A Boring Dystopia

In a word, corruption.

In two words, legal corruption.

In three words, blatant legal corruption.

In four words, United States political system.

This is what people mean when they say there is no ethical consumption in capitalism. Yes, you are a leech, but only because the system has forced you into it. In a different system, neither you nor the Ukrainian family would have housing insecurity.

I don’t say this to judge you, btw, I think we should applaud every landlord who keeps rent low. Just pointing out that it’s impossible to both “keep your hands clean” and “get ahead” in capitalism.

my parents were fortunate enough in their lives to give me a gift of $20,000 dollars

just FYI, when you use a dollar sign you don't also have to type out the word "dollars"

Absolutely not. Do what you got to do to move back to your condo.

Am I a leech?

Technically, I guess so, you're profiting just by owning the property. And having tenants exactly balancing out the costs of owning property.

Morally? Fuck no. What you're doing you are doing to survive, not to live excessively.

This is tough, because even though you are charging your tenants the exact amount of your minimum mortgage payment, you are still earning equity in an appreciating asset-- eventually you will be able to turn their rent payments into profits. Now, in my opinion, your level of exploitation is very low, and barely worth considering at all.

On the one hand you're getting someone else to make full payments on your mortgage. On the other hand, it's your sole property and the only way you could maintain ownership of it. You weren't profiting over cost, or collecting money from the renters that would go to maintenance (the only actual service/labor that landlords perform). Your choices were practical, not profitable. At least less profitable than you might think. Profitable to the minimum that the system required for you to keep your one home. Short of a revolution where all mortgages are zeroed out, it sounds like you did the best you could.

I don't believe binary logic is very useful. So I'm not going to answer "am I a leech" because I don't think it has a yes or no answer.

You have an asset that you can't afford, and to afford it you rent it out. That is absolutely valid in a capitalist society, and many people do it. This allows you to hold the asset instead of selling it. That means there's one fewer property on the market, which means that if somebody wants that home they have to rent it from you, where your equity increases and they get a place to live. Again, in a capitalist society this is absolutely valid. And it's not like you aren't taking risk, you could get a bad tenant and they could damage the unit, in turn decreasing your equity. One common "protest" I've seen among renters is to poor grease down the sink, damaging the plumbing over the long time, creating a huge long term cost for the owner. Or flushing cat litter down the toilet, causing a blockage, and similar results. You are accepting risk, and capitalist society says if you accept risk you deserve reward. But from a human-focused perspective you get a very different conclusion.

An issue many people have with this is that the renter is gaining no equity and you are while you aren't contributing production to society. In the world we live this is valid. Another example of this would be dividend stocks, if you hold KO (Coke) you get quarterly dividends, and really you're not actually contributing anything. These are capital gains.

My biggest issue with capital gains is that they're usually taxed lower than labour gains. I think that should be reversed. If capital gains were heavily taxed and that tax was used to better the community then I think it would have more justification. But I digress,

If you sold that property it would probably just go to an investor, but in a world where people couldn't own investment properties it would go to a person or family who would live it in, allowing them to build equity themselves. The number of properties being held and rented out has an impact on the homes available to people buying, or rather being forced to rent.

But ultimately I believe that renting and charging rent is bad for society as a whole. But I also don't think you selling your property wouldn't have any meaningful impact. I think it needs to be a systematic change to be meaningful.

So I'd say you do you, but you are taking advantage of the system and renters. But that's the reality of the world we live in. Doesn't mean it's OK, but does mean you can do it. Also means I won't have sympathy for you if somebody damages your property. But maybe that's because I'm a bad person, I don't know.

I firmly believe homes are for living in, not generating income - even if that income is only to maintain your ownership on your asset. But if you follow that perspective your life will be a bit worse.

Like I said, I don't take the binary perspective.

It would also require everyone to own 4+ houses which isn't exactly feasible

Quite the opposite in fact.