All too often, the landlords expect the renters to pay for maintenance. Not only do they often withhold deposits for regular wear and tear, you can even read threads here where the LLs are trying to get the renters to pay for pest control, new flooring, etc., even when the renters are not liable for it. If LLs are making a profit after all costs, then it’s the renters who are paying for all the maintenance, insurance, taxes, etc., even if they are paying it indirectly.
And the landlord is putting in labor/time, either to do the work themselves or to manage the jobs — Allah forbid they should make a profit for their effort.
Look on the flip side. What if the tenant WAS excessively rough on the floor, or a complete pig like one tenant of mine. Dishes in the sink for days, food crumbs and stickiness on the kitchen floor, dust bunnies that could eat a cat. Yep, she attracted roaches that were damned hard to get rid of — I didn’t take her deposit to pay for pest control, but perhaps I should have. This should really be a matter for the contract and for landlord/tenant court.
Lastly, your food example fails epically. Food supply is tied to land supply — that of good farmland, so it IS limited. Secondly, there may be small and large players in the SD housing market, but no one company like Monsanto is trying to corner it.[/quote]
Nobody’s asking the LL to invest in rentals. If s/he chooses to do so, that’s up to them, but they certainly shouldn’t act like they’re doing anyone any favors just because they do some basic maintenance. I’m sure most renters would prefer doing the maintenance on their *own* properties, instead; but they’re stuck in rentals because “investors” have pushed prices up so high for dwelling units they didn’t build and have no personal use for.
As for food, you can grow your own food, buy it from a farmer, import it from another country, etc. If a grocery chain (or group of grocery chains) decided to make it illegal for people to grow their own food, buy from farmers, or import it from other places; and/or if they forced people to have to buy food only from their stores, then it would be similar to what’s going on with the housing market and specuvestors.
As mentioned on the other post, investors **as a group** are moving the market. It doesn’t have to be one entity, and it doesn’t have to be coordinated for their actions to affect the market (though there is certainly some coordination between investors and banks — they have agreements as to their disposition plans).
