I rented in my early 20s for about 7 years. First was a sublet from a friend, then he got back together with his wife so then a sublet from a guy he knew. Then a roomshare agreement. And then into corporate rentals where you did the annual rent dance. And you had to be prepared to move. But the economy was in the dumps back then and it was easier to negotiate. Then we bought our home after the housing market crashed.

I don't know what you can do with a relative supply shortage and corporations squeezing households other than change the laws on ownership.

Yes. More and more people competing for a limited resource.

Limited resources and increased heating costs and a sprinkling of predatory landlords...

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Sucks but only way to get out being under a landlord is buying your own place.

Was pretty surprised about the housing situation in NH. Was offered a job there but damn are the prices wild but I guess that’s where they get the income/sales tax back.

Getting taxed on a rental seems about the only option as I cant establish residency with a long term hotel stay, although I wish I could. Maybe I’ll find a Airbnb that will work with me a bit as I wouldn’t be there full time, I would be gone on the weekends they could still rent them out? Bummer about the hotel as it’s ideal for both parties, I fill it during the week and then they get premium on the weekends. I’m contributing to the NH economy and at 9%, can I at least get a rental address while I figure out buying/building lmao.

>Maybe I’ll find a Airbnb that will work with me a bit as I wouldn’t be there full time

Please don 't do that. AirBnB's are the reason the housing markets sucks. Get a post office box. Use the street address from the post office as your own address. It's not that hard to fake having a "residence".

Landlords downvoting this

Just a fact whole market is up 5%

Assuming the bank allows you.

Gotta have all your stuff in order. Money, credit, finding a place. All that stuff is annoying and hard work but it’s worth it. Gotta start somewhere and sometime.

Screw landlords, that is all.

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No, that is not all. Being a landlord is a business. They have expenses too. Real estate taxes. Water/Sewer bills. Maintenance.

I'll tell you who's at fault. Your NIMBY neighbors. And YOU if you don't show up at town meetings or hold your mayors, town managers, etc. feet to the fire.

You set aside zoning for multi family homes in EVERY town, and soon you'll have all the apartments you'll need.

I was a landlord in another state. City I lived in was mostly 2-3 family homes on small lot sizes. Single family homes were the minority; in fact, a lot of older victorian single family homes had been converted to 2 and 3 family homes.

Here's what you do. Show up at town meetings. Shame the NIMBYs and those responsible for zoning. Use your cameras and go on social media. Call the networks.

So do property taxes, water bills, cost of maintenance, cost of background checks, gas, etc. Landlords assume a TON of risk. The housing situation in this state is very difficult but it’s certainly not the fault of landlords.

Yeah, landlords are doing fine. It's barely a "job". Real-estate taxes and other costs aren't jumping nearly as fast as the rates rents are being raised. In fact corporate landlords had record profits.

Having money to buy up multiple properties sit on them. That's an easy job if you have the money.

They don't even have to figure out what makes sense for rent prices. They use software.

https://www.propublica.org/article/why-rent-is-so-high

You realize that investors bought 24% of family homes last year? That creates a housing shortage for people trying to buy a house and forces then into renting or paying an exceedingly high price for a home.

Landlords do assume some risk but a ton of risk is inaccurate. Property values generally go up and finding a tenant hasn't been difficult in a very long time.

Agreed!

The housing shortage comes from not making enough houses, not who owns the existing housing stock.

You didn’t address a single point I made. I proposed solutions. All you’ve done is complain.

I suggest YOU become a landlord and keep us informed about your altruistic progress.

So I just “fake” these documents and I will never hear any repercussions? Seems like transferring a commercial driving license with questionable form responses is wrong choice but maybe I’m wrong.

Being a landlord is a full time job. Tenants call you 24/7. You should try it. Not as easy as you think and your points show your inexperience and misinformation on the subject. Just because you think your rent is high or you can’t afford it or you don’t want to pay it doesn’t mean that being a landlord or owning property isn’t hard to do.

What constitutes a family home? What constitutes an investor? There are a lot of people moving from out of state. There are a lot of people buying second homes. Most multi family houses are bought by someone who is or becomes a landlord because they are only occupying one unit or won’t live in the house at all. Are they investors if they live in the house? Are they evil? You don’t know anything about risk landlords take on. How much does lead or asbestos abatement cost? What’s the cost of electrical or plumbing or mechanical systems? Appliances? Maintainance? How much is someone’s time worth to do work on their tenant’s home or be on call 24/7? How much is your security deposit in NH? Do you have any idea of how little damage that would actually cover? Even if you treat your apartment nicely, do you think every other renter does? There are corporations or rich people who are landlords, sure. Most landlords have just a few units and are not wealthy people. Just because someone made a decision to become a landlord does not make them evil.

Assuming the bank allows you. —————————————————————- Incorrect phrasing. The bank wants to lend. You don’t want to use a bank? Pay cash. If the bank doesn’t give you a loan, it’s not because they don’t want you to buy a house. It’s because you don’t qualify.

What is your data source for the investor stat? Not being an asshole btw, genuinely curious and finding NH housing data isn’t straightforward. One thing I’ve been curious about, too, is longitudinal data on short-term rentals in the state.

It's all a game with bad rules everyone is being forced to play.

Paying cash for a house is just about impossible for the average person. Which means most everybody will need to use a bank. The difference between not qualifying for the bank's (arbitrary) standards for a loan and "not being allowed" seems more pedantic than meaningful.

How about change laws on building new construction?

Rents will continue to rise as long as supply is continued to be stopped by local planning and zoning.

