was reading a thread on twitter about this. i know it’s a topic that comes up every so often on communist spaces too, how do we approach house ownership - i don’t mean a house to live in, I mean owning a second home that they won’t live in?
I might come into a second home through inheritance at some point (hoping my parents still live long though lol). getting through a first home is probably going to be a mess bc of how i live in it with my siblings and here you get a mortgage until you die, because it makes more sense for taxes. Usually when kids inherit a home, they sell it because they’re already living somewhere else and the next owner inherits the mortgage + a new one. oh well it’s still far off lol, we’ll see when we get there.
but if you come into inheriting a second home… what is the best solution? sell it to someone who will rent it out instead of you?
i know usually these discussions revolve around no ethical consumption in capitalism but they never seem to reach a final answer.
You could sell it to first-time homeowners. To someone else it’s the first step toward security and the market is really hostile.
This. Sell it to someone who wants to live in it. Your realtor will hate this idea and will be super against it but find a realtor that understands what you’re doing and it’ll work out. You will make less money. You will have to compromise in weird ways. But sell it to someone who is going to actually live in it.
Here we have land banks at the municipal level. They buy up houses and finance first-time buyers who don’t qualify for normal mortgages, in a contract where the home sells below market rate but they can only sell it back to the land-bank at an appreciated value so they aren’t taking a loss. To me that’s the most ethical western model outside of UK council homes. It’s giving kids a stable childhood and workers a sense of long-term stability instead of giving yourself a nicer car from the price premium of a private sale.
I think it’s also acceptable to rent it if the cost doesn’t exceed upkeep, repairs, taxes, and it’s well-maintained. You could provide a good dwelling for multiple families trying to get on their feet without being a slumlord.
oh well it’s still far off lol, we’ll see when we get there
This is not something you want to wait to figure out until you’re actively grieving btw. I’m in my early 30’s and my wife and I are in the middle of saving for headstones/funeral and drawing up our wills because we just saw how bad it went when one of our grandparents passed. You don’t expect people to get petty over stupid shit and ruin relationships over a relatively negligible estate but people do.
Oh for sure. My parents only retired last year so there’s still some time (hopefully lol), but of course it puts the question of how to handle inheritance front and center when it happens. I’ll have to talk to them about the house (the one we live in) eventually, see what they plan for it and where the mortgage situation is at.
I have never owned a second home. But I did buy a place with an apt that had tenants that wanted to stay. I kept their rent flat until I could afford to reduce it to zero.
Imo the only moral option is to offer free or below market rent, or sell it. Being a landlord is objectively evil, and if you have a conscience you will eventually feel shitty about it.
im from a post socialist state and my grandparents technically had two properties, their state rented apartment and their small farm…
my opinion is that individual circumstances arent as important as the system itself… if u have 2 properties or no property, it doesnt change the reality of the system…
if u want, u can keep the house… it does not change much… my grandparents lived in a system were everybody received housing, their farm did not matter…
having a second property does not count as being capitalistic unless u rent it for profit…
if u want, u can sell it for a small price so that people in need can move in, not those planning to become landlords.
even better, u could donate it (?) to a group home type organization for those who are mentally disabled or foster kids aging out of the system… idk how that works but thats what i would do
Like another poster said. Sell it to someone who needs it. Don’t horde housing that you don’t need.
Sell it to me and I’ll rent it out for you, that way you don’t have to deal with the guilt
spoiler
/J
could be some kind of non-scam “rent”-to-own thing you can set up where they don’t need another mortgage but that’s something to ask a lawyer about if you can get a free consultation
That’s my first thought.
give it to me /j
If you want to find a compromise between your morality and having to live under capitalism, then there’s 3 possible avenues, from easiest to most effort:
a) Keep it. As long as you aren’t landlording it’s fine. You might need it in the future for yourself or your children. You live under capitalism, you need to survive according to capitalism’s rules.
b) Sell it at a low price to someone/a family that needs it as a first home
c) Rent it to someone, but without renting it. Basically, let them stay there as long as they take care of the utility bills, taxes, maintenance, etc. You could even arrange something a bit more formal with a local charity organization that helps people in need.
I know it might sound like a stretch, but there are possibilities/situations where the third solution you opted for becomes oppressive. As there is no way for the person to move out of that house in a capitalist society, they end up working there as bonded labour. I’m sure there are ways out of it through some sort of communitarian model which guarantees equality
I’ve heard of arrangements like this in my country. They have a legal framework however. And usually they allow the home-dweller to pay an extra fee on top (like regular rent), which goes towards buying the house at a pre-agreed price. So at the end, they end up buying the house but paying for it in doses.
I can see how it could be abused by either party though. The home-owner could take advantage of the home-dweller, and the home-dweller could avoid paying the full fees agreed, ending up screwing the home-owner who is liable for things like property tax and minimum maintenance laws. It definitely would take effort and trust to make it work.
Having a contract drawn up for this sort of thing would be ideal, but that depends on the legal framework where OP’s inherited house would be.
