Graffiti seen in Barcelona, Catalonia
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You have to realise that landlords aren't the plague. They're the buboes. A symptom.
If you can take your spare money (a concept from days gone by, I know), buy a house for X, rent it out for Y a month, then finally sell it in 20 years for Z, and be 99.99% guaranteed to make more money from it than you can from pretty much any other source, then why wouldn't you?
Remove the incentive for that (homes that don't go up by more than the inflation rate), there will be no need for them to exist.
But in any case, the size of the building projects required would likely be government level anyway, and they can be the "landlord" for anyone not wanting to buy. This was called council houses in the olden days, before Maggie Thatcher killed that.
one home per person, no homes owned by businesses
apartment buildings become condos, each unit owned by a person to do with as they please
woodchip any business owners who fight back against the new regulation
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The landlords aren't doing anything wrong, if the market price is too high you have to increase supply it's that easy.
ethically wrong or legally wrong?
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I know at least one city in France taking measures to severely limit Airbnb, because it's becoming a ghost town and people who actually work there can't find anywhere to live. The housing situation in the area is terrible.
Good for them. I already can't stand "professional" landlords that get into the business of shitting over places people need to live to maximise profit. Those who are taking over those spaces to turn them into fake hotels without the constraints are the lowest of that scum.
Governments let them do it.
I wonder why we pay taxes to people who actively work against common interests for the benefit of the few.
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What I don't get is why the people of Barcelona want tourists out. That's such a dumb knee-jerk reaction imho. Tourism is not the problem. In fact it's a major revenue for the city. They could use it to build affordable housing for locals. The government could put a cap on rent and similar restrictions on whatever Airbnb arrangements. If it's not more profitable to give out one's property for short term rentals then the trend will fade. If someone can explain the current anti-tourism stance as opposed to a push for alternative measures I'd appreciate it.
Tourism is cancer
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People who can no longer afford their mortgages because they suddenly can't leech of off working people can go fuck themselves.
"There's a great place to go when you're broke: to work!"
- big time landlord and big time conservative asshole (but I repeat myself) Dave Ramsey.
Luckily all these rugged individual landlords already know exactly where their boot straps are! Right??
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Do those rentals still exist?
No because they dont really work.
You wouldn't want randos in your house like that
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ethically wrong or legally wrong?
I mean my statement is pretty broad, there might be some landlords somewhere who do things that are either ethically or legally wrong. But in general they aren't doing either.
Landlords are people who invest their money and time in housing and just like any investment they want it to be profitable.
If it's too profitable it's not their fault, it's that we have to build more houses, have better transportation and better public housing to ease off pressure on the private market, not kill all landlords. -
The landlords aren't doing anything wrong, if the market price is too high you have to increase supply it's that easy.
They certainly aren't doing anything unexpected.
But, the word "wrong" carries an implication of moral judgment, and most people here are gonna disagree with you on that one.
That is one of the reasons conservatives are so gung-ho on rugged individualism and individual responsibility while being against regulation. In public they get to tell supporters that they are all strong smart boys who can make their own decisions, while also implying that "others" in disadvantaged groups are in their situations due to character flaws and subhuman status. In private they get to ruin the world and apparently prey on children pretty often because the people impose no rules on them.
Large numbers of individuals are easy for them to manipulate. Written laws and regulations are much less so, even though not impervious.
Edit to add:
This whole "they are behaving as expected == they are not doing anything wrong" attitude from the right quickly morphs into "they are a business, not a charity" and other similar sayings.
That flawed reasoning plus a few more leaps in logic then leads to seeing profitability as an indicator of morality.
And even THAT infiltrates personal lives. Resting for mental & physical health instead of building a skill or starting a side hustle? Laziness! Wasted hours of your life!
Spend some time and money on a hobby that brings joy to your life and gives you a reason to exercise? Wasteful! Selfish! Foolish! Just think of what that money could have done in the market h while you chose a better hobby that could scale into something profitable!!
Whoa whoa hold the fuck up. What do you mean that you intentionally lose money on your hobbies!? What kind of god-fearing red-blooded american just tosses aside the Rules of Acquisition so carelessly?
