I recently had a piece in Fairfax's Domain property lift-out: 'Landlords, you provide a service and that requires minimum standards'.

I'm arguing that renting is a service, and those who make money from this service need to take their responsibilities seriously.

[B]eing a landlord is a job. It’s not a weirdly lucrative hobby or amateur sports betting pool. Landlords ought to treat it as a form of employment, which requires minimum standards of thought, effort, and ethics. Obviously there’s no ongoing tradition of vocational identity here, akin to medicine or the older disciplines of academia. To become a landlord isn’t to join a guild or association in any meaningful sense, with explicit rights and duties. Nonetheless, some basic familiarity with local laws, and reflection on one’s moral obligations, is an excellent start.