Where does the landlord get the money? Do landlords often rent property at a loss? Is being a landlord a charity, where someone takes their own money and uses it to subsidize a stranger’s housing costs?
Of course not. Landlords set the rent such that rent - costs > 0. The money to repair a rental home ultimately comes from the renter. The landlord may pay up-front, as in your example with a derelict property, but that’s with the intention of making back what they pay and more in the form of rent. Like all businesses, the cost of doing business plus all the profit the market will bear gets passed on to the consumer.
Yes, you are certainly right about that. The landlord or rehab investor making a profit was never part of my argument. Operating rentals or investing in real estate is a business like any other, and thus needs to turn a profit in order to continue operations. In order to address the point you are making, I see what you’re saying about the flow through and how that gets used to repair properties. However, you may agree that we would both look at a $10,000 capital expenditure on a new AC unit differently if we were renting a home, which is generally for shorter terms (perhaps 2 years in Austin, TX on work assignment) than resident ownership for life.
If you are not someone who needs a rental home, or a rental apartment, then don’t use one. These types of businesses exist, however because they serve a need in society, hence their ubiquity. I invite you to consider the possibility that there is a valid reason for rental homes in many situations and areas that are beneficial for the right people. Yes, there are scummy landlords and yes, the landlord intends to make a profit, but this is not always at the sole detriment society.
you’ve abandoned your original point, now you’re just saying “not all landlords are shitty” when you started by saying “the money to fix rental homes comes from landlords”. it doesn’t matter how we look at buying a new AC unit for a rental vs an owner-occupied property, the money spent on that AC unit will come from the people who live in the property. The occupant always pays for everything.
OK so you wanna go back to it then. Let’s say your three months in on a new rental home. Landlord may be averages $100-$200 per month profit, so reasonably they’ve only collected $600 in total profit from you. AC now breaks and needs a $10,000 replacement. Who pays? Have they collected enough money from you so that you are paying for it?
At that point, you might as well start arguing that every business ever pays for things because of money, they’ve collected in their patrons. Same reason how you, assuming you’re a W-2 worker, get paid by your business. They collect a profit from the service or product they provide.