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Cute. Who protects the property? Mutual Aid sounds nice on paper. The truth of human nature is that the strong will take anything you work to build.
We do.
Unlike people like you, anarchists are responsible people in society. -
Did you ask to pay more for rent or a house? Didn't think so.
Did your landlord/seller raise prices 'cos The Market
allows them to be greedy bastards? I'd bet so.
Maybe a picture will help: replace "refugees" with wichever group you want to blame for rising prices.
I was ready to pay more as my salary is much higher than an average salary from a local company (and I know, my gf has a local salary).
Remove the higher salaries from a place and rents will drop as nobody can afford higher rents. They did during covid, when a lot of people left Barcelona.
And let's be honest, I came from a good work situation to another good work situation, my move has nothing to do with being a refugee.
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Hello,
Not sure if you're still in Barcelona, but there is [email protected]
Not anymore, recently left. Honestly tourism and it's many side effects was one of the motivating factors.
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Not anymore, recently left. Honestly tourism and it's many side effects was one of the motivating factors.
I definitely get that. Are you still in Spain or have you moved abroad ?
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>0 bedroom 1 bath
the fuck
In Seattle we call these studio apartments, I learned reading this thread that it's not a normal thing. My friends that live in one can't cook without their bed absorbing the smell.
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"There's a great place to go when you're broke: to work!"
- big time landlord and big time conservative asshole (but I repeat myself) Dave Ramsey.
Luckily all these rugged individual landlords already know exactly where their boot straps are! Right??
Is he hiring? Is he willing to pay a reasonable living wage?
If not he should STFU.
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People who can no longer afford their mortgages would disagree with you.
Ban landlord culture and property prices drop.
Kinda sucks for those already with a mortgage. Defending rental culture because someone might lose out now only guarantees that an ever increasing majority lose out in the future.
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And this is why governemental regulation is the only way and why capitalism has its problems: Capitalists blaming the consumenr for the existing market. People will use the offer the capitalists create for them if it is convenient for them and they draw an advantage from it. Of course you can always blame the consumer, and protect the guy who out of pure compassion creates a market that destroys our world even faster. But hey, at least someone profitet from it in the meanwhile.
Im blaming the consumer for creating the market, because thats how markets work. You all might not want to think of yourselves as cunts, and that youre just the victims. But thats just a cozy little lie you tell yourselves. That fact is, you dont all fall over yourselves to buy, and there wont be a lot of people buying up homes to put them on airbnb.
Like I said, the scalper argument all over again, with the same "Its not my fault" attitude judging by the downvotes. If you dont get all those idiots buying playstations are 3 and 4 times the prices from Scalpers, then you dont get any scalpers buying up all the stock to make that profit.
Are we all children? We need mommy and daddy hold our hands? We cant just stop contributing to our own problems by ourselves? Are you all really that weak and pathetic?
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What about induced demand?
What about it?
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I'd agree with you a lot more if AirBnB wasn't a lot cheaper than any hotel or other travel accommodation. A town that relies on tourism might be different, but in the USA I save about $100 and get a more private place to stay.
And in there lies the rub. You can have somewhere cheap to stay, but the cost of housing go up everywhere. Or, you pay the extra hundred, and housing is more affordable for everyone.
This is what I mean by the scalper argument. Everyone wants a playstation, and some will 3 and 4 times the price for it. So now no one gets one, because the scalper buy up all the stock. In this case, you want to save 100 bucks. The knock on effect of that is that is that it contributes to increased cost of housing, and millions of people not being able to afford one.
I wouldnt worry too much. Looking at me downvotes, no one wants to blame you anyway. They are happy to just blame airbnb, and demand government regulation. Its pretty pathetic really.
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Looks like someone didn't read the news.
Can you link to the news you refer to? I also seem to haven't read it
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They banned airbnb in victoria bc last year and rent here has actually went down. From this one single change.
Was there tourism in Victoria and what happened to it after the ban? I'm not clever enough to predict what exactly the consequences might be, but I was always interested in what could happen from banning all short-term rental (although maybe that's not the case?)
