I had an idea that would allow people to buy their own homes that they are currently renting:
- Every home gets appraised to determine what it would sell for. This is done by the county and is used for property taxes too.
- Every renter is allowed to buy a percentage of their primary residence from the owner. The owner has no choice in this. It’s a requirement for being able to rent a property. Edit: Since people are confused about this, the renter is not required to buy anything. They have an option to buy.
- Renters can pay as little as $100 extra per month and the county puts their percentage ownership on the deed. If the home is sold, the renter can’t be kicked out involuntarily. If they do leave, they get the percentage of home value they own.
Pros:
- This would avoid the issue of high interest rates hurting primary homeownership.
- This would blunt the impact of corporate landlords having a monopoly where they refuse to sell. They are forced to sell at a fair price.
- This would create a simple decision between owning their home and spending money on luxuries or eating out.
Cons:
- This would hurt small landlords who would have their property bought out from under them. This is actually a good thing because the benefits of rising property values are now shared.
- The implementation is hard. This is actually a good thing because bad landlords would sell property they didn’t want to manage, lowering prices for renters who want to buy.
- It would cost the county money to hire appraisers. But this could be paid for by increased property taxes due to better appraisals.
- Property taxes would go up for landlords. But this would be good, as it encourages them to sell the property. This appraisal process and increased property taxes wouldn’t affect people who just lived in their home without charging rent.
Yes, but one typically enters into a business partnership with people they know and trust. One isn’t supposed to really dive into the deeper characteristics of someone they rent to so as to avoid potential discrimination. Look at this the same way whoever you work for hires people. HR vets them and says, this person is who they say they are, and probably won’t burn the place down or singe-handedly put us out of business. Same for finding a renter for a property basically. Now how thrilled would you be to be forced to co-own a property with monetary and legal liability with your least favorite coworker for the next 20-40 years?
When the time comes to spend $20k to replace the roof on your shared home, you care about the home and want it done right and say, hey so-and-so, you got $10k for your half of the roof? So-and-so says nah, I actually don’t have any money, but me and my buddy can replace that roof ourselves for $5k in materials, so give us the $5k and we’ll do it and our half will be the labor even though neither of us are roofers. Same with landscaping. Painting. Plumbing. Flooring. All things that just need replacing with time, even if you take care of them. And now So-and-so lives in your home for 10 years, trashing it, never helping fix anything right, and making the place liveable, but not as great as it was before he moved in or as good as you wanted to make it. And now since he’s a renter still, he says, you know, this place isn’t as good as it was, I’m out. Now you not only get to pick up the full tab to get it up to snuff for the next renter, but you possibly get to do it all over again.
I bought my ex’s grandmother’s house after she passed that had a rental on it. I lived there for 2 months before we split, and that 2 months was enough landlording for a lifetime to me. That guy took advantage of everything possible, called me the middle of the night when power went out for the whole neighborhood, and after I left he brought home bedbugs. He had an arrangement to fix things around the place with her grandmother. None of that stuff was ever done. We had to threaten legal action for him to finish up what he actually had started. This is what your scenario allows to happen without penalty to the tenant.
Renters don’t all want to be property owners. They don’t want the responsibility of maintaining a property. I live in a condo because I dont want to mow lawns, worry about siding and shingles and fighting grub infestations and maintaining a parking area. Owning a single family home isn’t for me, and I’ve found a happy medium where I don’t rent, but I don’t have full responsibility. If you don’t want to be a property owner, you’re not going to be a good property owner and your neighbors will hate you for having the crappy house on the block. I’m sure you have one of those people in your neighborhood.
Again, we need people thinking about how to resolve the housing situation in many parts of the world, but forced business relationships aren’t good. UBI, social security, disability, food stamps, housing subsidies. People need the cash to live a life they can find comfortable. Let them buy, let them rent, whatever they feel comfortable doing. Set ordinances how much housing can be owned by people not using them as primary residence. They’re tough fights, but that’s what needs to be examined. I’m all for tenants’ rights, but they don’t have the same skin in the game as the owner. That doesn’t make them inferior in any way. But they don’t shoulder burden beyond making rent. And that can be a valuable thing. I could never see myself renting, but my brother on the other hand doesn’t seem to want to own a house. He does enough work doing construction he doesn’t want to deal with all that crap at home. I don’t blame him.
Home ownership sucks many times, and for someone to take a reasonable fee to bear that responsibility isn’t wrong. I pay a property management company $200/mo to enforce rules on me, but also my neighbors to make sure we don’t get that guy trashing things. They make sure the neighbor’s dryer lint doesn’t burn my house down. They negotiate the rate with the garbage man. They get the sidewalks cleared when it snows. So I pay someone to basically be my landlord even though I own my home. They provide a service, and if you get a crappy one, being a renter you can find a new one. I don’t get a choice, but thankfully my HOA is pretty decent all considered. They earn their money. Sometimes they tick me off, but they overall earn their fees. A good landlord is the same. I’m for having strict rules that they provide safe and clean spaces to live if they’re going to rent to others, but most are not faceless corporations, they’re regular people that have landlord as a day job or side gig. I know the heads of my HOA outside of that role, and they’re good people. As I said, sometimes they annoy me with decisions, but they have more people than just me to keep happy. A landlord is just another service provider and there are good ones and bad ones, and a lot of meh ones. If you rent, you get some choice at least in who it is.