In my experience landlords, especially the corporate ones, are the worst kind of middleman. They do shitty repairs, if they even show up at all. They paint over mold and call it clean. They hand over keys to units that clearly need work and say “move in ready” like it ain’t falling apart. And if you ask for anything to be fixed, you better hope it ain’t near the end of the month or near a rent hike, cause it’ll either get ignored or you’ll get a notice that your rent’s goin up. No warning, no reason. Just vibes. They buy up single family homes and turn them into profit machines, which makes it harder for actual families to buy homes. They’re part of why housing prices are so jacked up now. Starter homes are just investment flips to them.
And that’s the problem. Housing isn’t a right in this country. It’s a commodity. Something to hoard and squeeze people with. Instead of being a place to live and build a life, it’s treated like a stock market. The more properties you own, the richer you are, the more people you control. Landlords don’t create housing, they just collect rent on what already exists. If they all vanished tomorrow, the homes would still be there. That alone should make people think.
The alternative? A few things. First, housing co-ops. Groups of tenants own the building together, split costs, make decisions democratically. That already exists and works. Second, social housing, where the government builds and owns units and rents them out at cost, not profit. That’s not some communist fever dream either. Plenty of countries already do this and do it better than us. Third, community land trusts. The land is owned by a nonprofit, and the homes are sold or rented affordably. Keeps prices down and investors out.
Also, this gets overlooked, but in most of the US, you can’t buy an apartment. That’s wild. In cities like New York, co-op units or condo buildings are common, but in a lot of areas, especially outside major cities, there’s no way to actually own an apartment. Just rent forever and hope the landlord doesn’t sell the place to a hedge fund. If apartment units were available to purchase like condos or townhouses, more people could actually own something. It wouldn’t fix everything, but it’s one step closer to treating housing like a home instead of an asset.
Landlords shouldn’t exist because they’re not needed. We’ve just gotten used to thinking they’re normal. But the second you really look at how much power they have, how much money they take without adding any real value, it becomes obvious. Housing should be for living. Not for profit. Not for control. And definitely not for squeezing out every last cent from people just tryin to survive.