I'm a school bus driver and while it's weird enough that we generally get tips (from the parents, not the kids of course) at Christmas and the end of the school year, a co-worker of mine last year handed out tip envelopes (like what garbage truck workers leave on the cans) to all the kids on his bus. At least he was suspended for doing this, as a bunch of the parents went apeshit.
There was a landlord on TikTok who essentially asked for tips. He had his friend play a renter that refused to tip him and argued that if waiters get tipped just for delivering the food to the table, the landlord totally deserves a tip for being available for calls and fixing stuff.
One giant shitstorm later and we end up with this meme and the landlord making a TikTok in which he said that it all was a joke.
I am also completely puzzled by this. I even started imagining a situation where the landlord is so poor he is working as a waiter in a restaurant. Otherwise this doesn't make any sense.
I'm a landlord and a school bus driver and I am poor as fuck. I bought a cheap house that needed a huge amount of renovation work, and I now rent it out while I live with my elderly parents. The rental income represents about a 50% increase over my salary (assuming nothing goes seriously wrong with the house) but I still make less than $40K. Not every landlord is the guy from Monopoly.
I never tipped a landlord, but as a joke I paid my rent in Sacajawea Dollars so as to give him a "bag of gold." At first he was pissed, but then he asked me to continue. Apparently they turned out to be good tips at the bar.
Being mad at an independent landlord is like being mad at the dog shit you just stepped on instead of the motherfucker that didn't pickup after his dog.
Many independent landlords are people who decided to take her everything they had on a derelict home that nobody was going to buy, fix it up, and make it available. These are people that dream to get out from under the boot and are willing to bet it all for a chance. A landlord with one or two rentals are probably struggling to keep their head above water and almost for sure have a full time job as well as the maintenance of the rental, and probably the fixing up of another.
This is how the system is rigged. If you want to mortgage a house, you need to have a lot of money down, steady income, and a good credit score. Mortgaging a fully remodeled house in order to rent it doesn't work because you'll never be able to rent it for that much. Mortgaging an ugly house to rent doesn't work most of the time because you need to remodel it "nice" and you need to find a tenant willing to pay a premium for a pig wearing lipstick. Most times, even when the house is done up, the neighborhood isn't. Next up, if you want to mortgage a derelict house that you plan to bring back from the dead, wether to rent or live in, YOU CAN'T. The only way to buy those homes is cash. In other words, neither homebuyers nor wannabe landlords have access to the only homes that might provide a good value. Wanna guess who can? Investment funds. They are the ones raping renters, not the poor schmuck that's trying to play the game the way they were told it was supposed to work. That schmuck is fucked, they just don't know it.
My wife and I owe the current life we lead in great part to a lady that decided to rent her duplex to two college students for $275 twenty years ago. She died and her daughter sold all the houses the lady owned (she owned the entire street in that ghetto) to a fund. Each duplex (meaning, half a house) now goes for $1200 (still a ghetto) and now requires a credit check and two months deposit.
Get mad at the rigged system, not at the other suckers stuck in it. Don't be a crab in the bucket.
EDIT: There are good independent landlords and there are bad ones. There is no such thing as a good real estate investment funds.
You do as you're told. You study hard, you go into student debt, you get a job, you make your debt payments, you live frugally and somehow end up with a few bucks extra in your bank account every month. After a few years you've got yourself some money set aside. What do you do with that money in order to get out from under the boot off the system? Here are your options.
Invest in the stock market. You know, the rigged casino that cheats you if there's any chance for you to make a profit. It's all a game of musical chairs and someone is gonna left holding the bag. Will it be you?
Buy a fixer-upper, work hard, make enough on rent to basically cover the mortgage, taxes, and maybe most of the maintenance, all in the hope that you can sell it at a profit before prices crash. It's all a game of musical chairs and someone is gonna left holding the bag. Will it be you?
Crypto! It's all a game of musical chairs and someone is gonna left holding the bag. Will it be you?
Literally buy lottery tickets.
Stick your money in an interest bearing account and watch it lose value daily because nothing ever keeps up with inflation.
At least when you buy and fix a wreck there is some sense of agency. It feels like you can do something about it. We are told to do our part, be responsible, play our part and we will be rewarded, but it's a lie. It's been a lie since Reagan was elected and it got way worse under every administration since. They love it when we get at each other's throat like this because it's what stops us from setting fire to the whole thing.
