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Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

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Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#131
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country implemented rent/mortgage forgiveness? The US implemented mortgage deferral, plus SBA loans for rent for small businesses. The lack of general rent deferral was to force larger companies to bear some of the cost of shut downs. France and Germany didn’t do appreciably more—they simply imposed deferrals or moratorium on eviction.

How are you going to bail out landlords then? The money isn't going to come from nowhere.

I always see the argument of "when all the mom & pop landlords are gone, major corporations will own everything, so we have to protect them".

That consolidation is going to happen anyways. It's inevitable. The only factor is how long it takes for it to happen, and how big the payout will be for small landlords when they finally decide to cash out. There's much more at stake for the renters.

Forcing small landlords into choosing between selling immediately or facing bankruptcy in the near future is morally preferable to putting the burden on renters. The world isn't really a worse place if a landlord has to liquidate their assets at a 150% net profit now instead of 320% in ten years (after accounting for all rent collected and taxes paid).

If they had the capital to afford a commercial property in the first place, this won't be potentially life-ruining. You can't assume the same for a non-chain restaurant or grocer that serves as the owner's livelihood.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#132
post #65
post #58

It's ridiculous that we couldn't coordinate a rent/mortgage forgiveness plan alongside all the customer bans put in place across the country. If a restaurant can't stay open, they shouldn't pay rent. If the property owner isn't getting rent, they shouldn't have to pay mortgage. And so on, up the entire chain.

What's at the top of the chain though?

Banks and/or the Fed. Which also happens to be the easiest place to implement fiscal relief via debt or just plain creating money.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#133
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not how any of this works. The problem with a market is you have a rate that if something is below it its not profitable for people to live in a place. Idk why people blame the building owners. And people who do this are always people with perfectly good couches in their living rooms but would never let a homeless person sleep there, but want others to give up a entire building.

The problem is that what is actually going on in NY - and many other markets - doesn't remotely resemble a properly functioning market: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdfmMB1E_qk

thanks that was interesting.

tl;dr: 2 years free rent with the condition that the tenant doesn't ask for a lower price. due to language in the contract the rent can not go beyond a specific (low) value. the loan isn't held by the bank but immediately restructured and sold as a CMBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_mortgage-backed_sec...)

here is the reddit post that he recaps: https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/innhah/nearly_twothird...

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#134
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country implemented rent/mortgage forgiveness? The US implemented mortgage deferral, plus SBA loans for rent for small businesses. The lack of general rent deferral was to force larger companies to bear some of the cost of shut downs. France and Germany didn’t do appreciably more—they simply imposed deferrals or moratorium on eviction.

Germany put a moratorium on evictions, allows deferral of some taxes, pays small and medium businesses up to three months of lost revenue (up to 150k€) and the state owned development bank gives out low interest loans to affected businesses.

So, not Germany.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#135
post #77
post #58

It's ridiculous that we couldn't coordinate a rent/mortgage forgiveness plan alongside all the customer bans put in place across the country. If a restaurant can't stay open, they shouldn't pay rent. If the property owner isn't getting rent, they shouldn't have to pay mortgage. And so on, up the entire chain.

Which country implemented rent/mortgage forgiveness? The US implemented mortgage deferral, plus SBA loans for rent for small businesses. The lack of general rent deferral was to force larger companies to bear some of the cost of shut downs. France and Germany didn’t do appreciably more—they simply imposed deferrals or moratorium on eviction.

Mortgage and rent deferral is a sad joke.

Most of these businesses could barely keep up during the best of times; the vast majority of them will never be able to repay a single months missed rent, let alone half a years worth.

Mortgage and eviction deferral have only put off the inevitable; without forgivance or direct cash infusions, they’ll still fail, probably right after the last whisps of political will to fix this disappears.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#136
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country implemented rent/mortgage forgiveness? The US implemented mortgage deferral, plus SBA loans for rent for small businesses. The lack of general rent deferral was to force larger companies to bear some of the cost of shut downs. France and Germany didn’t do appreciably more—they simply imposed deferrals or moratorium on eviction.

How are you going to bail out landlords then? The money isn't going to come from nowhere.

Landlords were/are bailed out in US. Landlords are businesses. MY LLC got a 30 year very low fixed interest loan, first 10K of loan automatically forgiven, based solely on the LLC's income from last year. The loan amount was roughly 60% of last year's revenue. Oddly enough, actual lost revenue was about equal to the loan amount, but the gov't had no way of knowing that and didn't even ask. I'm sure every landlord in the country signed up for that or one of the several other coronavirus relief options. Any wonder why the stock market is up? That's a lot of free money sloshing around.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#137
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there's something going on we don't understand, because some places that were hit very hard first time round are not seeing a second wave.

Perhaps the "something" is simply antibodies and herd immunity? 1. In April (!!), 1 in 5 NYCers tested positive for antibodies: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-anti... 2. Given asymmetric social contact patterns, experts estimate that ~20% may be the threshold for herd immunity of COVID: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-could-it-be-burning-... I support looking at the science, and this…

That might explain it--this is just a baseline level of spread and herd immunity knocks it down. It also begs the question of how to loosen restrictions because if NYC actually hit herd immunity for the current level of social interaction, not relaxing restrictions is unethical. You can't keep everything closed forever, and if there's a sign you've hit herd immunity, 3+ months of this is it. It might also be what spread looks like post-vaccine. How to know you're at that point where you can reopen is tricky.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting hit hard is probably why they don't see a second wave. They got the whole thing over with in one wave.

I think spring was "the wave". In Nashville they closed bars and restaurants for 6 months because .004% of the cases came from bars and restaurants. We need to give people choice. If we wait until we get a vaccine it will be Fall 2022 and many Americans won't get it. What then? No bar and gym re-openenings until X percent of the population is verified to be vaccinated? Mandatory vaccination checks on entrance? Punt a…

> In Nashville they closed bars and restaurants for 6 months because .004% of the cases came from bars and restaurants.

You're taking the number of cases that they've managed to contact trace to bars (difficult, especially if lots of cases all at once). You're then dividing that by the total number of cases, including the ones after they closed bars and concluding that it was the incorrect choice.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#139

Only related because NY, but NY state covid 19 new cases have been incredibly flat since June. I would think they'd trend closer to zero, up some, or just bounce around more. Normally, new cases are driven up by complacency and down by fear or policy, but there doesn't seem to be either happening quickly and subtly enough to keep new cases between 500 and 1000 for so long, and r0 should be metastable, so keeping it i…

Yes there's something going on we don't understand, because some places that were hit very hard first time round are not seeing a second wave.

For some definition of "hard time:" Sweden. On the other hand Spain and France are pulling an America right now. They're currently worse than the US for new cases per capita.

Re: Almost 90 percent of NYC bars and restaurants couldn’t pay August rent

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting hit hard is probably why they don't see a second wave. They got the whole thing over with in one wave.

I think spring was "the wave". In Nashville they closed bars and restaurants for 6 months because .004% of the cases came from bars and restaurants. We need to give people choice. If we wait until we get a vaccine it will be Fall 2022 and many Americans won't get it. What then? No bar and gym re-openenings until X percent of the population is verified to be vaccinated? Mandatory vaccination checks on entrance? Punt a…

And provide a safety net for those people who choose not to risk their health to work in bars and gyms, right?
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