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On May 25 2020 15:22 IgnE wrote:
So we need a foreclosure sale on these schmucks only open to people who don't already own a house?
If there's a housing glut that will bring prices down across the board.
Housing is the dumbest thing for our society to focus on 'investing' in because if it turns out to actually be a good investment (beating inflation or even wage increases) that means that future generations are priced out of owning it. Consumers would be happy if the cost of new cars went down. I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for landlords who overlevered.
Really wish I had access to information regarding how many people/properties are getting their mortgage payments deferred. The local real estate market is still just chugging along although you can see cracks in the facade by looking at inventory/prices in less desirable areas, which are much more prone to large gains and losses. Anecdotally still know several people who are walking away from leases or not renewing, but not really tuned into the homeowner crowd.
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Bumped by a bot above, but curious if anyone else has any thoughts on this whole line of discussion half a year later?
Evictions are kinda-sorta back (depending on the state, and ranging from actual eviction to just being able to get the court order), which is a great relief for landowners. Of course, plenty of squatter tenants abusing the evictions moratorium to live as squatters in the landowners' properties, a real downside of a measure allegedly meant to help people. Sucks to be someone who cares about their credit because squatters can live rent-free, but if landowners don't pay their creditors will come after their assets.
Apparently there's rumors of "rent forgiveness" floating around among the poorer renting class. As with student loans, great excuse to avoid payment, but there's the obvious question of who exactly is meant to be doing the forgiving here? The private party property owners?
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This is a bizarre take LL even for you. If the difference is between squatters vs straight homelessness I think the whole economy would prefer squatters especially in an economy that sees rent demand on a cliff. Keeping people in houses and ready to go back to work if best for everyone and landowners would be worst served by having people to rent to some day rather then a mad max hellscape.
Its like you don't see the tenants as people and the landowners are the only people that matter. Rent forgiveness is around a ton in corporate bankruptcies in order to keep the business that's renting the space afloat until the economy recovers. Shoving people onto the street isn't something that will help the economy.
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On December 13 2020 02:13 Sermokala wrote:
This is a bizarre take LL even for you. If the difference is between squatters vs straight homelessness I think the whole economy would prefer squatters especially in an economy that sees rent demand on a cliff. Keeping people in houses and ready to go back to work if best for everyone and landowners would be worst served by having people to rent to some day rather then a mad max hellscape.
Its like you don't see the tenants as people and the landowners are the only people that matter. Rent forgiveness is around a ton in corporate bankruptcies in order to keep the business that's renting the space afloat until the economy recovers. Shoving people onto the street isn't something that will help the economy.
I think when he used the expression "abusing" in relation to squatters, he's refering to the subset of squatters that would otherwise be able to pay for some sort of living arrangement, so would therefore not be homeless.
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On December 13 2020 02:13 Sermokala wrote:
This is a bizarre take LL even for you. If the difference is between squatters vs straight homelessness I think the whole economy would prefer squatters especially in an economy that sees rent demand on a cliff. Keeping people in houses and ready to go back to work if best for everyone and landowners would be worst served by having people to rent to some day rather then a mad max hellscape.
Its like you don't see the tenants as people and the landowners are the only people that matter. Rent forgiveness is around a ton in corporate bankruptcies in order to keep the business that's renting the space afloat until the economy recovers. Shoving people onto the street isn't something that will help the economy.
I have little sympathy for people who don't pay not because they can't, but because they are looking to abuse a government program to save themselves a few thousand bucks at the expense of other private individuals. If they truly could not afford to pay, there's plenty of government housing assistance programs they could try to work with, or they could negotiate with landlords who can often be generous enough to work with good-faith tenants with an income interruption.
"Good faith actor" is not a term I would ascribe to squatters, and so yes, I don't really have much sympathy for them relative to the property owners they're screwing over. In a sane time they would be evicted and/or straight kicked out; evidently the government decided that under coronavirus conditions it's more expedient to toss out executive orders screwing over good-faith landowners rather than spend part of the stimulus money helping the genuinely downtrodden while leaving the good-faith actors whole.
