Tenants Being Forced To Show References but 'Landlords Don't' Questioned

A Reddit post has sparked a debate on whether it's fair that tenants are required to provide references but landlords aren't.

The post, shared by u/Revolutionary_Mix941 on the r/antiwork subreddit, says: "It's strange that tenants have to provide landlords with references from places they've previously rented but landlords don't have to provide references from previous tenants. Almost as if there's a power imbalance due to the inherent nature of class society."

Since it was published on Thursday, the post has received over 15,400 upvotes and 438 comments.

According to Statista, the average monthly rent for apartments in the United States increased substantially in 2021, and as of February 2022, a two-bedroom apartment in reached an average monthly price of $1,295, up from $1,100 a year before.

Many users expressed strong feelings about the post. One, ryegye24 commented: "The power imbalance comes from 60 years of restricting the supply of new housing in the name of preserving segregation."

Test_tickles said: "Money is our caste system."

MelonElbows was more restrained: "Part of the problem is that there will always be more renters than there are landlords, that's just how it works. So renters don't often have the luxury of shopping around but landlords do."

Another user, jmo4545 said: "I used to work for a company that advertises apartments online. An online Apartment Guide, if you will. At one point we started requiring putting verified resident reviews on their ads to boost user experience and increase the quality of the site.

"We used third party verifiers and made sure the reviews were from actual tenants. The amount of complexes that refused and stopped doing business with us, just over reviews, was insane."

Bleached_eyeho1e said: "Yep and landlords can raise their prices just because so-and-so down the street did it so now it's fine for everyone in the area to.

"Let that domino across the country and give it some time and what you'll get is a housing situation similar to what we're seeing today! No regulations, just pure and utter greed. That's the American dream now—sit back and let your money work for you. Be a landlord/property owner and just make a living f*****g people! That easy."

Shibbyman342 commented: "As annoying as it is, it is just supply and demand causing the imbalance. If there were 10 options for housing for each person, the people would hold the power. Instead, there's 10 applicants per rental so the landlord holds all the power."

And shinHardc0re added: "It's not strange at all, the tenants are the one looking for the landlord's houses. If it was the landlords that were desperately looking for tenants, they would give references."