PS: Person buys home to rent with the dream of actually owning something tangible. Person nets 2% if they're lucky but they are happy because at least they aren't losing. Everyone on the Internet hates them. If the same person buys shares in a real estate fund that's literally making people homeless, buying trailer parks and evicting everyone, etc., they will make as much as 20% return yet nobody here bats an eye. That's the poison right there. That's the disconnect and how they keep us down. Why own anything and be a decent human being when I can log into this app, give it my money and not have to worry about who my money hurts?
It's not hard, it's just expensive and intense at times. But it's lucrative and pays off after years of upkeep and maintenance that the renters NEVER do. I ain't selling the house. Don't hate the players, hate the game.
OK, what's your plan for housing then? Run right out and purchase your own home? Got the cash and credit for that I assume?
Oh, and if your HVAC dies, the only phone call you're making is to the local contractor. Hopefully it's a $20 capacitor and not a $5,000 new unit. Hope you've got a lot of DIY experience or a load of cash!
My landlord is a farmer. He's out on the fields everyday. Comes to fix our boiler with his hands covered in fresh chicken shit. The rent is expensive, but it could be much worse considering.
My landlord was a single mother and she provided for me for years before becoming my landlord. She had me paying rent since I was 7 and that's when I learned to appreciate landlords.
I knew this guy years ago that bought up basically free property during the housing crisis. Houses were so undesirable in Detroit at the peak of the housing crisis, you could buy a house for $100, as they were considered a liability. His goal was to fix them up himself and then provide them to the community as extremely low rent residences, if anyone wanted to buy them after they were fixed up he would give priority to his renters at slightly above cost (cost of materials) as a rent to own system (not one of the scummy ones but a real system in their favor). He had no intention of making money, he just believed it was the right thing to do. Dude was just a good person through and through.
Bought a nearly 100 year old house earlier this year, 1.5 hours away from where I live. I work full time.
I've spent nearly every weekend and ALL of my free cash (plus credit that I'll likely be paying off for a few years) to replace the sewer lines, insulate the crawlspace and basement, replace the roof, replace the siding, replace the leaking windows, update the electrical, update the plumbing, replace old appliances, replace corroded cabinet hardware, seal holes around the house from rodents, paint the walls, ceiling, and cabinetry inside the house, remove and clean up a dilapidated wood shed, empty an incredible amount of rotten and corroded junk from the basement, CLEAN the basement, replace the broken door to the basement, fill in and repair cracked and broken concrete, replace the rotten hot tub, and ongoing efforts to prevent water from flooding the basement every time it rains.
And I'm not finished. Not even close. There is so much to be done to make this place work and make sure it stays in good condition for years to come.
The initial priority was pest control, deep cleaning, painting, and furnishing. Once that was done the place was listed on AirBnB. It's helped to offset the costs, but will take decades to break even. After utilities, taxes, supplies, and expenses for cleaning between guests I'm pulling in maybe a couple hundred dollars a month. But it helps.
AirBnB is also a big part of the problem. If you want to rent your fully furnished apartment for $1300 (net to you), by the time AirBnB is done with fees to you and the tenant, the tenant is being charged $2200. It's obscene. AirBnB and VRBO were originally meant to help homeowners offset there cost of their homes by renting a room or the entire place while they were away. Now they are these monstrosities that do nothing but syphon money from homeowners and tenants.
I'm glad you're fixing up the place and keeping it off the hands of investment funds. Once it's fixed up, if possible, I'd recommend renting it directly to a tenant for a bit under market rate. Management companies tend to price gouge tenants (and owners), and they con you into raising rent every year. They don't care if the tenant can't afford it or if the place stays empty for months. If you can find a tenant that is decent and treats your property well, stick with them, even if you make less than maximum on a monthly basis by charging less than market. Pass the savings of not having a middle man to your tenant and everyone (except the middle man) wins.
Imagine the contractor that works for a REIT. Should they get full rent because they broke their the same way as you? Or hourly, just like my roommate?
You get the rent because you're a landlord, not because you work hard.
If working hard on a property, instead of owning it, meant getting all of the high rents then the REITs' contractor should be collecting rents instead of the REITs but that obviously doesn't happen.
Don't defend landlording. Oppose it, you can still be one, but just oppose it.
Would you make the same if you sank all of your money in investments and work a second job as a contractor? Same story but different results?
