Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 312 posts

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#161

Post by billmalarky »

watwut wrote: post #156
billmalarky wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will happen if the economy collapses and the value of your flat is worth half what you paid for it and you lose your job?

I have a place to live in, while if I would be renting, I would have no more money for rent and had to move. I am not speculating on that flat with intention to sell. I live in it.

You've lost your job and were only able to get a job that paid half, how do you make your mortgage payment? If you are renting you are not locked into the property, you have the flexibility to move to a lower cost flat.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#162

Post by khedoros1 »

kazinator wrote: post #130
pc86 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously don't own a home. There absolutely are financial implications for the value of your home dropping after you buy it. A) An already illiquid asset is more illiquid. Not only do you need to find someone willing to buy it, you either need to pay to sell it, or find someone willing to pay above market. B) Decreased access to capital. HELOCs are one of the few ways the middle class has to access six figures o…

Regarding A, do banks ever make "margin calls" when homes drop in value? I mean, force people to sell even though those people have an income and are making mortgage payments? (If so, why, when the mortgage income, if it continues, is worth more than what they can get from the foreclosure?)

I can't speak for every situation, but I know that my mortgage doesn't include any terms like that. The bank could foreclose and sell the property only if I stopped making mortgage payments.

I think that what you're describing would be termed a "technical default", and would require a clause called an "affirmative covenant".

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#163

Post by gowld »

jpao79 wrote: post #90
natrius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't eliminate all rent, just tax away the rents derived from the land itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

In California at least, the property tax bill is already split into two components: 1.) Tax on land value 2.) Tax on improvements (building, landscaping) so Georgism already exists somewhat. An land value tax increase would need to be phased over decades to account for the building lifetimes which can span 50 or more years. Developers use multi-decode economic models for their developments based on assumptions includ…

It's not the state's job to protect the landlords' business models.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#164

Post by gowld »

WallWextra wrote: post #31
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you want to eliminate rent? Yes. Land should be held by housing cooperatives or by private owner-occupiers. Rentiers can go find a line of business that contributes to society.

When you live in a coop, you usually pay rent.

Where? Not in NY or SF, where co-ops are popular.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#165

Post by gowld »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23
mindcrime wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what's your point? Do you want to eliminate rent? Should people who either can't afford to purchase a house, or who simply don't want to, be forced into homelessness? Personally I've paid over $115,000 in rent over the past 12 years, but I don't begrudge my landlord their money. I attained utility in exchange for the rent I paid, and have no problem with the arrangement. Not, of course, to say that I'm happy when…

No, no one is advocating for eliminating rent. I (EDIT: removed "We") am advocating for tilting the scales back towards labor though. * No depreciation allowance on rental property that is almost always going to appreciate [1] * No 1031 exchanges, deferring capital gains forever [2] * No mortgage interest deduction, which encourages the wealthy to bid up real estate since their leverage is tax advantaged. [3] * Co-Op…

Improvements don't appreciate. Land appreciates.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#166

Post by gowld »

newlyretired wrote: post #144
mindcrime wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough! Coops acquiring property for renting to citizens when possible Yes, this sounds like a good idea. As a Libertarian, I like this model because it is compatible with private property rights, and doesn't demand some sort of government intervention.

You don't think property coops are at a high risk of acting like current HOAs?

How is an HOA worse for the resident than a landlord?

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#167

Post by gowld »

vkou wrote: post #48
billmalarky wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived. The value landlords provide is the assumption of risk. The premium you pay to rent is in exchange for vastly limiting your exposure to said risk. This is why offloading the risk onto creditors (ie purchasing real estate with borrowed money under an LL…

> The value landlords provide is the assumption of risk. The premium you pay to rent is in exchange for vastly limiting your exposure to said risk. In hot housing markets, the value they provide is having access to the capital necessary to own property. A 30 year old hairdresser in Seattle isn't renting because they don't want to deal with risk - they are renting because they can't save up a $XY,000 downpayment, and…

what if the hairdresser wants to move in with a roommate? or gets married? or has kids? Or open a new shop somewhere else? There are many reasons why someone may not want to own their property, and have to deal with transacting it.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#168

Post by gowld »

Symmetry wrote: post #95
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

Seems the economy is finding the sweet spot where education, housing and health extract the maximum amount of money from people right before they break. Finding that spot while a avoiding a revolution has been the biggest challenge for ruling classes throughout all of history.

For positional goods where there is a fixed supply people will tend to bid up the cost until it can't go any higher. I mean, in theory we could just build giant apartment towers all over SF but nobody wants to make that legal. And the number of medical residency slots, the construction of new hospitals, etc are very restricted. But fundamentally with higher education the number of slots of prestigious institutions ha…

A lot of people want to make that legal! But those people are not able to vote in SF, because it's not legal yet.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#169

Post by dang »

mcbruiser3 wrote: post #38
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you want to eliminate rent? Yes. Land should be held by housing cooperatives or by private owner-occupiers. Rentiers can go find a line of business that contributes to society.

please feel free to start up a coop then. nothing is stopping you and your friends from doing that. have at it, and good luck. edit: apparently some people don't like this comment because it means you have to help yourself instead of the gov't giving you other people's money. get a life.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political and ideological battle and ignoring our request not to do this.

Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#170

Post by matt_wulfeck »

billmalarky wrote: post #161
watwut wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a place to live in, while if I would be renting, I would have no more money for rent and had to move. I am not speculating on that flat with intention to sell. I live in it.

You've lost your job and were only able to get a job that paid half, how do you make your mortgage payment? If you are renting you are not locked into the property, you have the flexibility to move to a lower cost flat.

It’s not uncommon to find fixed-rate mortgages that are significantly cheaper than the corresponding rent for the same home. The risk is only high the first decade, and then it becomes a huge safety net.
Post reply on HN