A person buys a house or small multi-unit building. They move in and then rent out the rest of the space. The tenants' rent covers the mortgage payments and maybe some supplemental income for the owner.
This arrangement is nothing new, but you wouldn't know that from watching TikTok and YouTube. Influencers tout the practice as "living for free" and "the simplest way to become a millionaire."
There's just one thing missing from this age-old idea.
Don't, under any circumstances, call them "landlords."
As Insider's James Rodriguez reports, the internet is flush with people touting success stories of renting out homes or apartment buildings they live in.
A major selling point of the trend is its low cost of entry. With a loan from the Federal Housing Administration, buyers can put down as little as 3.5% of the purchase price as long as they stay at the property for at least a year.
But these aspiring real-estate moguls have been reticent about one aspect of the job. Many don't want to be called landlords, opting for a friendly term: "house hackers."
A landlord might raise your rent, evict you, or hold your security deposit after you move out. All things, presumably, a "house hacker" would never do, as they are too busy "hacking" the real-estate market. (Whatever that means.)
If all this sounds like utter nonsense, understand the rebranding of "landlord" is for real. One rental housing economist called the term "archaic, offensive, and divisive."
However, the landlord-to-house-hacker transition hasn't been going smoothly, with critics commenting terms like "leech" and "parasite" on videos detailing this repackaged real-estate strategy.
Of course, just because you're not a fan of a profession doesn't delegitimize it. No one likes getting a parking ticket, but that doesn't mean parking enforcement officers simply shouldn't exist.
The issue with house hackers is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. They'd like to enjoy the monetary benefits of renting out their property without the baggage of being known as a landlord.
But perhaps renters should take a page out of landlords' house hackers' book with their own rebrand.
It's not renting; it's housing-as-a-service. And your rent isn't late; you're just Musk-ifying your housing situation.
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