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OP should also let us know how easy it was to have enough money to buy multiple properties and "sit" on them.

Are you talking about zoning or code?

Code upgrades add to cost but I do think that they benefit in terms of safety. I recently had to replace a hot water heater and there was some solder that was melted off the top. The hot water heater is in a very tight space and we barely got by on code the last time we replaced it by going to a lower capacity unit. We would have had to upgrade the chimney diameter which would have meant making larger holes through ceilings, floors and roof. The plumbing company would only replace with an electric unit which required an additional circuit so it cost a few bucks to do. If I were a landlord, I'd have to pass this cost on - and stuff like this happens from time to time. You don't have to get up to code until you need to replace something or want to uprade something and then find out there there's a big cost to doing so.

On zoning? Sure. In my town, it's pretty easy to build something. I've watched many planning board meetings and the builders usually run roughshod over abutters. We have three large, new rental complexes that look pretty close to finished and at least one under construction. One of them looks like luxury apartments but I'm not sure of the others. I'm curious as to how quickly they will fill up. These things have been in progress for quite some time.

What specifically are you looking for on changing laws for new construction?

The OP also does not address the huge expenses a landlord incurs when a tenant doesn’t pay the rent. Sure, you can evict. Try evicting an elderly tenant or a single mother with kids. Even if the tenant is in the wrong and the landlord is in the right, a judge will automatically grant the tenant an extension. During that time, you think the landlord will be forgiven utility bills? Real estate tax bills? Mortgage bills? What do you think happens to a landlord who depends on the rents as their only income? That’s right! They stand a good chance of losing their investment. Now, is a landlord allowed to discriminate against single mothers or elderly tenants and only rent to single people or DINKS? They are not.

The above are just some of the reasons a prospective landlord prefers to turn rental properties into short term rentals. You get your money up front, and a dud tenant is gone in a week.

>Paying cash for a house is just about impossible for the average person. Which means most everybody will need to use a bank. The difference between not qualifying for the bank's (arbitrary) standards for a loan and "not being allowed" seems more pedantic than meaningful.

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Banks are in the business of making loans. Any buyer with a thought in his head will contact a mortgage representative from a bank and get pre-approved or pre-qualified. The rules for qualifying are a little different from lender to lender. They will tell you what they are. I would also advise becoming a member of a local credit union because sometimes their guidelines are more easygoing if you're buying a home in the city or town where they're located.

The days when lenders refused to lend to a to a qualified buyer because of race or ethnicity are long gone. If they refuse you despite your having good credit may be due to some minor rule, like inability to account for the source of your downpayment. If that is the case, the mortgage representative (who is also in the business of bringing in loans) will work with you to create a history for the source of the downpayment. The only time I had a hard time qualifying for a loan was back in 1981, and that was because depositors had withdrawn their money from banks and put it into high interest money market funds like Fidelity. Most banks had no money to lend. Mortgage companies had not yet been created.

The rules make sense once you understand them. Unfortunately schools don’t do a good job of teaching financial education including budgeting or how the credit system works. In theory it should be a mandatory class but not even in college is real world financials a real class. Once I started wanting to travel using airline miles or hotel points did I find all of the ways to increase your credit score or maintain it. Not that I’m saying that’s the direction to go in but if you need ways to improve yours I’m happy to help.

It's really hard.

I'm lucky enough to have a mortgage and a house I love. It's around $2500 a month when you include PMI.

I was only able to put 3% down. The 20% rule is another one of those dates guidelines that don't exist anymore.

You're just describing the standards, and actually making some points about how they're arbitrary (different depending on who you ask and where you are). So it doesn't really negate my point.

And I understand that's how banks get money, but I find the whole practice a bit unethical.

I sincerely appreciate you wanting to help, but I'm actually doing fine. You're right that most of the rules make sense, but I don't think that necessarily makes them good rules. And I would still rather not play the game, but that's not an option.

> I would still rather not play the game

How would housing work if you did not want to play the game?

It never did. It was only to avoid PMI and is spread by big real estate companies to discourage home ownership among the uninformed, keeping you out of the market and giving them less competition. The amount of equity you'll miss out on while saving 20% (or getting discouraged and giving up entirely, which they hope you'll do), compared to buying with the long standard of 3% minimum for first time home buyers, will always make PMI worth the price vs saving up for that 20%. First time home buyers should never put down 20% of that's their only barrier of entry. If they need to put down 20% to make the monthly payment affordable, they shouldn't be buying that particular house.

I certainly don't have plans drawn up for all the intricacies of what goes into to housing a population, but here's 2 things I'd like to be true. Housing as a human right, I don't think individuals should be paying for a safe place to call home. And a teacher should have easier access to home ownership than a stock broker.

Genuine question as a non-landlord, if I can I ask: if being a landlord is difficult—as most jobs are I think—why be one? Why not sell the property and divest yourself of the asset and the work to manage it? Get a job in the service industry or a trade? Personally, I would love it if my crappy landlord just sold us the house and we take over the costs while gaining the equity. Make needed repairs. Be responsible for landscaping and snow removal. Would be great. As it stands, the current low stock and resulting market (plus interest rate) increases have priced us out when a year ago we had a decent down payment. Changing zoning laws is all well and good but not helpful if those new properties are snatched up by people looking to use them as income by renting them out and working as a landlord. If people who own multiple houses had to sell a good portion of them (e.g., we put a tax on non-primary residence ownership such that people who own, say, more than 5 houses pay a 40% property tax on the highest-valued properties in excess of 5), wouldn’t that flood the market with real estate and bring down costs as well, without needing to force high-density housing everywhere?