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Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

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Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#161
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time maybe it's time for landlords who have been sitting in armchairs swimming in cash to start giving back to the people who haven't been able to afford to live here?

Particularly in California -- it makes no sense for landlords to pay artificially low property taxes. Prop 13 should be reformed so you pay property taxes on the market rate of the property if you're renting it out.

> it makes no sense for landlords to pay artificially low property taxes

The core problem is Prop 13, not that Prop 13 doesn't exclude for-profit properties. There are a ton of property/owner classes that should absolutely not get the Prop 13 discount. Malcolm Gladwell did an episode on why golf courses (specifically member-owned courses) in California are massive misallocations due to Prop 13.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#162
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the 7 day moving average of new cases and deaths is also slowly trending up [1]. I think we all wished COVID would just go away, but that seems unlikely. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Please post a screenshot of the graph you're referring to, because I cannot see this upward trend on the page you linked. Regardless, your second sentence is true.

Click the "Projections" link, under the "Recovered" count. There you can see the daily trend.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#163
post #76
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time maybe it's time for landlords who have been sitting in armchairs swimming in cash to start giving back to the people who haven't been able to afford to live here?

I want to agree but I’m not sure landlords are exactly to blame for high rent. There are many people and players involved-like the willingness of people to pay so much of their income to housing. Part of why you can’t find a better deal is everyone else willing to take the higher price.

> There are many people and players involved-like the willingness of people to pay so much of their income to housing

You are saying that "the supply line isn't to blame for the demand line" when the problem is where they intersect.

I realize Im oversimplifying the supply constraints because landlords aren't all of the NIMBY problem.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlord aren’t the ones imposing the artificial limitations though. It’s the same group who created the rules that would punish a landlord for temporarily lowering rent.

> Landlord aren’t the ones imposing the artificial limitations though It's certainly not the people moving in from outside the area who want to rent for affordable rates. Landlords are part of the NIMBY problem, but not the only part.

But they aren’t the part of the problem that is accountable for it. In a democracy you should expect that everybody will be appealing to the government to protect their own interests. The NIMBYs quite obviously do this. But it’s the local governments that implement the NIMBY-protecting policies. The local governments are the ones accountable to the people, not the NIMBYs. I imagine the delinquent politicians are quite happy when people point the finger at landlords instead of them.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#165
post #72

>He says a call center worker told him that he didn't qualify for any help because he was late on a car payment last year. When NPR contacted Ford, the company said that is not its policy. And after reviewing the case, the company is now letting Baird skip his next car payment, which he says is a big help. It appears Ford operates on the Google customer service spectrum of only helping those who can gain support of p…

Like when Wells Fargo investigated their mortgage department and found no problems, right? Or when Google investigated Andy Rubin and decided he wasn't that bad and protected him for three more years? Why on earth would you ever trust a corporation to police themselves? They always lie, they always fail.

It can't hurt to expect companies to actually troubleshoot their own policies. We don't have to expect that it's the only recourse (eg. government regulation, civil suits, public brand shaming, etc).

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#166

I have a commercial tenant who was forced to shut down their business during the lockdown. I just waived rent until they were allowed to reopen. You can't get blood from a turnip, and I really don't want to force them into default and try to find another tenant in this environment anyway. Almost everybody is taking a haircut this year.

Here in Czech Republic there is a program where government pays 50% of busines rent as long as the property owner agrees on a 30% discount and the tennant pays 20%. The program covers March to June (three months) with most businesses having to be closed for about six weeks from that and restaurants fully reopening only recently.

IMHO this is a really good idea while not giving money away due to each party covering a part of the deal.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#167
post #73
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they can't pay the hundred bucks the government won't I sure don't care I used to have this same mentality. Until the person who was renting one of my properties decided to lie about certain issues (like claiming a shampoo bottle lodged down one of the toilets was there for years). When I decided to not renew the lease with that tenant, they decided to cause considerable damage to our property. Sometimes, when t…

Do you have any evidence that they did this because the government assisted them with their housing payments?

[deleted]

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#168

I have a commercial tenant who was forced to shut down their business during the lockdown. I just waived rent until they were allowed to reopen. You can't get blood from a turnip, and I really don't want to force them into default and try to find another tenant in this environment anyway. Almost everybody is taking a haircut this year.

Isn't the smarter move to defer payment of the rent for a few years? One day, they'll be able to pay, and then you'll get paid.

There are also tax concerns that might affect a decision on whether to write down a loss this year versus some time in the near future.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#169

I imagine a huge cash crunch is coming up soon as deferred payments come home to roost. We can’t continue kicking the can down the road forever. If people are over leveraged or insolvent we have to bear the pain eventually. It’s part of the credit cycle and it’s how savers get their foot in the door regarding asset ownership. Otherwise we will have basically embraced some absurd worst-of-both-worlds kind of socialism…

I've been expecting a "cash crunch" too but the Fed seems happy to keep making me wrong.

If the actual economy (gdp, not equities) doesn’t make a v-shaped recovery then it’s inevitable. I think the shakeup of who gets rehired for which jobs is going to cause some personal bankruptcies regardless. Basically if Acme co laid off 5k people, the 5k they rehire to resume operations may be a different set of people.

Re: Millions of Americans skipping payments as wave of defaults and evictions looms

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are very presumptuous. I grew up in poverty in a third world country and know what it's like to not eat, and when I did eat, I remember having to pick bugs out of my beans before cooking them.

.

Being smug and sanctimonious in response to having claims of lacking empathy being debunked isn’t a good look.
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