Why don't a lot of people consider landlording a "real job"?

[NotHardUp1]

The skepticism likely results from the knowledge that many landlords manage many properties and yet do not spend any significant amount of time doing it each week.

And by landlord, I mean landlord, not property developer flipping houses or rehabbing.

I worked with a program manager in my hometown who must have at least 50 properties he rented out. He had a wife and kids, was active in his church, and worked full time in an aerospace company. He didn't work late hours or all weekend.

He retained contractors or hired help to do plumbing, carpentry, and other facilities maintenance, and his properties were mostly single family dwellings.

He was not a slum lord.

My great grandfather had 40 or more rent houses. He was a bit of a slum lord. He bought houses while working full time, active in his church, and a high ranking Freemason.

You can make rehabbing and expanding properties a career, but as has been said, being a landlord is simply a reference to income, not work.

 

[NotHardUp1]

But a landlord is property management
A landlord has to create the capital to buy the property/s in the first place.
It is a reward for that initial capital creation

Close, but not true.

A landlord must expend capital to acquire property. It isn't by any means necessary for him to create (earn) that capital. A great deal of wealth in the past and now is generated when people inherit wealth from their ancestors, or when said wealth is invested and grows due to market speculation, which doesn't create anything except monetary wealth.

And yes, some people do earn money that they invest in buying property, but that is not an accurate blanket statement.

 

[Telstra]

Landlording is not a real job because,
you just own afew houses rent it out and see money coming in. You don't really do much work and still get money automatically.
Just imagine Bill gate use all his money in properties, rent out all the properties and see all the money coming in without doing any work at all.

 

[Telstra]

Oh come on. I managed 175 units and only did 4-5 hours of real work in a week.

That is why i dislike ''strata'' thing so much.
They are leeches and did almost nothing.

 

[Telstra]

I wonder, though. What is wrong with just sitting on my ass all day collecting rent as income?

Nothing, but its not really work is it?

 

[Vannie]

I need to step in here and say something about this.

 

[Yooper]

You are quite welcome.

I think that it is something you need to use in your branding and financing application proposals etc.

Because it is what you do. Landlording for all intents and purposes is just rent collection, maintenance and utilities.

Asset development and management is the actual business.

And your consulting bill is in the mail, right?? 10%?

 

[peeonme]

A property owner that rents to others does more than collect rent. A lot of folks never see the paper work involved because their mortgage companies handle taxes and insurances. Then there is the matter of getting a license from the local city and passing inspections. Sure it beats the hell out of a 9-5 job as a way to make a living, but it takes brain work as well as some labor to make a place inhabitable. If you are providing people with a decent place to live and making money while doing so you are contributing to the system. People that criticize others often do so out of jealousy.

 

[Dominus]

I'm a little puzzled by people's insistence that landlording is not work.

One of my tenants last night texted me saying her oven stopped working. This morning, I bought a new oven and drove it over to her house. Also picked up the old one. I'm gonna try to figure out what's wrong with it.

I left my house at about 9am. After I dropped off the oven, I dropped by the legally blond chick's unit to check out their paint job. Pretty good. Then I went to one of my project sites and worked there (mudding and painting) until 8pm. I didn't get home until about 9pm.

I'm not exactly sure what people think/imagine what landlording is like. But it is definitely not just sitting idly at home collecting the monthly rent payments.

 

[Dominus]

And your consulting bill is in the mail, right?? 10%?

I currently have 49 mega rolls of toilet paper. 10% is 4.9 rolls. I'll send him 5 rolls. The extra 0.1 roll is tip.

 

[ClubLevelVegan]

I don't know why it seems to matter to you why people don't find it a real job. You're making money off of it, why does it matter what people you don't know think? People find all sorts of things "not real jobs." These things can be debated to death, but if you enjoy what you're doing or getting what you want out of it who cares what people think of it as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else.

 

[SC6201]

Most people only consider a "real job" trading hours for dollars on a 9 to 5 schedule 5 days a week with weekend and holidays off.

Very few have an entrepreneurial mindset that can think outside that box society has created.

Case in point...I have a friend who has her own financial services business. She is an agent for a larger firm but owns and soles runs her own office and is the sole employee. Come hell or high water she is at that office 9-5 M-F and any deviation from that she considers playing hookie even though she owns the office and reports to no one other than overall performance data to the corporate umbrella.

She don't own her business, she own a job.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I suspect if one could get accurate data about landlords and their time spent managing their properties versus paying to have them managed, it would reveal that the vast majority of landlords do not spend much labor directly managing their properties. It might vary from the small-time middle class landlord who simply kept his first home when he upgraded or inherited a family home somewhere along the way, but it's likely the vast majority of real estate (in the US) is owned by larger hands.