You miss the point that there is no such thing as a "rent forgiveness program." Merely the reality that it's nigh-impossible to collect owed rent from poor people, so you write off bad debt because collections aren't worth the hassle.
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On December 13 2020 04:19 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 02:13 Sermokala wrote:
This is a bizarre take LL even for you. If the difference is between squatters vs straight homelessness I think the whole economy would prefer squatters especially in an economy that sees rent demand on a cliff. Keeping people in houses and ready to go back to work if best for everyone and landowners would be worst served by having people to rent to some day rather then a mad max hellscape.
Its like you don't see the tenants as people and the landowners are the only people that matter. Rent forgiveness is around a ton in corporate bankruptcies in order to keep the business that's renting the space afloat until the economy recovers. Shoving people onto the street isn't something that will help the economy. I have little sympathy for people who don't pay not because they can't, but because they are looking to abuse a government program to save themselves a few thousand bucks at the expense of other private individuals. If they truly could not afford to pay, there's plenty of government housing assistance programs they could try to work with, or they could negotiate with landlords who can often be generous enough to work with good-faith tenants with an income interruption. "Good faith actor" is not a term I would ascribe to squatters, and so yes, I don't really have much sympathy for them relative to the property owners they're screwing over. In a sane time they would be evicted and/or straight kicked out; evidently the government decided that under coronavirus conditions it's more expedient to toss out executive orders screwing over good-faith landowners rather than spend part of the stimulus money helping the genuinely downtrodden while leaving the good-faith actors whole. You miss the point that there is no such thing as a "rent forgiveness program." Merely the reality that it's nigh-impossible to collect owed rent from poor people, so you write off bad debt because collections aren't worth the hassle.
You're right they could negotiate their landlords that's the rent forgiveness talk you were describing the government doesn't have to be inside of every business discussion that goes on. There is not government housing assistance for the entirety of the minimum wage workforce that would be out of work as cascades of homeless people break the fragile economy that exists as it is.
We get you don't have sympathy for poor people. We hope you understand that exploding the homeless population doesn't help the property values that the landlords have based their livelihood on. The only thing most governments can do in the leu of republicans refusing to help the "good faith landlords" is to executive order the economy to keep moving.
Not collecting rent from people who can't pay rent isn't worth the hassle I agree. Making it so that they can never pay the rent is not the solution. We exist in a post 2008 crisis of simply telling the economy to not crash and hope everyone goes along with it and hope everyone's smart enough to just go along with the world not ending.
Like the people in these apartments that can't pay their rent aren't going to be replaced by people who can pay their rent. The only reason why anyone got into the agreements to pay the level of rent was under the understanding of an economy that didn't involve the pandemic shutting things down.
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Don't get me wrong, my heart does bleed for that class of people who think they're entitled to live in someone else's house / apartment for free just because there's a pandemic going on, but we live in a society where property rights and contracts matter - "land, liberty, and property" as the old philosophers and the Constitution say. And the reality is, the property belongs to the owner, and the tenant is contractually bound to pay the rent. The pandemic hasn't changed any of that; it's just made it harder to evict bad-faith tenants who decided to abuse a public safety measure to avoid paying their bills. Legally, they still owe every penny, as they should. Collecting owed debt where possible, writing it off where not, and handling vacancies after the squatters are evicted - well, that's just the cost of doing business, and business might be mediocre for a year.
Most everything else you said is just a series of really stupid strawman arguments involving airing miscellaneous grievances about real estate, which I'm not going to bother responding to.
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The pandemic made most of their property worthless beacuse the value it holds in the pandemic is nothing. The only way people can pay rent is if they have an economy to function with. Andrew Jackson ignored the constitution centuries ago and no one gave a shit.
Business might be mediocre for a year? The economy would collapse and their property wouldn't be worth paying the taxes on beacuse no one would live there.
I dont think you really grasp what we've been dealing with in 2020. There is this virus called covid 19 that's shut down or mostly slowed down swaths of the economy. That you think business as usual should occur when a once in a hundred year plague is out and out silly. There isnt just a year of mediocre business it's s year of catastrophic business that you want to make worse beacuse you seem to get off on the suffering of others.
