A friend of ours has two weeks to find a new place to rent. 5 out of 5 of the rentals they've applied to have demanded application fees in the hundreds of dollars, per adult applicant. This fee comes with no guarantee your application will be approved. There are dozens of people applying to a single apartment, all paying hundreds in application fees. A lot of them housing companies are straight-up ghosting the applicants after that payment comes in.
One of the locations told them they throw out evey application at the end of the month, even though they applied on the 26th. They held onto an application for 5 days, for $350, and then shredded it. The same company told them the rental was still available, but at a much higher rate now that it's May. In other words, they accepted dozens of $350 application fees for one unit and then gave it to nobody, keeping it on the market for another month for another round of application fees.
Do the math: Let's say a landlord charges $3000 a month to rent an apartment. But then they realize if they charge $300 to even APPLY to it, and 11+ people apply... that's more profitable than actually renting it out...
The new frontier for capitalism is Application Fees. Entire corporations propped up on owning empty houses that hundreds of people pay to apply to live in and then nobody is selected, repeat every month forever.
Our friend has lost over a thousand dollars in application fees alone at this point, and still has no place to live. She's the wealthiest millennial we know, she works in real estate, and she's turning into a Maoist right in front of us.
EXHIBIT B: https://hexbear.net/post/190647
Same here. When I first moved out of my parents to live with a friend and some acquaintances they had already lived at this place for months and were looking for a new roommate to fill a vacancy. Immediately after I moved in, the house had a major issue, and the mom & pop landlord dragged their feet every step of the way. I was able to get out of the lease after staying there for not even a month and got the fuck out to move back in with my parents. The issue still hadn't been fixed when I escaped that place behind. Meanwhile all the other roommates were dumbass slumlord apologists who stayed behind and like another month passed before it finally got fixed. Never again.
Now I'm at a corporate-owned place and at worst, usually any maintenance stuff is resolved a couple of days at worst, and often the same or next day.
I see the appeal with renting from a mom & pop landlord, often because it's cheaper, but sometimes they make your life a living hell.
I think it’s the abstraction. While mom and pop landlords benefit from not spending money to do stuff, at a corporate place everything is handled by employees who don’t benefit from fucking you over and just want to do their job and go home.