Is investing in real estate immoral if you use it to buy your first home?
Is investing in real estate immoral if you use it to buy your first home?
I'm someone who believes landlording (and investing in property outside of just the one you live in) is immoral, because it makes it harder for other people to afford a home, and takes what should be a human right, and turns it into an investment.
At the same time, It's highly unlikely that I'll ever be able to own a home without investing my money.
And just investing in stocks means I won't have a diversified portfolio that could resist a financial crash as much as real estate can.
If I were to invest fractionally in real estate, say, through REITs, would it not be as immoral as landlording if I were to later sell all my shares of the REIT in order to buy my own home?
I personally think investing in general is usually immoral to some degree, since it relies on the exploitation of other's labour, but at the same time, it feels more like I'm buying back my own lost labour value, rather than solely exploiting others.
I'm curious how any of you might see this as it applies to real estate, so feel free to discuss :)
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Most folks who look at this (economic philosophers?) don't believe that regular working folks are part of the problem. Having a 401k or even working in an oil field isn't necessarily being part of the problem. Being an employee of Walmart doesn't mean someone is objectively a capitalist, they just want to eat and generally survive. I avoid driving, but do, and don't lose sleep over it.
I completely get that.
I mostly have just thought of housing as a different kind of beast, since unlike working a job, I don't have to invest in real estate to save for a house or retirement, but doing so might make it easier to accomplish that.
The biggest problem is definitely going to be full on landlords and private corporate investors, but I don't want to add any more to that problem, no matter how small my impact might be.
For sure! I have rented from small landlords who were great and like family and responsive to problems. Be those people if you are a landlord.
I had landlords like that, it was fantastic. The rental market was super hot at the time, and finding this flat was like a miracle. Eventually I had to suggest that they increase my rent, lol - it was ridiculously low. I was plied with cakes and fine Polish vodka every rent day. When I left they both cried, and said I was like a daughter to them.
The problem is, people who work a full-time job in addition to being a landlord, are not capable of performing the latter job properly. Most successful landlords are scum who do not work otherwise. People who try to do it while continuing to do their "day job" are shit landlords that often cannot even adhere to basic regulations.