What you've said is that you accept that class warfare is good but the 99% are the real villains.
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It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course.
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The homeless shelters and government subsidized housing is not capable of handling a crisis of this size. That is why the stop of evictions happened in so many places.
Love the perspective about how squatters are abusive people crushing the rights of these poor capitalists. Great insight :D.
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United States43368 Posts
Imagine seeing one family with two homes and another with no home and thinking the assholes who bought an extra home they didn’t even need were the good guys. And that the people not wanting to lose their home midwinter were the bad guys.
Of all the bad takes you’ve ever had LegalLord, I think “if they really respected property rights they’d be homeless and if they don’t respect property rights then they deserve homelessness” is the worst.
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On December 13 2020 09:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course.
This is very much in line with your view on people unable to pay their student loans. Which is to say, an awful and detached take on people who are very much victims of the very much still obvious and extant pandemic. I really struggle to understand where the logic comes from on this one.
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On December 13 2020 13:23 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 09:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course. This is very much in line with your view on people unable to pay their student loans. Which is to say, an awful and detached take on people who are very much victims of the very much still obvious and extant pandemic. I really struggle to understand where the logic comes from on this one.
Some people are victims; more are not and just looking for free money. There's a big difference between "down on their luck due to unfortunate external circumstances, need a little assistance to avoid being left on the streets" and "see government aid, act in bad faith in hopes that the government will rain some money in their direction even though they are as able to pay the bills as they were pre-pandemic were they to prioritize that."
Most of the people in here so far are defending the latter as if they were the former. I suspect fewer people will defend the latter on the merits of the latter approach in and of itself.
On December 13 2020 09:41 BlueBird. wrote:
The homeless shelters and government subsidized housing is not capable of handling a crisis of this size. That is why the stop of evictions happened in so many places.
So who do you think should be paying for this additional need for housing? Current status quo seems to be “all debts are still owed, landlords might just have trouble collecting and/or evicting when the debt is unpaid.” Is that the right approach?
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On December 13 2020 14:57 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 13:23 NewSunshine wrote:On December 13 2020 09:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course. This is very much in line with your view on people unable to pay their student loans. Which is to say, an awful and detached take on people who are very much victims of the very much still obvious and extant pandemic. I really struggle to understand where the logic comes from on this one. Some people are victims; more are not and just looking for free money. There's a big difference between "down on their luck due to unfortunate external circumstances, need a little assistance to avoid being left on the streets" and "see government aid, act in bad faith in hopes that the government will rain some money in their direction even though they are as able to pay the bills as they were pre-pandemic were they to prioritize that." Most of the people in here so far are defending the latter as if they were the former. I suspect fewer people will defend the latter on the merits of the latter approach in and of itself. Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 09:41 BlueBird. wrote:
The homeless shelters and government subsidized housing is not capable of handling a crisis of this size. That is why the stop of evictions happened in so many places. So who do you think should be paying for this additional need for housing? Current status quo seems to be “all debts are still owed, landlords might just have trouble collecting and/or evicting when the debt is unpaid.” Is that the right approach?
Oh nobody I think the landlords should let all of them starve and be homeless on the streets. Fuck those poor people.
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On December 13 2020 15:04 BlueBird. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 14:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2020 13:23 NewSunshine wrote:On December 13 2020 09:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course. This is very much in line with your view on people unable to pay their student loans. Which is to say, an awful and detached take on people who are very much victims of the very much still obvious and extant pandemic. I really struggle to understand where the logic comes from on this one. Some people are victims; more are not and just looking for free money. There's a big difference between "down on their luck due to unfortunate external circumstances, need a little assistance to avoid being left on the streets" and "see government aid, act in bad faith in hopes that the government will rain some money in their direction even though they are as able to pay the bills as they were pre-pandemic were they to prioritize that." Most of the people in here so far are defending the latter as if they were the former. I suspect fewer people will defend the latter on the merits of the latter approach in and of itself. On December 13 2020 09:41 BlueBird. wrote:
The homeless shelters and government subsidized housing is not capable of handling a crisis of this size. That is why the stop of evictions happened in so many places. So who do you think should be paying for this additional need for housing? Current status quo seems to be “all debts are still owed, landlords might just have trouble collecting and/or evicting when the debt is unpaid.” Is that the right approach? Oh nobody I think the landlords should let all of them starve and be homeless on the streets. Fuck those poor people.
