A Boring Dystopia

If it would destroy the economy if everyone did it, then it should not be doable in the first place.

I know people like this. They truly believe like they are doing society a favor by buying up houses and renting them out. The disconnect from reality is wild.

They act like everyone could do this.

If everyone did this, the system would fail, because the profit here is scooped off the top with no actual production or service.

All so that none of their tenants can afford any of those four things without constantly struggling!

Step one: Have a shitton of money to buy property to rent out.
Oh, you don't have enough money? Hhm, have you tried not being poor?

Landlords don't contribute to society

In the case of the screenshot, absolutely.

I have a question though, and I am curious about the perception here so please be honest as to what you think about my situation. (EDIT: I have received a few responses, and they are terribly informative of all of your perceptions. I want to thank you all for contributing your knowledge to my understanding, as I think by ingesting it, it has made me a better person. Thank you!)

In my case, I own a condo. I worked my ass off doing technical shift work and my parents were fortunate enough in their lives to give me a gift of $20,000 dollars in my local currency to try to buy a home. I am floored. I never thought I would afford the opportunity to potentially own a home of any kind.

I buy a small condo. Two bedrooms. One living room with an attached kitchen. The floors of the building are thin. I can hear my upstairs neighbors walking around and opening and closing doors and drawers at all hours. The insulation is bad, it is cold in winter and hot in summer. I am happy. I have a roof over my head, and I answer to no one for the walls, the fixtures, the plumbing.

I lose my job because the business I worked for fucked up and lost some clients. Because of the lack of cash flow, I and many others are laid off.

I hold on for as long as I can but eventually the cost of mortgage, insurance, groceries add up. I go on unemployment insurance. The economy is fucked because of covid, no one hires me for a year and 6 months.

My unemployment insurance runs out after having submitted 4 resumes daily this entire time, maintaining a log of them for the government EI program.

When I only have a couple thousand dollars left in my bank account, if I want to keep the ownership of my home, I have to move in with my parents again and rent my condo out to keep it at all. My dream of being able to just exist in a home I own is at stake.

The government EI program calls me in for questioning to insure I am a legitimate case. I feel some of the most stress and fear I have ever felt. Logically I know that I have been doing everything I can, but somehow I still feel guilty for having to take advantage of it. I perform the interview, I bring a document detailing the URLs, Descriptions, Dates, everything of every job I have been applying to. The interviewer shows shock on her face. I get the impression that the level of detail I have been maintaining is uncommon. They let me leave without incident.

For rent I charge the exact amount that I have to charge to cover mortgage and insurance, legally required, to maintain my the ownership of my home and nothing more, no profits. I have lived under abusive land lords before and the way they operate disgusts me. I will never be that, I would die before I let myself become that.

A Ukrainian family, Husband and Wife with their 3 year old Daughter are the first to apply. I discuss the property and their lives with them and they are some of the strongest, most responsible, wonderful people I have met in my life who came to my country to escape the situation in theirs. I accept them as my tenants immediately because I recognize how absurdly lucky I am to have these people living in my home, given how smart, how responsible, how kind they are. I promise to myself that at the first opportunity, I will show them the same kindness.

I finally find a job, even though it doesn't pay much, and begin reducing the cost of their rent because I can finally afford it. I begin paying rent to my parents because they are owed that. My bank account begins saving about $100 a month in case I have an emergency I need to cover.

The interest rates lower and condos begin to become cheaper. I intend to lower the cost of the rent based on this when my tenants renew the lease.

This is the last 5 years of my life.

Am I a leech?

I used to have my own place before my wife and I got married, and she had her own house too. When I moved in with her I decided to rent out my place to a friend, otherwise I'd have to still pay like $650 a month for my mortgage. I set my friends rent at $900 a month for him and a friend, with cats. I paid my mortgage and had some extra to save up in case a repair was needed. Average rent for an apartment (not a house) was 1200-1500 in the same area. My renters ended up taking better care of the house than I ever did. It was beautiful when they lived there. I ended up making about 5k to 10k extra bucks over the course of a few years and my mortgage was paid for me. Eventually they had to move out due to some issues between the two at which point I sold the house and made over six figures(net profit, not gross), off a house that cost less than $80,000 when I bought it.

See what I did there? I charged a reasonable rent and still made a totally stupid amount of money off of just one property. I wasn't a goddamn parasite who tried to bleed my tenants for everything they were worth.

People like these total shitbags. They're the reason why America's youth have no future

How is this legal.

Groceries and vacations aren't even liabilities. Fella doesn't understand accounting well enough to fake use it properly.

It's simple to be successful:

1. have rich parents that can give you money

2. have easy access to loan programs because you're white and have rich parents

I had to rant in a couple of comments because I drives me crazy when people defend leeching.

On a more constructive note: Housing cooperatives. I think they should be more widespread. Some people come together to build a house and then live in it for the cost it takes to actually support it. No crazy big apartments with a reasonable amount of people (roughly one bedroom per person), shared luxury such as gardens, in house shops, hell even a pool if you want. There is no leeching, just collective ownership.

How does the second tenant pay their mortgage? One apartment's rent should not be enough to cover the mortgage of four (or five - including the one they live in). My guess is that they only payed all the mortgages for these four properties and this is about the mortgage of the apartment they live in.

The cheat code to a stress-free life is to own lots of real estate to being with.

In reality, you would have needed to own these rental properties for decades to have enough cash flow in them to make you enough to live on AND pay for their mortgages, maintenance, insurance, taxes, and property management. Even if you do manage to get a rental property, it will likely initially lose money. These people are likely selling something else, which is the dream of that life. So, they want you to buy their course or something. These people are all the same. "Let me show you how I make X passive income, by selling courses about making passive income."

Born on third base. Thinks they hit a triple.

i've literally paid more in rent for my small apartment than the entire (5 unit) building is worth. i crossed that threshold years ago.

I worked in the rental industry for a minuet, and I left because the people in the industry do not think of their renters as people. To property owners, renters are objects that you put in a property to make the property generate money.

Any reason why we can't just change the tax code to make this thing less viable? We disincentive things all the time. Like we can carve out exemptions for situations and things I'm sure but like, this shouldn't be how to run a society.