Farewell to Rents and Mortgages

The time has come for us to discuss this simple fact:  who among us is not dispossessed?  Who among us owns our own land, free from encumbrance, free from outside interference, unwanted intrusion and taxation?

We have an institution known as the mortgage; we have a system of paying rent to landlords/ladies; we have to pay taxes on our properties and the produce grown on our own land when it is sold.  In short, we do not have our own land and the right to use it as we choose.

Here are two simple means by which rent-paying and mortgage encumbrance can become things of the past.  Within two generations, people may look back on these very institutions as unbelievably barbaric and at the very least completely outdated and unnecessary.

There is no revolution needed except for a change in perspective.  We may not have the choice of what is done to us, but we certainly have the choice of how we treat others.

For example, we can willingly choose not to charge each other rent.  Here is a rent revolt of a different sort, as it stems from the refusal of a land-owner who freely vacates their home to disadvantage the new occupant.

Also, when there is a mortgage on a property, the new family can simply take over the existing mortgage.  In a much shorter time they can become the outright owners, as the borrowing cycle will not have to start from scratch.  What is given up is the former owner's claim to equity.  By these means, no new mortgages would have to be undertaken, and the value of a given property would cease to escalate, due to inflationary pressures or land speculation.  Dutifully, mortgages would continue to be paid, but in ever decreasing amounts (not ever-increasing ones).

The result would be that the value placed on land would be less linked to the real estate market and instead based on their worth as places for families to live and pass onto their children and grand-children, and so on.

Reasons for doing this are that by putting other's needs ahead of one's own when it comes to transferring ownership or occupancy of a property, every one can have land of their own.  Including the people who are supposedly making the greatest sacrifice (because some one would also give them a home).  Land-lords, as we call them today, would no longer require mortgages, and thus not need to charge rent.  First time buyers would only need to look for some one vacating their home and not to be restricted by financial considerations.

Humanity would have a lot of time on its hands!  The time spent in working to put or keep a roof over one's head would be freed up.  You could actually choose what you wanted to do.  And all by letting go of a concept that has appeared to have kept us all enslaved:  equity.  An imaginary quantity that we cannot touch, hold or feel.  And that does not hug us.