Well, I appreciate a good bit of sarcasm as much as the next person, but as a matter of policy that's exactly what's going to happen with the status quo as soon as the current remaining restrictions on evictions & foreclosures expire. As a tenant, you get kicked out and you owe a shitload of back rent, whether you're abusing the system or genuinely out of a job. As a landlord, you have a lot of bad debt to clean up.
There are certainly public safety merits to evictions moratoriums to prevent homelessness, in the same way as there's good reason landlords aren't allowed to simply shut off the utilities, but "private parties foot the bill" isn't real policy as much as a short-term stopgap. Eventually, that ends badly for all involved, including tenants. If the status quo is the only plan you have, well it certainly isn't a good one.
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On December 13 2020 15:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 15:04 BlueBird. wrote:On December 13 2020 14:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2020 13:23 NewSunshine wrote:On December 13 2020 09:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course. This is very much in line with your view on people unable to pay their student loans. Which is to say, an awful and detached take on people who are very much victims of the very much still obvious and extant pandemic. I really struggle to understand where the logic comes from on this one. Some people are victims; more are not and just looking for free money. There's a big difference between "down on their luck due to unfortunate external circumstances, need a little assistance to avoid being left on the streets" and "see government aid, act in bad faith in hopes that the government will rain some money in their direction even though they are as able to pay the bills as they were pre-pandemic were they to prioritize that." Most of the people in here so far are defending the latter as if they were the former. I suspect fewer people will defend the latter on the merits of the latter approach in and of itself. On December 13 2020 09:41 BlueBird. wrote:
The homeless shelters and government subsidized housing is not capable of handling a crisis of this size. That is why the stop of evictions happened in so many places. So who do you think should be paying for this additional need for housing? Current status quo seems to be “all debts are still owed, landlords might just have trouble collecting and/or evicting when the debt is unpaid.” Is that the right approach? Oh nobody I think the landlords should let all of them starve and be homeless on the streets. Fuck those poor people. Well, I appreciate a good bit of sarcasm as much as the next person, but as a matter of policy that's exactly what's going to happen with the status quo as soon as the current remaining restrictions on evictions & foreclosures expire. As a tenant, you get kicked out and you owe a shitload of back rent, whether you're abusing the system or genuinely out of a job. As a landlord, you have a lot of bad debt to clean up. There are certainly public safety merits to evictions moratoriums to prevent homelessness, in the same way as there's good reason landlords aren't allowed to simply shut off the utilities, but "private parties foot the bill" isn't real policy as much as a short-term stopgap. Eventually, that ends badly for all involved, including tenants. If the status quo is the only plan you have, well it certainly isn't a good one.
The status quo pre pandemic sucked for people. The status quo of today sucks for the people.
I don't believe the moratorium on its own is a good plan, I believe its kicking the can down the road. I agree with you. Your solution lacks empathy and compassion, and I think your priorities are misplaced.
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On December 13 2020 15:40 BlueBird. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2020 15:30 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2020 15:04 BlueBird. wrote:On December 13 2020 14:57 LegalLord wrote:On December 13 2020 13:23 NewSunshine wrote:On December 13 2020 09:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's laughable to romanticize squatters as some sort of oppressed underclass.
