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

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 595 posts

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

#551

Post by dmarlow »

6510 wrote: post #492
bsanr2 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You "It's not what you did, it's that you lied"ed a tenant who lied to avoid being kicked out, in order to justify kicking them out? Yeah, it sounds like moralizing to avoid coming across as ignorant of class issues. However, ironically, it gives you away, because people who think that's excusable are generally ignorant of class issues.

What if the bottle was there for years?

The funny part about that shampoo bottle is that it's the same kind that they keep over the toilet in the cabinet... The reaction when I showed them the bottle was priceless.

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

#552

Post by matwood »

Jabbles wrote: post #123
matwood wrote: 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.

If you look at the "daily new" graphs they have options to see the bars and/or overlay moving averages. Deaths and new infections were coming down, but have since bottomed out and are every so slightly going back up. Still not enough to see an upward trend, but the downward trend seems to have stopped.

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

#553

Post by bilbo0s »

taylodl wrote: post #545
koheripbal wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I converted all my units to luxury units, and have had far far fewer tenant problems after the renovations and rate increases. High paid tenants seldom miss payment - I've setup automatic EFT withdrawal from their accounts, so I don't even need to process checks, and they aren't really impacted by the rise in unemployment right now - most just work from home. I think the bitter…

My wife discovered the same thing. You either want to manage section 8 housing or you want higher-income housing. Once you know the system and the case workers it's easy to deal with bad section 8 tenants. It takes a while to learn the ropes, though. The higher-end tenants are generally easy to work with as you mention. The problem now is that's where all the property managers are wanting to go!

Just for my own edification, is the problem market size?

Is it the case that most people are in the middle, with not enough section 8 and luxury qualified people to go around? In my naiveté, I thought that there would be more section 8 people. (Of course, I also thought they would be worse than the middle income people. So I guess that shows how much I know about it.)

Anyway, if the majority of the market are those low-mid people, I mean, that's a problem. I was under the impression that those people normally bought houses they couldn't afford and so didn't negatively impact the rental market that much. (Again, maybe just a stereotype I had?)

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

#554

Post by 6510 »

asah wrote: post #510
6510 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think lease-to-buy. That way the tenant has skin in the game. MY house was a school project. It was absurdly cheap to build as the construction workers had to pay to build it. If you account for market value the rent paid for the place 4-5 times by now. If you only take the original construction cost + maintenance its been paid for an absurd number of times, so many times over that I don't want to think about it. We…

The rent would have to increase a lot - why not just take the extra money, invest it and save for a down payment? Much faster than 40 years, tenant can live anywhere and there's no financial entanglement between landlord and tenant along the way.

Rent is always based on what people can pay.

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

#555

Post by 6510 »

dmarlow wrote: post #551
6510 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the bottle was there for years?

The funny part about that shampoo bottle is that it's the same kind that they keep over the toilet in the cabinet... The reaction when I showed them the bottle was priceless.

Why did they lie? They feared you would kick them out? The horror of that conversation? You are ofc not responsible for the formula but... The most productive approach is probably to beg you for mercy at your feet?

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

#556

Post by aaronblohowiak »

qeternity wrote: post #5
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #2

Yet the S&P500 is still green. The Fed continues to print in order to delay the inevitable. Either a currency crisis or hyperinflation.

Or worse: BAML had a great piece recently that QEternity ( cough ) has actually stoked deflation by reducing low-risk asset yields to zero, which forces many savers to save more as relatively risk-free income disappears, which lowers consumption and thus inflation, prompting more QE...rinse and repeat.

Oooh, do you have a link?

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

#557

Post by olivermarks »

esperent wrote: post #481
olivermarks wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a very misguided idea of what it's like to be a landlord....and perceptions of who/what 'landlords' (a very unfortunate term) are from some tenants... no good deed goes unpunished etc. Plenty of great people around but you have to be very careful who you rent to...

