561–570 of 595 posts
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2008 didn't have airbnb imploding at the same time.
This appeared to be a valid point (why the downvote). An underlying pandemic throws most of the historical data out the window. Just ask Hertz, AMC and Las Vegas.
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> Almost everybody is taking a haircut this year. I haven't had a haircut since febuary. (cutting my actual hair) :) Some of my friends look a little bushy too. I've paid the lady who cuts my hair anyway, I've been seeing her forever and this is her only income.
I needed a haircut even at the beginning of the lockdown, so it got pretty long in a hurry. My wife finally got sick of it and cut it for me a couple weeks ago. It’s.. ok. Very short though.
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> You're ignoring the potential effects on property value. Bingo. Surprised nobody else brought this up. Not to mention the neighboring home/property owners are going to be pissed off because it's a potential drag on their property value. Though the stigma against section 8 may not even be warranted. I wonder whether there are any studies on the effects of section 8 on communities.
One of the few things our government (UK) has got right with housing is to ensure nearly every development includes social housing.
Or separate entrances for the social housing flats and regular flats in the same building (regular as in how it was intended to be built, not with extra walls to create extra rooms or with no living rooms at all).
Or with social housing residents being asked to pay separately for communal areas maintenance (because the government doesn't pay for that but you can't really stop people from walking on the grass) that they didn't ask for.
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This appeared to be a valid point (why the downvote). An underlying pandemic throws most of the historical data out the window. Just ask Hertz, AMC and Las Vegas.
Why the downvote? Because there are a few people who downvote anything negative for landlords on this board, and as we can see from the replies to this story, there are many landlords on hacker news.
I'm sure many/most landlords are still rooted in reality and are still using the infamous investing formula of "where there are losers, there are winners" (aka buy low, sell high).
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"If riots aren't covered" the clause won't be in any contract to begin with.
I think that's generally false. Policies are generally written to cover a broad set of risks (which would include riots, terrorism, and acts of war) and then have exceptions listed specifically. It would be rare in my experience for property insurance to itemize the types of losses they cover. As an example, my policy covers general losses arising from physical damage, but then explicitly excludes losses from earthqu…
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.
I've been watching 20+ properties around Austin, some out of genuine interest, others for a baseline. Zero of them moved in March and April despite asking price coming down every couple weeks. Now in the last couple weeks, 8 of them have had offers. I can't tell if they just dropped back into a "reasonable" range or some segment of the market has turned but it's fascinating.
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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 l…
Exactly. Section 8 is difficult to get as there is a fixed allotment of housing available and it can take years to get your voucher.
The other thing that's surprising is how many people are renting their homes. My own naiveté had me believing renters lived in apartments. Not even close! Most renters live in houses in regular neighborhoods from the low-end to the high-end. There are higher-end neighborhoods near where I live where 20%-30% of the houses are being rented, not mortgaged. In lower-end neighborhoods the percentages are much higher. That was before the 2008 housing crises, the percentages have increased since.
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Society pays for housing, health care, schooling, Pre-K, pre-pre-k, food, phone/internet, and more for folks in section 8 neighborhoods. They aren't being abandoned, they are being supported by society at considerable expense, at a higher standard of living than the average human being--in return for nothing. Meanwhile the average worker pays 30+% of their income in federal, state and local taxes--basically working u…
Society pays for housing, health care, schooling, Pre-K, pre-pre-k, food, phone/internet, and more for folks in section 8 neighborhoods. They aren't being abandoned, they are being supported by society at considerable expense, at a higher standard of living than the average human being--in return for nothing. These are all either basic human rights that the richest country on earth should provide universally no quest…
That would be true if we were actually "rich". We're often sold this vision that first world countries are somehow "rich". Or at least relatively "rich" to 3rd world countries. And, it simply isn't true. We're slightly better off and able to afford a lot of frivolties like tech gadgets and clothes.
In poor countries, people spend upwards of 90% to 100% on necessities. In so called "1st world" countries, people spend 80% or more on necessities: this data is available, just look at what the average US citizen spends on, 80% plus is all necessities: housing, transportation, food, water, medical care and education. 1st world countries aren't nearly as far ahead as we think we are: most of us don't even have 400$ in savings.
Personally, I know a couple in the top (2%-3% nationwide, roughly 200-300k or so) with high wage tech jobs, but their COL is so high, they don't have their townhouse paid off, they don't even have a backyard to grow food in, they even have to rent out every room of their townhouse just to make ends meet. Do you call that "rich"? And yet, their tax rate is extremely high.
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…
Of course it comes down to the people, regardless of the psychological incentives. But maybe the incentives promote some poor behaviors enough that its such a shared experience of poor behaving tenants.
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I think that's generally false. Policies are generally written to cover a broad set of risks (which would include riots, terrorism, and acts of war) and then have exceptions listed specifically. It would be rare in my experience for property insurance to itemize the types of losses they cover. As an example, my policy covers general losses arising from physical damage, but then explicitly excludes losses from earthqu…
What I'm saying is obviously true. What you seem to be concerned about is that you think the premise is false. If that is so, you haven't really communicated that...
I'm literally not understanding your claim, so it seems like we are indeed having significant difficulty communicating. Because of the way contracts are written, I think your claim is pretty close to obviously false.
Concretely: if riots are not covered, it is overwhelmingly likely that the contract will be structured as "physical damages are covered except as listed below" listed below: "riots are not covered"