comment: >
  
  
  Whether they just don't care to fix the issues or are outright cruel, these landlords deserve scorn and scrutiny. I have no sympathy for them. And if the left was only criticizing these corrupt landlords I wouldn't take any issue with it.  
  Competent and decent land managers maintain their properties and ensure their tenants are safe- and, if there is a safety issue, work quickly to address it.
  
  There is an obvious third option here.
  Let's say that I own 20 properties, so I hire someone to actually manage the properties for a wage, and I fuck off to somewhere tropical to enjoy the rest of the profit from my properties.
  That's not neglectful, but still everything that is postitive about actual land management is done separately from the owner, and the landlord represents everything that is negative about it: pure profit-seeking just for being rich in the firtst place.
  The problem with yor idealized idea of a useful land manager, is that it's still just someone doing all that negative profit-seeking, and on top of that, does the useful labor by jumping in to do a waged manager's tasks.
  People don't have a problem with the managierial role part, but with the ownership and rent-seeking part.
  Let's say that I own 100 properties, and I actually need 5 people to handle them, including an overseeing manager in charge. I could hire five people and fuck off, or I could hire 4 people and stay on as the lead manager. But either way, I am ultimately some guy benefiting from being rich, the choice of whether or not I jump in to play the role of one of my own employees, is of little consequence to that.
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  Competent and decent land managers maintain their properties and ensure their tenants are safe- and, if there is a safety issue, work quickly to address it. It's not like they just buy up the land, do nothing, and get rich. They have to put in time and money to make their property a place people actually want to live and if they own, say, an apartment building that's not easy or cheap.
  
  I think you're conflating 2 different jobs here, perhaps because your uncle combines them. 
  Think of your large corporate landlord. Those investors do not manage anything themselves, they have hired people for that. So, what seems like 1 job is actually 2 jobs.    
  
  The position of landlord, where you extract rent from properties purely by virtue of owning it.    
  The position of land manager/custodian/whatever, where you extract rent for properties for services rendered.    
  
  Now, when those 2 positions are done by the same people, it's easy to think that all rent is done for services rendered, but that's not the way other people look at this issue. 
  They see Custodianship as a minor part of the rent, and the majority of the rent as pure profitseeking for no services rendered. >
  
  
  I think you're conflating 2 different jobs here, perhaps because your uncle combines them. 
  
  I'm using land manager and landlord interchangeably. I don't like the term landlord as much. But maybe they're not interchangeable. 
  
  Think of your large corporate landlord. Those investors do not manage anything themselves, they have hired people for that. So, what seems like 1 job is actually 2 jobs. 
  The position of landlord, where you extract rent from properties purely by virtue of owning it.
  The position of land manager/custodian/whatever, where you extract rent for properties for services rendered.
  
  I agree, corporate landlords are something else entirely. >
  
  
  I agree, corporate landlords are something else entirely.
  
  Well, that's the point. Others disagree and think that the tiny landlord is just  a corporate landlord in miniature, with a side job as custodian. >
  
  After you factor in mortgage and maintains fr costs, it would be naive in assuming a single properties rent is the main income for an individual landlord. It’s more of an investment with monthly returns. >
  
  An investment in denying other people the oppertunity to buy homes. >
  
  A land manager is an already existing term for a real job (or range of jobs), so you shouldn't appropriate it to try to describe landlords. Using it is especially misleading here because the whole criticism of landlords is that they aren't property managers, or at least aren't compensated like property managers. Leftists do not oppose workers who maintain residences, upkeep properties, manage logistics, and ensure tenants are safe: these workers are often called property managers, supers, or (rarely) land managers. What leftists do tend to oppose are landlords, people who make money off ownership of property, not their own labor. Note that the same person could be a landlord and also a property manager: in this case, leftists would oppose them as a landlord but not as a worker. If the landlord happened to make no more than what a typical salaried property manager would make in the same area, making them compensated fairly for their own labor in managing the properties, then their behavior wouldn't even be that objectionable. It's only when the value extracted by the landlord exceeds the value of their labor that the relation becomes exploitative from a typical leftist perspective. But as this is the case for pretty much all landlords, leftists typically criticize landlords broadly.
  tl;dr: there is little difference between "just buy up the land, do nothing, and get rich" and "buy up the land, do some work with far less value than the money you are making, and get rich." >
  
  Leftists don’t want anyone to buy property they are not using. It keeps housing costs down. There would be zero rentals I suppose. >
  
  Landlords are people with money who chose to use their money to make money off people without money. It’s as simple as that. Being a landlord is not a job or a vocation. They drive up property prices making it even harder for people to get on the housing ladder and instead be stuck in the rental sector. They are parasites on society. >
  
  First off, while all land managers had some amount of money to buy the land, many are not wealthy by any stretch and if they don't get rent payments will struggle to pay their own rents. My uncle, for instance, was not wealthy. 
  I disagree that "being a landlord is not a job" if a job is "work that somebody does to earn money." If they own an apartment building they have to perform constant upkeep and maintenance (if they're competent and care about their tenants' well being.) I'm not sure what you're basing this idea that it's "not a job" on- nevermind the idea that they are "parasites on society." >
  
  
  I disagree that "being a landlord is not a job" if a job is "work that somebody does to earn money." If they own an apartment building they have to perform constant upkeep and maintenance (if they're competent and care about their tenants' well being.) I'm not sure what you're basing this idea that it's "not a job" on- nevermind the idea that they are "parasites on society."
  
  I think this really is the key.
  You see own and maintain as a single concept.
  Others see it as 2 seperate parts. 
  Doing maintenance is work and not parasitism, but maintenance certainly isn't 100% of  the rent (if it were, then nobody would bother buying houses because you wouldn't gain anything. Everything you make up in not having to pay rent, you lose in having to pay maintenance).
  Doing owning however is rent seeking, which is defined as "the act of growing one's existing wealth without creating new wealth ". A landlord who demands rent is not adding any new wealth to the economy. They're not charging for the creation of housing (someone else build the house they are renting, they merely bought it), they are merely charging for access to a piece of stuff they already own. No new stuff is created. >
  
  
  someone else build the house they are renting, they merely bought it
  
  Because I'm sure the people who built the house did so entirely out of generosity, and none of them got paid for the job whatsoever. >
  
  The people who built the house did get paid. The construction company did that, not the landlord. They performed labor. They created something. The landlord did not. >
  
  As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
  
  Adam Smith
  
  Landlords are by nature, exploitative. They are instruments for leeching off the labor of the poor; made so by the inescapability of the profit-maximization imperative for deriving monetary rewards even at the cost of losing humanity. 
  A landlord must suppress their instinct for kindness, if they ever had any, in order to manage the savagery of extracting the greatest pound of flesh from the renter. If that involves kicking a single mother with an infant to the curb on a winter night, it is their fiduciary responsibility to do so. 
  Profit before people. >
  
  Okay but then why should we have to pay anymore than the cost of food, rent & energy at a restaurant? Shouldn’t the rest be provided out of the kindness of the owners and employees hearts?