For most of my adult life (now I'm 34) I have spent 30-50% of any paycheck I've received on rent. In my country (Ireland) over the previous two generations, houses went from dirt cheap to extremely expensive. In the generation that came of age in the late 80s and early 90s, you could work a normal job and buy a house, easily. If you had a good job, you could buy several houses. Now, my generation. We came too late. H…

Affordable housing/having roof over your head is a massive problem for everyone but the super wealthy. House costs in the western world are wildly out of whack with median incomes and whether you rent or own a disproportionate amount of your income is gone on this. The 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' house flipping and rental era did enormous damage to society, giving the illusion property owners are primarily rent seekers. (Slightly ironic on HackerNews since so many are now paid for working on software for rent rather than being purchased outright). The reality of owning rental property is often one of breaking even and spending money for repairs and new appliances that must be done now, as opposed to when you have the money in the bank for your own place. Finding good tenants is like Russian Roulette. A friend's mother died and she rented the house to a man without doing proper background checks. He showed up once and was never seen again after saying a 'friend' would move in some furniture. That 'friend' was a woman who changed the locks, never paid any rent and was seen bringing large packs of dogs in by neighbors. After months of expensive litigation the woman suddenly left on the eve of final eviction. The house had been trashed with every room used to keep dogs in for her 'dog walking' business. The place stunk and there was drug paraphernalia and needles everywhere. It cost thousands more to restore the house to livable condition. Horror stories like this are not uncommon, These are not 'rent seekers', just ordinary people renting out houses and flats, often under considerable financial stress themselves. Another (also female) friend answered a home wanted ad on a lamp post for a section 8 person and rented a small unit in her garden to her out of the kindness of her heart. That person then called social services after harassing her 'landlord' and told them the person she was renting from was insane. She made her 'landlord's' life hell for months until she was finally dealt with.

The solution is far more affordable housing but how we get back to that 1960's era English and Irish council housing model I have no idea in the current political and financial climate...

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

#558

Post by wishinghand »

paulcole wrote: post #411
wishinghand wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I visited a friend in England I accidentally stayed at a council estate that someone put up on AirBNB illegally. While it wasn't a slum, it definitely wasn't "just OK". I suspect the reason why that particular unit didn't look like a slum is because the owners were renting it out and doing their best to keep it nice. Not a single bit of that place was built well. Maybe it was cheap. Looked OK from the outside bu…

You chose to book a room using a service that’s known for a near complete lack of ethics. Oopsy!

It was a huge oopsy. I haven't booked through them again.

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

#559

Post by [deleted] »

koheripbal wrote: post #530
jedberg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I converted all my units to luxury units, and have had far far fewer tenant problems after the renovations and rate increases. High paid tenants seldom miss payment - I've setup automatic EFT withdrawal from their accounts, so I don't even need to process checks, and they aren't really impacted by the rise in unemployment right now - most just work from home. I think the bitter…

[deleted]

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

#560

Post by wishinghand »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #351
wishinghand wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I visited a friend in England I accidentally stayed at a council estate that someone put up on AirBNB illegally. While it wasn't a slum, it definitely wasn't "just OK". I suspect the reason why that particular unit didn't look like a slum is because the owners were renting it out and doing their best to keep it nice. Not a single bit of that place was built well. Maybe it was cheap. Looked OK from the outside bu…

What was specifically wrong? Structural issues or cosmetic. A private house from 1960 that hasn't been renovated since, unless carefully maintained will also look shit on the inside. Look at property that is auctioned in the UK, for example.

I got the impression that council estates are newer than that. However, the floors in the general areas (stairs, lobby, halls) were not cared for. The portal from the hall to the unit had a weird, rough tear in the floor right along the door jamb. I noticed once I crossed it that the unit was a half centimeter lower than the hallway. The fixtures (lights, plumbing, switches) were absolute penny quality. Very little hot water (which seemed dire since tea is so popular). The bathtub was on top of a cabinet, which I thought was really weird and unsafe. It didn't seem like an aftermarket thing- it looked like the tub was built like that.

0/10 would not use AirBNB again. Sleep on a friend's couch or floor, or shell out the money for a hotel. Or use a hostel if money is tight.

Post reply on HN