I think you both are arguing about different things. If you are a landlord with one or two properties you'll value keeping a reliable tenant over pure profit to some degree. However if you're one of the more common corp management rent seeker type your actions are dictated by the cold math of the maximum optimal gain from your capital investment.

The first one cannot rationalize keeping the property however when there's a market of hedge funds whose sole mission is to create more wage slaves for their machine.

hiro protagonist

1294 Posts

August 05 2021 01:16 GMT

#222

On August 05 2021 09:12 KwarK wrote:

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The alternative to renting is buying. If the price to buy goes up the demand to rent goes up.

True. But in the example of a mass eviction, prices in low demand areas that have artificially low supply will collapse, both housing and rent. In places where eviction won’t alter the demand, prices will be stable, both in buying and renting.

If you look at availability of introductory homes in many areas, it’s low. Home builders in the last 10 years have been largely focused on high end housing. Given the fact that low end homes are
Also much more likely to be rentals, I think in the majority of areas it won’t depress the value of the home, wether for sale or rental. Again, it all depends on the location.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

August 07 2021 01:33 GMT

#223

On August 02 2021 01:00 LegalLord wrote:
Rent prices seem to be going up. About time to renew my lease (or not), and they're raising the rate by 6% this time around. This after a 0% increase in 2020 due to the ongoing troubles with nonpayment, so a little more than I'd like, lol. What's interesting is they're offering longer term leases (18-24 months), which leads me to believe that they perceive a risk of falling rent prices in the near future.

Oh and of course we got the eviction moratorium in the US expiring - which made the big news lately. Making much fewer headlines is that it seems that the foreclosure moratorium is doing the same. The impact of those two things should be interesting.

Ended up renewing. With the additional eleventh hour extension of the moratorium, the current upward pressure on rent isn’t going anywhere, so being able to have fixed expenses for a couple years will be a big help. While the ostensible justification for the extension is to stop the spread of delta, it seems like the real justification is that there isn’t a plan for unwinding the mess that is delinquent tenants and homeowners.

The only way this moratorium in perpetuity ends is with pricing honest people out of the having-a-place-to-live market. It’s what will happen when you do something like this that artificially reduces the supply of buyable and rentable units by giving squatters free units. But apparently it’s better than the short term shock of putting downward pressure on prices.

GoTuNk!

Chile4591 Posts

August 07 2021 14:13 GMT

#224

On August 07 2021 10:33 LegalLord wrote:

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The moratorium is blatantly illegal, will remain as long as the courts take to overturn it. The SC was literal in saying that congress makes law, not the CDC.
I have no idea what the WH is trying to achieve, even politically, it is quite dumb to kick a ticking bomb closer to the election; especially when you are basically admitting that you violated the constitution on purpose in the process. I do have one more sinister guess, that they will push for lockdowns again.

LegalLord

United States13779 Posts

August 07 2021 15:19 GMT

#225

On August 07 2021 23:13 GoTuNk! wrote:

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Hopefully the courts act quickly here. I will add that the "maybe it's not legal, but it's a good thing anyway" framing that this executive order is getting is really unsettling as well.

Beyond the question of legality, it really just doesn't seem like good policy. When landlords are forced to maintain squatter tenants that won't pay and can't be removed, they'll either fold their business (selling to wealthier landlords with more cash on hand) or pass the cost on to other tenants, raising rents by double-digit numbers like we've seen in 2021. When properties can't be foreclosed, that creates a supply shock in the housing market, causing prices to rocket upward. Great for people with rising asset prices and for scummy tenants for whom a credit score is irrelevant, but terrible for the honest working population that wants to avoid being priced out of being able to afford a place to live. I suspect it's the dependence of the wider financial markets on rising house prices that motivates this behavior, but it sure looks suspiciously like an unsustainable bubble.