That data isn't easy to get without paying for it. I'm gonna see what is out there. It is likely to only speak to how much property is owned, not whether it is leased out or stats by that, as it cuts too close to the bone in telling how capitalism really works against the working class. That is why rents continue as a huge ripoff for working class people, far exceeding what they would pay if they owned the mortgages themselves.

Bingo! The LA Times has an excellent article, and it zeroes in on the nature of investment wealth. It becomes obvious that much of American poverty is linked to the government encouraging speculation in housing, which drives workers out of the market:

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-landlords-business-owners-20181105-story.html

It is an age-old game, only not focused on by the incessant national media that obsesses with what pretty little white girl was kidnapped and raped or who the latest sports superstar is, or what storm is causing precipitation (OMG!!!)

Read all about it.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The ugly truth is that we have completely removed considerations of ethics from the income game, and anything is fair in the US, and in many other such places. Rather than determine that profiteering on housing for the poor is illegal or even unethical, there is a laissez faire disregard for the need for such regulation, just the same as we have walked away from the mandate to provide well-funded, effective, meaningful public education. It's become a Darwinian reduction and society has turned its back on the lower classes.

The LA Times article I cited tells the tale of how rapidly it has accelerated as people have rushed to speculate in residential housing, uncaring about the end result on the society. It ranks right up there with Great Britain's cynical disregard for the Chinese during the buildup to the Opium Wars or the manipulation of India's religious conflicts in conquering the subcontinent.

Housing costs have risen 40% more than the prices of other goods since 1970, Albouy, Ehrlich and Liu found. The share of renters who spent more than half of their income on housing doubled between 1970 and 2011.

 

[Dominus]

^ But what's the alternative, though? A lot of people really can't afford to buy their own homes. Buying a house is expensive, not to mention the responsibilities that come with it.

And it's just not a matter of being able to afford to buy a house or not. Before I went into this venture, I really thought that renters can't buy their own house. I came from a family background where buying your own house is the ultimate goal. What was the first thing I did when I started working for realz after college? I bought my own house.

When we started offering rental units on the market, the kind of people who applied really opened my eyes. People who could easily afford to buy their own houses. And since I check all their backgrounds, credits, and work history, they could definitely buy their own houses.

We are talking about career paramedics, nurses, bankers, IT, teachers, walmart management, etc. with good credit scores and years and years and years of good income and savings. They just don't wanna own a house for some reason.

Remember the victorian house I told you guys about on here a couple months ago? We are in the final stages of total renovations. We already have some interests and inquiries on it. There was one couple who sent in an application that caught my eyes. Lesbian couple. One of them is department manager of a company's IT department. They only got a couple of cats. And they said they like the finished cast iron clawfoot tub in one of the bathrooms. Get that? Just 2 people with a couple of cats want to live in a big-ass 2700 sqft victorian house with 5 bedrooms. I asked why they want all that space? They said they just like the house.

One of our houses is a typical middle class 3 bedroom house. A couple with a daughter lives there. Husband is a paramedic, wife a nurse, and daughter will graduate high school next year and plans on going to college at Ball State University. Yeah, I get to know my tenants. The husband is now trying out to be a cop. They don't ever plan on moving. They were in their last rental for 12 years before that landlord decided to sell that house. In fact, they are so sure they will stay in our house for a very long time the first thing they did when they moved in last year was install a fence with their own money because they got a couple of basset hounds. Again, why don't they just buy their own house?

A lot of people just don't want to own a house even if they have the means and don't ever plan on moving. I was raised to believe that I should buy my own house as soon as I am able. What if they were raised to believe that they should never buy their own house even if they could?

It is not as simple as poor people can't afford to buy house therefore are forced to rent.

 

[belamyi]

For the same reason that they consider playing ball games or racing cars a job.

 

[Dominus]

For the same reason that they consider playing ball games or racing cars a job.

OK. What about professional poker player? Is that a job?

 

[belamyi]

^ Why shouldn't it be.

 

[belamyi]

The problem is that landlords:

- do not have a boss: BIG deal for people "culturally" used to sucking somebody's toes and licking a few asses;

- do anything that thousands or millions of other people could do as well or even better than anyone else;

- do not have lunchtime;

- do not host, nor attend office parties, team-building sessions, etc.;

- are not part of a big industry, not even entertainment;

- are not charismatic enough to draw masses to their events, tune in to whatever they have to say, or endorse someone else's product under their own name;

- didn't improve over some previous invention by making it look more appealing and status-related;

- are not in the least "inspiring";

- do not increase overall wealth by engaging in leveraged activities;

I'm sure I am missing some points but, given what I have already mentioned, what on earth should make anyone consider what they do is a "real job"?

 

[belamyi]

Oh, they also do not have any influence in what other people think, believe or even wear.