Pay rent, or move out. Private homeowners aren't in the business of free housing. If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
If the rental properties are now worthless post-pandemic, it's fair game for the landlords to lose money. After the rent-free squatters get kicked out of course. This is very much in line with your view on people unable to pay their student loans. Which is to say, an awful and detached take on people who are very much victims of the very much still obvious and extant pandemic. I really struggle to understand where the logic comes from on this one. Some people are victims; more are not and just looking for free money. There's a big difference between "down on their luck due to unfortunate external circumstances, need a little assistance to avoid being left on the streets" and "see government aid, act in bad faith in hopes that the government will rain some money in their direction even though they are as able to pay the bills as they were pre-pandemic were they to prioritize that." Most of the people in here so far are defending the latter as if they were the former. I suspect fewer people will defend the latter on the merits of the latter approach in and of itself. On December 13 2020 09:41 BlueBird. wrote:
The homeless shelters and government subsidized housing is not capable of handling a crisis of this size. That is why the stop of evictions happened in so many places. So who do you think should be paying for this additional need for housing? Current status quo seems to be “all debts are still owed, landlords might just have trouble collecting and/or evicting when the debt is unpaid.” Is that the right approach? Oh nobody I think the landlords should let all of them starve and be homeless on the streets. Fuck those poor people. Well, I appreciate a good bit of sarcasm as much as the next person, but as a matter of policy that's exactly what's going to happen with the status quo as soon as the current remaining restrictions on evictions & foreclosures expire. As a tenant, you get kicked out and you owe a shitload of back rent, whether you're abusing the system or genuinely out of a job. As a landlord, you have a lot of bad debt to clean up. There are certainly public safety merits to evictions moratoriums to prevent homelessness, in the same way as there's good reason landlords aren't allowed to simply shut off the utilities, but "private parties foot the bill" isn't real policy as much as a short-term stopgap. Eventually, that ends badly for all involved, including tenants. If the status quo is the only plan you have, well it certainly isn't a good one. The status quo pre pandemic sucked for people. The status quo of today sucks for the people. I don't believe the moratorium on its own is a good plan, I believe its kicking the can down the road. I agree with you. Your solution lacks empathy and compassion, and I think your priorities are misplaced.
I'm not sure I really talked much about solutions. Mostly just that the government should be footing the bill when there's a systematic reason why rent is unaffordable, and that evictions are an ugly but necessary part of the process. I will admit that this specific sentence
If you can't afford it - the homeless shelters and subsidized government housing are always at your service.
is a little more aggressive than is justified in pandemic conditions specifically. I'll stand by the rest of it - private parties are not in the business of free housing, and "no rent = no housing" is how it works there. I will also link this Time story about how the pandemic screws over the large contingency of smaller landlords, renting primarily to poorer households, the most.
What I'm getting at, I suppose, is: either the government provides rent assistance to go with the eviction moratorium, or let it play out the free market way. The latter has some real big problems right now, but a half-baked approach of "moratorium, but no assistance for property owners" is its own crisis that will play out at the end of the pandemic.
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I'd wager the majority of houses (and warehouses or similar) aren't under control by individuals with a second house for rent, but by banks with a government backstop. High asset prices keep the cheap credit flowing.
Government doesn't want cheap prices, they want people to indebt themselves (to add: Not because of anything else than to keep the credit flowing, most likely)
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On December 13 2020 16:39 Vivax wrote:
I'd wager the majority of houses (and warehouses or similar) aren't under control by individuals with a second house for rent, but by banks with a government backstop. High asset prices keep the cheap credit flowing.
About 50/50 really.
Institutional investors own a growing share of the nation’s 22.5 million rental properties and a majority of the 47.5 million units contained in those properties, according to the US Census Bureau’s recently released 2015 Rental Housing Finance Survey (RHFS). The changes are notable because virtually all of the household growth since the financial crisis has occurred in rental units, with more than half of the growth occurring in single-family rental units.
According to the RHFS, individual investors were the biggest group in the rental housing market in 2015, accounting for 74.4 percent, or 16.7 million rental properties, followed by limited liability partnerships (LLPs), limited partnerships (LPs), or limited liability companies (LLCs) (14.8 percent); trustees for estates (4.1 percent); and nonprofit organizations (1.6 percent) (Table 1). However, because the share of rental properties owned by individual investors tends to decrease with the property size, individual investors owned less than half (47.8 percent) of rental units, followed by LLPs, LPs, or LLCs (33.2 percent), trustees for estates (3.3 percent), real estate corporations (3.3 percent), and nonprofit organizations (3.2 percent).
The least vulnerable group got the most aid, of course. Big businesses tend to get more stimulus and to have tenants who actually care about their credit score, so they'll pay their rent. Easy enough to do when that group mostly still has their jobs on top of all that.
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