Page 13 | To not agree with how some people make their money, specifically landlords and letting agents?

scalt · 27/12/2025 12:14

“Let’s move on.” Sounds like Boris Johnson trying to wave Partygate aside. He’d also say “Why are people still renting, or even mortgaging? They should be rich like me, and buy outright.”

Littlebitpsycho · 27/12/2025 12:13

Monicaaa · 27/12/2025 11:48

I've seen this argument a lot, but nobody seems able to explain where I should live without landlords, letting agencies etc? I've rented for 25 years so I am pretty grateful they exist.
Oh and please don't say council houses. There aren't enough, they aren't going to build any more, yes they were the perfect solution but that was destroyed many years ago. Let's move on.

Agreed! I rent, buying will never be an option for me. I will never have the money available for a deposit, despite earning enough to live comfortably (although certainly not flamboyantly).

Where do people think we should live? The council housing system will never be fixed, it isn't a priority for the government and never will be.

xanthomelana · 27/12/2025 12:01

Monicaaa · 27/12/2025 11:48

I've seen this argument a lot, but nobody seems able to explain where I should live without landlords, letting agencies etc? I've rented for 25 years so I am pretty grateful they exist.
Oh and please don't say council houses. There aren't enough, they aren't going to build any more, yes they were the perfect solution but that was destroyed many years ago. Let's move on.

Because they can’t explain. Of course there’s always going to be a need for landlords but it’s easy for people who don’t rely on them to condemn them all.

FlashingFairyLight · 27/12/2025 12:01

So the concern is profit over basic needs?

I think letting someone use a decent house you own and maintaining it for them & paying tax is probably more morally correct than water companies throwing shit in a river & making massive profits? Or factories churning out pollutants into the air we breathe? I hear Tesco profits from selling the food we need to survive!

I know my examples are whataboutery but the rental market is a weird place to draw the moral line.

Clockyclockz · 27/12/2025 12:00

AIBU to feel uneasy about this being a normal, socially accepted income stream

I do find it interesting how so many are ok with it but the idea of healthcare operating in the same way is considered abhorrent.

Miranda65 · 27/12/2025 11:57

Well, OP, if you want to rent a property (which most of us do at some point in our lives), then you'll need a landlord to own that property.
They are providing a service for people, they have to deal noth with the legal side and (sometimes) difficult tenants. Oh, and they're taxed on their profits! It's not an easy way to make a living.

Clockyclockz · 27/12/2025 11:57

We need landlords & letting agents as you will always have renters. The bigger issue is how distorted the market is, eg renting costing more than a mortgage & the huge intergenerational inequality around property. The landscape is completely different now.

38thparallel · 27/12/2025 11:57

Mention increased state control in either sphere, and the anti-Socialist pitchfork lot emerge shrieking.

Re supermarkets, maybe there should be a chain of state owned and run supermarkets alongside Sainsbury’s etc.

purpleflowergirl · 27/12/2025 11:56

I have more of a problem with supermarkets, like Tesco, making huge profits from people’s need to eat! Then they pop a little box at the end of the aisles asking us to buy more food from them to donate to the needy. I’m tempted to fill a trolley and just skip the checkouts and dump it all in.

TheNightingalesStarling · 27/12/2025 11:55

Landlords are no worse than shareholders in clothing, transport, food, and utilities.

YouAreTheCauseOfMyHeadache · 27/12/2025 11:51

Don't like landlords and letting agencies? - don’t rent.
Earn money and purchase property in the same way that they did and cut them out of the equation.

Original poster

RealNavyEagle · 27/12/2025 11:51

ColdAsAWitches · 27/12/2025 11:45

Do you think that nobody should profit over people's basic need for food as well? Everything in Tesco should be cost price? Or what about medicine. Why should doctors be paid. You might argue that medicine is free as the NHS is free, but it's not, it's paid for through taxation.
Nothing in life is free. Everything has to be paid for, by one method or another. Why are you singling out housing as the exception?

And for what it's worth, I'm not a landlord.

I’m not arguing that nothing essential should ever involve money or that people shouldn’t be paid for work. What feels different to me about housing is the combination of necessity, lack of alternatives and power imbalance. You can choose between supermarkets, brands or suppliers; you can’t opt out of housing, and in many areas tenants have very limited choice and very weak leverage.

With food or medicine, there are at least some protections around quality, pricing and access. In housing, it often feels like profit is prioritised even when standards, stability or basic decency are compromised, and the consequences of losing housing are far more severe and immediate. So I’m not saying housing should be “free” but I do think it’s reasonable to question whether treating it primarily as an investment vehicle, rather than a regulated social good, creates harm.

OP posts:

Monicaaa · 27/12/2025 11:48

I've seen this argument a lot, but nobody seems able to explain where I should live without landlords, letting agencies etc? I've rented for 25 years so I am pretty grateful they exist.
Oh and please don't say council houses. There aren't enough, they aren't going to build any more, yes they were the perfect solution but that was destroyed many years ago. Let's move on.

Jc2001 · 27/12/2025 11:46

RealNavyEagle · 27/12/2025 11:40

I’m not saying every landlord or agent is evil, before anyone jumps in. But I do think there’s something deeply uncomfortable about profiting from people’s basic need for shelter, especially when that profit often comes with minimal accountability and maximum power over tenants’ lives. Rent increases “because the market allows it,” poor maintenance, opaque fees and agents acting as unchallengeable gatekeepers… it doesn’t always sit right with me as a way to earn a living.

AIBU to feel uneasy about this being a normal, socially accepted income stream?

How do you propose someone who doesn't want to buy or is not in a position to buy, finds rental accommodation?

Millytante · 27/12/2025 11:45

By that logic, supermarkets too are condemned for making profit from selling food.
Well, of course they are, yet that isn't really down to the basic premise of either enterprise, but to the way a system facilitates greed, monopoly, and a lack of accountability.
Mention increased state control in either sphere, and the anti-Socialist pitchfork lot emerge shrieking.

ColdAsAWitches · 27/12/2025 11:45

Do you think that nobody should profit over people's basic need for food as well? Everything in Tesco should be cost price? Or what about medicine. Why should doctors be paid. You might argue that medicine is free as the NHS is free, but it's not, it's paid for through taxation.
Nothing in life is free. Everything has to be paid for, by one method or another. Why are you singling out housing as the exception?

And for what it's worth, I'm not a landlord.

Slimtoddy · 27/12/2025 11:44

I hadn't really thought about it like that before but I can see what you mean. I have two friends who rent out properties and I am pretty sure they charge below going rate so I see them in a positive light but I guess if I look at it from your perspective I might see it differently. Dunno. I will ponder.

EmeraldRoulette · 27/12/2025 11:41

You are a RealNavyEagle. Hmm.