Stop Renting and Stop Being a Victim

Well the other shoe dropped, and it looks like California AB 1482 will soon become law. My last episode of Seb Frey TV exhorted viewers to please contact their California representatives and urge them to vote NO – all for naught! I don’t want to rehash all the reasons why rent control is bad – and it is bad, for everyone, including renters. But I did have an email conversation with someone in my database about it – as a tenant, she is in favor of rent control. She is unhappy that her landlord raises her rent every year, while she knows that the landlord is making a good profit after expenses from her rent. But even with AB 1482, she probably will not see much if any relief. Under AB 1482, “mom and pop” landlords renting single family homes or condos are not subject to the constraints of rent control. And then landlords can raise rent 5% + inflation very year anyway – few tenants will ever see those kind of yearly increases regardless. But what came through in that email was the author’s sense of being victimized by greedy landlords. But there’s a solution to greedy landlords: BUY YOUR HOME. Renting sucks. Home owners have somewhere between 35x and 44x the net worth of renters. Being a life-long renter is, for most people, a straight ticket to poverty. Especially as you get older and are on a fixed income, renting can be an absolute disaster. Don’t wait to buy real estate – buy real estate and wait!