If you had long term tenants and but they owned the property but contracted you? You would still work hard and be compensated for the work isn't that enough? If the work the justification for your rental income then why not just be a contractor instead of an owner? And better yet leave the owning part to the people who live there.
How about not hording property? Did she have a house? Did she need to own a entire ghetto? I have no pity or empathy to people who own multiple houses and rent them.
She and her husband literally restored an entire street that had been derelict since the Louisiana oil crash by using her husband's pension and disability after having destroyed his body working on the rigs. Literally abandoned homes that they fixed, made livable and rented, without credit check or any other bullshit, for affordable prices. Our street was the only safe street in the entire neighborhood, and also the only one where the homes were in good condition. Nobody wanted this homes. Nobody had the means or desire to fix them. Stop trying to manufacturer villains around the narrative you're being fed. People can't afford homes because of funds and companies specifically designed to hoard shit. That's why prices are skyrocketing.
People give tips to other who do nothing outside their job, oh you made the coffee i ordered and hand it to me sure have $5, thanks for handing the pizza i ordered over the counter have $10, payed for my groceries that i picked out myself and paid via self checkout sure have a 25% tip.
Why not tip someone who ensures where you live, where you children live, where all your precious posesstions are kept is safe, secure, and supported? Seems like you don't actually care about the money, just want to have someone to shit on and feel mighter than them.... (Kidding im a landlord and id call someone nuts for tipping me)
Edit: Apparently everyone is missing the massive /S
Rent seeking is not the same as providing value. Buying a house to rent it out is like buying concert tickets to sell them at a high price when the concert is sold out.
Because those people provided something to you. They made or delivered the food. All a landlord does is gatekeep a necessity that people can't live without. He didn't build it. The only thing he did to you is prevent you getting housing. That is why they are leeches.
Am German and am living in my second apart now since moving out. This is absolutely not a thing. You pay your rent on time and that's it. Anything else on top would be inappropriate.
Edit: In case this is a whoosh moment, we do absolutely pay a tip. Like 20%-ish
Exactly, if you've got money lying around, invest in something that doesn't require you to get off your ass and ensure the singular person/family selling their labour for your dividends isn't forced to shelter in a mold infested leaky death trap.
You're profiting of someone else's undeniable need for shelter and housing. You can at least fix the broken extraction fan above the gas cooker and not winge about the loss your precious rental income for that week.
The stock market is way easier to invest in than the property market. I genuinely don't understand why landlords take it on, then bitch about it.
Lol. It’s hilarious you said Gary. I worked for a contractor who son (he and everyone knows his daddy gave him everything) had a couple rent houses. His name was Gary. He’s alright.
Idk why it's a landlord thing to be called Gary, in my family betweent me my parents and my brother we all had at least one landlord called Gary at some point in our lives 😂😂😂
Why is he carrying a rock labelled hard work? Is that what he calls your rent check or something? I work hard, my land lord does not. That's literally the entire relationship.
Landlords don't work hard, they don't sacrifice anything, they don't shed blood or tears doing what they do, they don't have any sleepless nights when they're not snorting coke and they don't have any kindness or love.
And I'm not going to tip my landlord. I hate tipping. Why am I considered an asshole for not tipping when their boss won't give them a living wage?
Hahaha the only one to blame for your bad pay is yourself, my guy. You could try getting a real job if being a landlord isn't the gig you thought it would be.
Does it go against the narrative that my ll is a fireman and bought the house from his friend and he spent two full days stripping the deck out and putting a new one in?
In my experience there are some landlords who have people's best interests at heart. I do believe landlords are parasitic, but not everyone does, and out of those people there are some who become landlords because they think it will actually help people. And to be fair, when I was in undergrad, I rented a house with some guys and our landlord charged us $290/month/person and paid for all the utilities. I couldn't have saved any money from my part time job in any other situation. The house was nice, we each had our own room, and we shared 3 bathrooms. He was quick about repairs too. No lease agreement either, and when anybody moved out he didn't raise the rent. I stayed there for 3 years, others for longer.
Dude lots of dumb things are parasitic. Sex work, childcare and babysitting, hell Uber eats is parasitic. The more complex a system becomes the more useless work is produced until the system either collapses or some of that work becomes devalued before society produces new utility so to speak.
Is tip a synonym for rent? Sorry I'm German maybe I don't get it because of language, but I know "tip" mostly in the context of tipping the service at a restaurant...