511–520 of 595 posts
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I would think not. I assume section 8 is our equivalent of Housing Benefit. I know plenty of landlords who wont accept HB tenants because properties have come back absolutely trashed before.
Isn’t that the risk rent is supposed to ameliorate? Otherwise where is the risk of renting property that justifies a middleman?
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Auto loans should allow you to return the vehicle and walk away... They should be more "rent-to-own". In fact, in my opinion, all secured loans should be this - you should be able to hand over the security to the lender, and walk away without penalty.
what happens if you crash it first it or ding it up or run it as an uber and have lots of trash passengers? you're talking about leases vehicles which already exist.
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My understanding is that the appeal of owning real estate yourself is housing mortgages gives you: (1) the cheapest leverage available to retail investors and (2) a loan that can't be margin-called. In an upmarket, this leverage lets you juice your returns. Say you only have $200,000. Then by getting a mortgage of $800,000 you get ownership of a house worth $1M. This gives you the right to the cashflow from renting t…
The tax treatment of directly owning real estate is also extremely favorable to landlords in the US, particularly mom-and-pop scale landlords. Many will have businesses which make an economic profit and many of that subset will positively cash-flow, but for tax purposes deemed depreciation will cause their business to operate at approximately break-even or at a loss (offsetting other income). Then, when they sell the…
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Landlords take housing out of supply and extract rents from it. They produce nothing- the house was "provided" already, they just inserted themselves into the process.
They transform housing from one form to another. Some people find renting more convenient and flexible than buying.
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…
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The largest insurance claim I've had was for a little over $5k for a vehicle repair after collision while avoiding a pedestrian in the street. I'm not sure if you think that's "large" but it was very painless to do IMO.
I wasn't able to collect on insurance for “damage not due to a collision” on my motorcycle when it blew over in strong wind, because the insurance agent said, “There was a collision. When your motorcycle fell over it collided with the ground.”
I can't imagine that response passing muster in court, because as another commenter pointed out, all damage would involve some kind of collision between two objects which means that if we accept their response then the policy would be worthless because it wouldn't be able to cover anything.
It's implied (in the context of motor vehicle insurance) that "collision" in their case means collision between two vehicles but they're now trying to be pedantic about it when it's in their favor.
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It is not. They are not "needy." The market, pardon my language, fucked up either their compensation, or the rental rate, or both. This is the failure of an economic system to properly account for a worker's labor and deliver the shelter designated in the social contract, not an oversight or negligence on the worker's part. Especially with unions defanged or non-existent. It's not charity, it's account-settling.
The idea that 'anyone who labors is ipso facto entitled to shelter' is new to me in the context of social contract theory. Where does this idea originate?
Widespread homelessness is a bad look for any culture that likes to see itself as civilised.
During the last financial crisis I sold lots of stuff that was dear to my heart but wasn't essential like motorbike, mtb, etc.
Is it the cultural gap that I'm not seeing as a European? Or something else?
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Providing a place to live for people has no value? What a ridiculous assertion.
Property developers (and the people who actually physically construct housing) provide places for people to live. Landlords simply buy/own those places. Those are almost always different groups in practice though I’m sure you could contrive a counterexample. A landlord provides about as much value to a consumer as a stockholder does to a public company. Economically the landlord-tenant interaction is primarily a spec…
Thus landlords are the one to actually finance those buildings.
> A landlord provides about as much value to a consumer as a stockholder does to a public company.
Which is a significant value, for a company (even if I would like more companies to be privately owned). In this model a landlord is how people can get access to housing without huge initial capital and/or long term commitment.
A rent-based housing economy causes huge problems for those that want to buy an house (somilarly to how Airbnb/short stays cause problems for rent seekers) but this is not about one sector being parasites, it is about an imbalance in the market.
the situation would not be better if landlords did not exist.
The impact of this is going to be extremely bi-modal. Working class people are going to be decimated. No income and the cost deferral cliff. Middle class (office workers are least) and upper class people will do very well. They still have their jobs and their costs have collapsed. I am no longer paying for gas, childcare, bussing fees, car insurance, and all manner of other things. I can shop at Costco now that I hav…