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.

Well now you’re getting downvoted for complaining about downvotes

Your “basic chemistry” doesn’t match up with the lived experience of the plethora of people that frequently use cast iron/carbon steel. And yes, it doesn’t matter what type of pan, including non-stick, if you want your food to taste good you’re probably gonna start by heating up some fat. You’re only building excess carbon in a cast iron/carbon steel if you leave on bits of burnt food and season over that. If you clean your pan properly (with soap and hot water, because that’s totally allowed), that won’t happen. Tons of people cook with cast iron/carbon steel every single day and have absolutely no problems with it. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everyone should only cook with cast iron/carbon steel, all I’m saying is using those pans is way less finicky than you’re making it out to be.

Ugh. You wanna know the secret to cooking on cast iron/carbon steel? Just cook with it. Put fat in, get it hot, put your food in. It’s really that easy. Wipe it out when you’re done, rub some oil on it. That’s it. You can even cook tomato sauce in it, it’ll be ok. People have been using cast iron to cook all kinds of things, acidic and not, for literal centuries. This myth that cast iron/carbon steel pans are these delicate special snowflakes that need constant attention and maintenance needs to die.

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

Builders provide housing. Landlords are nothing more than a middle man.

Taking away the opportunity of home ownership is not a service.

No landlords hoard property.

Fine, landlords hoard property ownership.

The property is used by people.

As long as the landlord permits it, and as long as the landlord gets their premium.

Landlords profit off of permitting people access to shelter, a basic right that any human should be entitled to. It’s literally modern day feudalism.

Unless your aunt is transferring equity in those homes to the tenants based on the amount they pay in rent, then yes, she’s a leech. “Providing shelter” isn’t the service your aunt is providing; she’s just preventing someone else from owning a home.

And before anyone says “but renting is all some people can afford, they can’t save up enough to make a down payment” - yes, sure, that’s true. But that’s a symptom of the shitty housing market (really the shitty state of the middle class in general*), and landlords aren’t making it any better by hoarding property, even if it’s “just” 3 to 5 townhomes.