Here’s my point: if landlords change basically everything about how “renting” works so that it’s basically indistinguishable from property ownership from the tenant’s point of view, they’d qualify to be non-parasitic.

Yes, except without Microsoft spying on you

The question is what they should do in order to be fair and non-parasitic.

Sell their properties to their tenants, or grant tenants equity in the property based on how much they pay in rent (ie, co-ownership).

So far, I understand that you’re convinced ownership is necessary if any payment is involved. What I don’t understand is why*.

For an exchange to not be parasitic, both parties must gain something equal to what they lose. This, by definition, means that a renter must be able to pay zero dollars for rent in months where the landlord doesn’t have to make a mortgage payment and doesn’t need to do any maintenance on the property.

We agreed that people should be paid for their labour. What makes home rentals special in that regard?

As I’ve already said, landlords don’t provide a service equivalent to the payment provided, and the indefinite nature of a lease makes it impossible for a landlord to ever provide value equal to what a renter pays. As long as a tenant lives in a rented space, they have to pay a fee for the privilege, even if they’ve paid enough to pay for the mortgage many times over. You can’t convince me that a landlord can provide potentially multiple properties worth of value over the span of a lease.

Landlords don’t do that. Until they do, they’re parasites.

Also, I can’t tell if you’ve realized by now, but everything I’ve been describing as ways to make landlording “fair” is just a roundabout description of ownership.

What I’m trying to convince you of is that there exists a non-zero positive value that is reasonable to charge someone as rent.

And I’ve already told you I don’t agree. Paying a non-zero amount of rent is always parasitic.

I feel like a rake would be a better alternative on all accounts

Then landlords should send me an itemized invoice that details each of the expenses incurred while I’ve been a tenant, a breakdown detailing how any rent payments cover the cost of those expenses, and a payment plan that we can negotiate to ensure both parties are getting fair deals.

Or they should give me equity in the property based on how much I pay in rent.

But they shouldn’t simply charge an amount based on nothing other than “the market”. That number never equates to the amount of work they put in, and makes them parasitic.

Think of all the work you need to do as a home owner and that you wouldn’t need to do when renting. These are the services you get.

Then a landlord can invoice me if/when that work is done. Work like that isn’t done every month though.

Services can be an equal exchange too. A laborer receives your money, you receive a service which requires that laborer’s active time and expertise.

Renting is not a service in the same way. You pay indefinitely, but you aren’t being provided a laborer’s time and expertise equivalent to the money being paid. Owning a thing isn’t something that requires a landlord’s active time or expertise, it’s something that happens passively.

That’s what you get the kickstand attachment for

But why is that a problem?

Because whatever a renter pays in rent disproportionately enriches the landlord. Sure they get temporary shelter, but the landlord owns the shelter, plus they get extra money on top of that. The renter ends the relationship in the red, the landlord ends in the black. That’s definitionally parasitic.

Not everything is about physical possessions.

It sort of is though. In the case of renting, the renter pays money but ends up with zero physical possessions, but the landlord ends up with more money and physical possessions (in the form of increased equity in a property). That can never be an equal exchange. That’s the difference between renting and buying a meal (or the difference between renting and ownership in general) - when you buy something, the buyer loses money but gains a physical possession, and the seller gains money but loses a physical possession. That can be an equal exchange.

Do we at least agree that if the landlords sets the rent at $1/month, then the transaction will be to the benefit of the tenant?

No. A tenant never gains anything once the terms of the lease expire. The property owner is the only one that gains, as long as the price of rent is a positive number.

But resources aren’t being distributed fairly.

Right, because the system is broken.

That’s a rather arbitrary rule.

It’s basically co-ownership, which is already an established way to buy and own a property.

Assuming you do have all the right rules in place, what makes this setup more desirable than simply renting at cost?

At the end of your lease, if you choose not to renew, you still have equity in a property which is worth something, rather than ending up with nothing in the current system.

Just so we’re on the same page, we’re still talking about OP’s question, right?

The relationship between a landlord (parasite) and a renter (host) is absolutely a net negative for the renter*, because at the termination of the relationship, the landlord ends up with much more than they started with (equity in a property + profit from rent) and the renter ends up with less than they started with (lost money in rent payments).

This is how to get your passengers to vomit all over the inside of your car

The whole system needs overhauling to make it work these changes alone won’t sort it out.

Correct, wholeheartedly agree.

If their rent went toward equity in the home they were renting, when the landlord sells, an equitable portion of the cash made during the sale would go to the renters. Ideally, the renters could then use that nest egg of cash to put a down payment on a home.

If a person is paying money for access to and upkeep of a particular home, I think it’s very fair for them to build equity in that home proportional to what they pay in rent. If landlords find that too risky or not lucrative enough, well, they don’t have to be landlords.

They literally do not provide housing. If they did, there wouldn’t be a housing shortage.

It’s a very big basket. Plenty of room for nuance in there.

People who don’t want to buy a home at that location would still need a place to live. Someone needs to rent it to them.

I don’t understand what you mean by this. No one needs to rent anything to anyone, if resources are distributed fairly.

On the topic of transferring equity, how much is reasonable equity? Why not rent at cost instead of charging more and giving it back in a different form?

If a renter pays the same amount of money as the landlord pays towards their mortgage, and the renter has paid rent for as long as the landlord has paid the mortgage, the renter should have as much equity in the property as the landlord does.

You’re putting a lot of words in my mouth lol. Obviously a megacorp that owns thousands of single-family homes is much much worse than you renting out your vacation home. Both things are unethical in my opinion, as long as things are in a state where people are without homes, but the megacorp is orders more unethical than someone renting out a single vacation home.