Comment by cliglot
3 hours ago
I may have ended up that way if I hadn’t gotten into software as a teenager. Luckily a did and the timing was right for me to make some sort of decent career out of it.
I did live independently prior to going into software, but it sucked and was fragile and likely would have fallen apart long term. I also doubt I could find a similar living situation as a young man with no credit or much money to his name. Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.
> Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.
Rental approvals are ridiculous. We're renting an apartment while we remodel our house.
We've taken out mortgages, refi'd mortgages, and (by now) taken out 3 HELOCs in a row (2 of them subsequently closed as we needed to re-file for more $). While there's a lot of paperwork involved, it feels pretty easy. "Promise to pay us back? Cool!"
Filling out apartment rentals was awful. The rejections, the tiny paper forms asking you about creditors and bank accounts, how much money you owe each of them every month, personal references, "supervisor's phone number", have you ever been to jail, ever failed to pay rent for any reason, previous landlords' contact info. Look, I get that rent is an unsecured obligation (vs a mortgage), but every step of it was gross and accusatory.