I work in real estate, but I don’t hate landlords or rent. I hate the idea that landlording is a job somehow.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of landlords.

My landlord is an old lady who owns a series of apartment complexes. I assume she is quite wealthy, but the reason I don’t take issue with the situation is because she keeps up the property instead of paying a property management firm to do it. She also isn’t hoarding complexes or single family homes, she owns a couple, and managing a couple of complexes with a few people under you is a full time job.

The other kind is the people I work with. Fuck them. The property owners we work with are billionaires. They own hundreds or thousands of complexes and god knows how many single family homes. They also don’t do anything. They buy a complex from a builder, then they pay a property management firm to run it. All they’re doing is skimming excess rent in exchange for assuming the liability of owning the complex. Except they’re not even doing that, because everything is insured.

The first kind of people are wealthy, yes, but they work for a living. The second kind do not actually do anything. If we killed them all tomorrow and gave the complexes they own to property management firms or individual managers, nothing would change.