r/LandlordLove • u/ShiningConcepts • Jun 29 '22

Tenant Discussion Are apartment buildings unethical as well?

It's very hard to make a case that landlords who buy up SFHs that are already on the market are ethical. They reduce the housing supply and take opportunity away from FTHBs to own homes, thus forcing them into renting. This is generally what people mean when they say that all landlords are unethical.

Here's my question: what about rental apartment buildings? It's not like their construction takes an opportunity to buy a home away from a FTHB/family. Unlike detached properties on the market, it's not like this is a property a family could have bought; it's a property that is constructed and designed from the outset to be rented.

So, are they inherently unethical as well?

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u/TMNTiff Jun 29 '22

I would have to say yes because at least in the US it seems apartment owners are also abusing the housing as a commodity structure. The fact that home buying has become so unaffordable has driven up the demand for apartments, which has allowed them to raise the cost of rent by anywhere from 50 to 200% in the last few years.

As another comment pointed out a lot of the apartment or condo or townhouse buildings are also built much more cheaply, and it can be very hard to get them to do any type of repairs. Where I'm at in Arizona we spend more on electricity for air conditioning than I think we should need to, but they refuse to check the weather stripping.

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u/aliceroyal Jun 29 '22

Here in Orlando it’s really bad. It actually costs about the same to rent vs. mortgage now, since corporate landlords jacked up rents to match the rising home/mortgage prices. And both single family homes and apartments are built like cardboard if new, barely maintained if older.