GREEDY GREEDY LANDLORDS!
I’ve lived on rented property my whole life. My childhood home was a bungalow and our landlord was named Kelly. She would let me pet her dog while my mom would hand her a cheque on her front porch.
A landlord like Kelly is what I like to call the “friendly neighbourhood landlord”. These were upper-middle class folks who were making extra money on top of their regular jobs. They were not great and a lot of the time put the rent way up. But you knew them by name and they knew you — and that made a big difference.
Meanwhile, in Ottawa, over 40 per cent of homes are owned by “multiple-property owners”. If you live in a neighbourhood like Sandy Hill, you know exactly what I’m talking about: Smart Living, Osgoode Properties, Sleepwell, CLV group, etc.; these are the companies that own Sandy Hill.
The “friendly neighbourhood landlord” still survives in Sandy Hill but is an endangered species; property companies are a predatory and invasive species. You may know their name, but to them, you’re just a monthly paycheque.
Sandy Hill was once home to prime ministers, lumber barons, and other members of Canada’s Elite. In the early 1900s Sandy Hill’s wealthy residents moved to Rockcliffe, an even more elite neighbourhood. As the rich moved out, students moved in.
Instead of tearing down these once incredibly lavish houses, landlords gutted them and made them into as many separate units as possible. This is why Sandy Hill was so affordable, but each year they get greedier and greedier. Now the prices keep going up and the companies keep growing like a bad rash.
Let’s say you want to buy some weed. Five dispensaries are an equal distance from you, and you’ll probably buy weed based on price, quality, etc. The dispensaries are competing with each other to have you as their customer. In this situation, you hold the most control.
When you apply to rent a place in Sandy Hill, it becomes vice versa: you are competing with others to become the customer. It means landlords don’t have to actually provide a quality service.
It’s important to remember that a landlord-to-tenant relationship is the same as a service provider-to-customer relationship. For some reason in our society, we have started to believe that landlords hold all the power and should be treated like employers.
One day they’ll buy out the whole neighbourhood until it belongs to them. When that day comes it won’t just be Sandy Hill; it’ll be Lowertown, Vanier, Centretown, Overbrook and who knows where else. Think prices are high now? They’ll get worse.
Just to be clear — the “friendly neighbourhood landlord” is not the victim here. They are simply the better of two evils. The real victims are the tenants.
They also should be building affordable housing more than just funding property companies to make cheaper housing – let’s introduce more co-operative housing; That’s when multiple tenants own a property collectively and act as their own landlords, but are accountable for each other.
Property companies are not accountable at all because tenants really have no other alternative other than buying which is not feasible for the vast majority, especially students.
