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

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211–220 of 595 posts

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

#211

A wave of more layoffs will happen as soon as the Paycheck Protection quiet period ends. After June 30, companies that took PPP money are free to fire people without repercussion.

I like to remind people that in 2008, Bear Stearns fell in March. Most of the the economy didn't realize the financial system problems until late August.

I'm waiting for a very large shoe to drop in a few months. How big will depend on whether consumers feel comfortable about their jobs+health.

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

#212

As a passive real estate investor I'm seeing bidding on new sales has actually been more competitive than ever in my area (Atlanta GA). A lot of houses are selling above asking prices with 8-10 offers on the table. I am not sure if people genuinely think it is a good time to buy, or is it mostly FOMO.

Same thing in SF. Demand dropped, but so did supply, so prices are holding reasonably steady at this point.

I assume if prices drop, they won't stay low for long as people see it as an opportunity to jump into the market.

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> debunked

Everything involved in this thread is matters of opinion and viewpoint, "debunked" is a strong claim.

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're very lucky. Rented to a single mother with two teenage sons. The teenage sons that decided to strip down living trees of their branches, to make bonfires for parties in the backyard. Two trees are severely damaged, and anything that was burnable in the landscape is burnt. I don't even know how to go about pricing out the damage. Insurance is paying for their rent, because the last house they lived in burned do…

I'm not a lawyer but reddit's r/legaladvice seems to enjoy referring to people to tree lawyers. From what I gather there's a lot of money involved in tree laws. And if you've got picture evidence that's especially loved by lawyers.

Can’t litigate against people who are judgment proof.

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

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also the increase in deaths you link to is not statistically significant, given it is in the rage of 10-30 over the course of several months in a state with 10 million people. A penny doubled daily is $0.64 after a week, $81.92 after two, $10,485.76 after three, and $1,342,177.28 after four. Upwards movement in cases and deaths in something that spreads exponentially is... not great.

Nothing is doubling every week anymore. Why did you bring that up? Daily deaths across pretty much all nations are decreasing even as lockdowns are removed. Nit pick all you'd like, be as afraid as you like, but the numbers you supplied don't support your assertions.

Many states are experiencing continued increase in infection rates. See https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/texas/, to a lesser extent https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ for example. Deaths will lag that. Doubling time is really only a legitimate factor insofar as we can develop vaccines and treatments in the interim, and that hospital capacity is preserved; otherwise it's just a question of whether mass bad outcomes occur now or later. To be clear, I'm not arguing for continued lockdowns -- that seems fruitless. But it seems premature to assume the worst is behind us.

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

#216

I'm so extremely grateful that I accepted section 8 tenants into my rental units. Most of these tenants have nearly all of their payment covered by the government and they just have to pay $100 or $200 on top of that to cover what the government won't. These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. Mine are great. They keep the units spotless, mow the lawn for me on my…

I love my section 8 tenants. Same here, they take good care of the place and the government doesn't miss rent payments. Some counties even provide free legal help for landlords if their section 8 tenants do something bad. It's actually pretty low risk. The main downside is the increased overhead of paperwork and inspections. The government wants to (rightly) make sure you aren't a slumlord so they do a lot more inspe…

Interesting. I'm actually a bit separated from it because I pay someone ~8% of my rents to manage the place, I wasn't aware of any extra inspections or hassle so I guess I'm getting my money's worth.

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

#217
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably someone who actually looked into what QE actually does--it's more deflationary than inflationary. Look at Japan--they've been doing forms of QE for decades. These Fed printing money, inflation trolls are almost never right even though they've been screaming about it for decades.

Trolls? Sounds like YOU need to understand what QE is. From Wikipedia... "Quantitative easing (QE) is a monetary policy whereby a central bank buys government bonds or other financial assets in order to inject money into the economy to expand economic activity." Sounds pretty inflationary to me. Especially when they buy up illiquid mark to fantasy assets that nobody wants and unloads them on the taxpayer to foot the…

"Essentially, the mechanism of QE is that the Federal Reserve and other central banks are buying government bonds - but not directly from the Treasury Department. They’re buying government bonds from banks and paying for them with central bank reserves.

Crucially, these cash reserves are held by the central bank and pay an interest rate just as the treasury bonds did. In a sense the Federal Reserve swapped ten year treasury bonds with hypothetical Federal Reserve Bonds. That’s why you can see a graph of the money supply that shows a massive increase, and yet inflation has not spiked. The money never entered the economy - it is being held in a vault at the central bank (or more realistically is just a number in a spreadsheet). In practical terms it was an asset swap, not a true increase in the money supply."

https://www.cassandracapital.net/post/quantitative-easing-ha...

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

#218
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California for example, due to state-wide rent control, it's very dangerous for a landlord to lower rents. I would rather offer 6 months free rent than lock into permanent nonadjustable lower rent situation.

This is yet another reason in the long list of reasons why rent control is a bad policy.

I don't think it exemplifies why rent control is bad. 6 months free is 50% off annualized. It's just a very simple, easy-to-execute strategy for keeping the rent on paper high.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people who can work from home and who didn't get laid off are fine and the stonks appeared to mostly recover (which may explain some of the money sloshing around the market). I think there will be massive economic damage in 6 months that we aren't focusing on right now.

I agree. A good portion of the 40m job loss are not gonna be fully recovered even if the situation improved a little, not to mention it is getting worse by the day.

I actually suspect part of the widespread looting is because people who used to have low paying hourly wages before COVID lockdown feel this dread and desperation as this economic depression unfolds.

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

#220
post #148

I'm so extremely grateful that I accepted section 8 tenants into my rental units. Most of these tenants have nearly all of their payment covered by the government and they just have to pay $100 or $200 on top of that to cover what the government won't. These tenants are often not accepted by landlords because they're thought to cause more issues. Mine are great. They keep the units spotless, mow the lawn for me on my…

I guess being good sometimes pay I own an apartment in Rome that I rent because I don't live there anymore. It's rented to a Bengali family that nobody wanted as tenants because they're immigrants and such (you can guess the reasoning behind it) They used to bring the grocery home to my mother, so I gladly accepted to rent my house to them when they asked They've been the best tenants I've ever had and due to covid t…

Someone must be cutting onions in here.

What a great story.

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