn't want to.

Now, I'm not saying all landlords are good about keeping up on maintenance/etc, but that's what she wants. So yeah, there are people who might prefer to rent. Maybe not *most* people, and definitely not as many people as there are places to rent. But there are and will always be some.

Alexander The 1st Jul 20, 2023

@eniko For me, when things break, I can often ask my landlord (Who is often out of town) to just reimburse me for the fixes - often by just reducing it from the rent.

But yeah - there are some fixes that I know they'd need to handle that have...been on waiting until the last possible situation.

Sam Seltzer-Johnston Jul 20, 2023

@eniko renting generally sucks, though I've been lucky all considering. I'm content enough with my landlord and this year is the first time in 5 years that they've raised rent (and it was such a small amount compared to inflation). That said, it's all money down the drain. I can't sell the apartment later and get any of that rent money back. It's just gone forever. :/

Martijn Frazer Jul 20, 2023

@eniko What I do prefer though: not being in debt.

Brianna Townsend Jul 20, 2023

@Tijn @eniko not having debt seems like a nice draw but if you're going to spend $1500 per month for where you live regardless...

W/ a mortgage: this money is purchasing 1/360th of your house in the form of equity. Barring a housing crash that money just goes right into your net worth, right back into your pocket, and is recoverable in part if you sell. A fixed mortgage can never change either.

W/renting: that money disappears into the ether forever. And can cost more wildly year to year.

Martijn Frazer Jul 20, 2023

@britown @eniko Yeah, for sure.

But still, having tons of debt seems scary as hell.

ferunando Jul 20, 2023

@eniko i'm personally scared shitless of the /concept/ of a mortgage. like, just /thinking/ about having a loan with a 20ish years term gives me so much anxiety. /rationally/ i know it's bullshit, but the anxiety won't go away 🥹

renting /is/ stressful but it's a kind of stress i'm used to. i guess i'm just that scared of change?

bitcrush.io Jul 21, 2023

@eniko I'll bet they're the same imaginary people who "love their health insurance."

Looking forward to abolishing them both.

Baron Von Scrub Jul 21, 2023

@eniko I fall into that camp of "Not wanting to stay X long term". I'm kinda anti-materialist these days and like to stay as unattached and un-tied-down as possible.

But for that majority who do prioritise that stability, yeah, ownership is a no-brainer. Even when I was in a different place in life, looking to settle down with my then-partner, buying was the obvious choice.

Kevin Granade has moved Jul 21, 2023

@eniko yea I have an incredibly strong preference for buying but I just got handed a two week deadline to move, so I'm renting ;_;