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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
It's something that I firmly believe. I have seen communities become better that when from renters to owners.
I'm all for housing projects in low income areas to give people the vested interest in being more civic minded and care more about their community.
You care about your community to a level. If your home value rose or fell depending upon how well the rest of the community does is why I feel this way.
I don't want to deal with a lawn either. I don't care to deal with repairing grounds. I live in a 1 bedroom apartment that I own. Another property that I own is a 1 bedroom condo for the same.
In the area that I live in of 30,000 housing units over 50% (18,000) of them are low income housing. We have more community outreach projects here than anywhere else in NYC. We have one of the lowest crime rates as well. Who operates these? Local people who rent. Where does the money come from? Government programs, corporate funding, and philanthropists.
You are the rare person who rents and cares about their community. It isn't that common.
In the past decade that I rented I did what I could in whatever community would have me. I didn't work in my own community that I rented within because they didn't have any outreach programs in Englewood or Hoboken, NJ. I'd have to go to Jersey City or even NYC. Did that help my local community where I lived? Not really.... The only way I'd be able to work on that if I was to work for a church and I had no interest in that at all.
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I respect your work, but I feel you unjustly are stereotyping the renters. I think you would have a hard time telling renters in the complexes I have lived in that they had no vested interest or were less concerned about the community.
I have known many people that preferred renting over home owning because they chose to spend the mortgage money in other ways, or rented because they liked the area but couldn't afford the house, etc.
The area my complex is in is considered one of the richest townships in Stark County, the complex my wife and I lived in was very nice also. Both were surrounded by upper middle class houses, in fact the one my wife and I lived in was in the middle of a very nice neighborhood.
It depends on the complex owners...... if they do serious background, credit checks and have stringent rules then you'll have very good renters that care about the community. If the owners are slum lords then chances are they rent to the lowest common denominator.
I think the renters have the same overall investment and desire to keep the community as decent as possible, as the homeowners in the area do.
I just think there are far more renters like me than there are that don't care about the community, etc.
Guess we have to agree to disagree on this particular issue.
BTW, perhaps in big cities like NYC, Vegas, Miami, and so on that maybe true. I do know the complex I lived in, in Vegas was the exception.... there were some problems in that complex. But the tenants still kept the complex clean and the community safe.