[camgunz]

I mean aesthetic in the broader sense. For example I'd love to have rainwater capture and solar panels at my home, and maybe a composting site and garden too. Apartment living rules those out, but if I owned my own home I can probably get them going (coop boards or HOAs notwithstanding).

But like, I don't need them. Almost no one does. It's an aesthetic lifestyle choice. I'm (probably, anyway) willing to purchase a home in order to do this--and other non-apartment-friendly things--but I don't think it should be the goal of national housing policy to ensure that everyone has this option.

I can also imagine a more sophisticated tenant/landlord/housing policy that allowed tenants to do more significant things to land or structure. It's not like these things are unprecedented: leasers of agricultural land and commercial office space do it all the time. But again, I think it probably boils down to "poor, unsophisticated people rent, letting them lease your property is a huge risk, here's a thick contract and some biased tenant/landlord statues to protect landlord interests" thinking, which is definitely inaccurate.

[pandaman]

It all boils down to the liability. A standard residential lease only has the deposit as the collateral for any possible damage. Theoretically the landlord can go after more money with a judgment but it's not very probable to collect from an individual without much property (thus renting and not owning).

For rich and sophisticated renters there is always an option to pay the landlord to do whatever modifications they want.

[camgunz]

Yeah that's a good point. I wonder if we can add some rigor to the improvement/modification process to avoid like, wacky mods or incompetent DIYers/contractors causing serious or widespread damage. I guess I would worry about adding yet another barrier to entry to an already struggling sector (tradespeople) but, maybe some more professionalization would make it more attractive and avoid the "no parent tells their kid they hope they grow up to be a house framer" phenomenon.

[pandaman]

There is already rigor: insurance and bond. However the insured and bonded contractor has to have a contract with the landlord so landlord can go after the insurance and bond. Thus only the landlord can order work on the property. Theoretically a renter can become an insured and bonded contractor oneself but it's much cheaper to just pay the contractor through landlord.

[camgunz]

Sure, but the missing piece is getting landlord to allow this. 99% of residential landlords will just say "nah", again probably because we have this mentality that renting is a temporary stepping stone on the path to home ownership.

Markets that aren't like this (NYC) have a huge, professional renter class of people who will likely never own a home there, and you can see how the regime is different. It'd be nice if that were more prevalent, IMO anyway.

[pandaman]

I don't see where you get your statistics. I would be elated if a tenant improved my house on his or her dime. With multi-unit rentals you just need to do what the commercial leases do: ensure that you also pay for returning the property to the original state (by posting a bond, for example) as nobody wants a multi-unit rental with different units in it.

In NYC or LA you can definitely find rentals which will do a remodel for your specs before you move in. Those are not, of course, $3K/m bare bones 2brs in multiplexes the 99% "professional renters" are looking for.

[camgunz]

I mean I'm not being super rigorous. Based on my experience, the experience of everyone I know, and the fact that nearly every apartment I've ever been in my whole life is essentially unmodified and mostly out of date (or poorly maintained, or brand new) I think this is broadly, mostly true.

And sure, you can find places who are gonna pull $4k/m out of you and they're willing to do all kinds of things--even more if you sign a multi-year lease. But only a tiny sliver of Americans will ever do that, or will even ever be able to do that. Most apartments are still in smaller cities like Indianapolis or Nashville; they're big multiplexes, and you absolutely cannot modify them. My hypothesis here is that this is because in most of the US, we generally view renting as a step on the path towards home ownership, so the "worse experience" is supposed to both be efficient and serve as a motivation to join the housing market.

And I think, ultimately, you and I are saying the same thing? In markets where tons of relatively powerful/rich people are renters (NYC, LA, SF) you do get landlords that are far more amenable to things like modification, but in other markets you very much don't. Maybe we disagree on which market has more apartment stock or renters?