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The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

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Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#31

Post by pydry »

pasabagi wrote: post #12
bigmattystyles wrote: post #5

I feel the same way about rent control. It's not fair for society at large to make property owners eat the cost or the lost potential income alone. I am aggressively pro rent control and pro eviction moratorium during the pandemic, but I am for a (progressive) tax to fund these programs. It's just unfair to make yourself feel good by supporting these programs when you don't have any skin in the game. I'm not naïve th…

What is the moral basis of rent? Rent is by definition differentiated from service provision in that it is simply the use of a legal right to extract an income. I don't see a moral basis, so I don't see how anything that impacts the interests of renters can be unfair. Bad on pragmatic level, perhaps, but not a moral one.

There would be a moral basis with a 100% land value tax or a property tax that approximates it.

Without it, though, rent is partially a stream of income derived from labor (upkeep, management, construction) and partially a stream of income derived from a state granted monopoly over a parcel of 4 billion year old land.

The moratorium is, in part, tacit recognition of this. Everybody knows that a large slice of rental income is completely unearned - even landlords.

Few would seriously believe that the sky high rental incomes derived from these is really earned, for instance - it's an entitlement: https://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2019/08/06/1067844_10-...

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#32

Post by tomg »

watsocd wrote: post #22
tomg wrote: post #14

I don’t understand how a waiter and a home-care provider can afford to buy a rental property that is apparently worth charging $80,000/yr in rent. I’m in the wrong business! [edit: to be clear, this is tongue in cheek, though the circumstances where a bank made this loan seem unusual to me]

By being extremely frugal. Did you read the part of the article where the owner does not live in the house. The owner lives in a "cheap studio apartment nearby with their two young daughters". That is how!

> By being extremely frugal. Did you read the part of the article where the owner does not live in the house. The owner lives in a "cheap studio apartment nearby with their two young daughters". That is how!

You’re referring to Gao, I’m referring to Won. Different people.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#33

Post by yonran »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #5

I feel the same way about rent control. It's not fair for society at large to make property owners eat the cost or the lost potential income alone. I am aggressively pro rent control and pro eviction moratorium during the pandemic, but I am for a (progressive) tax to fund these programs. It's just unfair to make yourself feel good by supporting these programs when you don't have any skin in the game. I'm not naïve th…

I hope that eventually we will return to more predictable police power and broad taxation, as described by this quote: “The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole” (Armstrong v. United States https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/364/40/).

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#34

Post by eecc »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #5

I feel the same way about rent control. It's not fair for society at large to make property owners eat the cost or the lost potential income alone. I am aggressively pro rent control and pro eviction moratorium during the pandemic, but I am for a (progressive) tax to fund these programs. It's just unfair to make yourself feel good by supporting these programs when you don't have any skin in the game. I'm not naïve th…

Another option would be a social housing program to buffer evictions and provide human rights (food and shelter are one, there's absolutely no discussion about this) to those in most difficulty.

Of course this approach will be met with howls of criticism about market distortion, having something to do with "social(ism)", and removing incentives to work hard.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#35

Post by mauvehaus »

mjfl wrote: post #21
testfoobar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords are part of the financial system. Deciding landlords must take the loss on rent so that their tenants can be safe is sensible health and social policy during the acute uncertain phase of the pandemic last year. That uncertainty is now gone. If the government wants to house people in rental properties indefinitely, then the government can pay to do so at the prevailing market rates.

Why should landlords take the loss on rent and not who they pay mortgage to?

Sunk cost. They'll lose their equity stake in the property (as well as future income) if the bank forecloses on the property because the landlords aren't making mortgage payments.

Do the banks want to be in the situation of being landlords (even temporarily) of a huge number of tenants who are not or cannot pay rent? Doubtful. Does that mean they're a little less likely to foreclose on a rental property when there are lots of small landlords in this situation? Probably. Would I want to gamble a rental property on a banks reluctance to foreclose owing to the widespread nature of the problem? Absolutely not.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#36

Post by jimbob21 »

rob74 wrote: post #13
bigmattystyles wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make the exact same point towards the renters who were banking on their job to pay the rent. One is called a mortgage while the other is called rent.

The difference being that you can choose to take out a loan and buy a house, but you can't really choose not to pay rent (unless you want to be homeless of course, but that's not an option I would recommend to anyone)

Except now people are literally choosing not to pay rent. And there are no consequences. So who wins in this scenario? The landlord is screwed over, and the house is taken by the bank. Then they sell it at a loss cause its filled with a useless nonpaying tenant and that bombs all the housing prices in the neighborhood. Millions of dollars will be lost, corporations will come out ahead, and everyone is worse off. Brilliant, this moratorium.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#37

Post by ha5u »

heavyset_go wrote: post #4

I find it hard to be sympathetic with people who chose to overleverage themselves with their investments.

I think this goes beyond simple overleveraging. For landlords, an aspect of their risk mitigation was the ability to have legal recourse for non-paying tenants:

> Weaver ... says the eviction moratorium is just a "pause" because it doesn't mean that "the landlord can never collect the rent."

> In practice, though, collecting rent money will be extraordinarily difficult after the moratorium is lifted. The case backlog in housing court could mean that landlords will wait years for their cases to be heard, and recovering large sums of money is difficult under the best of circumstances.

> Owners say that having almost no legal recourse when their tenants don't pay their rent was not part of the deal when investing in real estate. Landlord groups around the country have sued on the grounds that halting the judicial process that allows them to retake their property violates their due process rights.

I think it was reasonble for landlords to assume that, in the worst case, they may not be be able to find a renter but would at least have the ability to live in the house themself. Now they can't even do that.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#38

Post by jackfoxy »

Let's not be too conspiratorial, but it is worth pointing out destruction of the bourgeoisie is a central tenant of the Communist Manifesto. https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/communist/full-text/bo...

Also Carroll Quigley, mentor of Bill Clinton, expressed shocking disdain toward the bourgeoisie in Tragedy and Hope. https://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-Hope-History-World-Time/dp/09...

Is it much exaggeration to say the message from the far left and from the establishment to those who staked all their capital on one or two rental properties is tough sh!t?

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#39

Post by maxerickson »

testfoobar wrote: post #3

Sad story. It is time for eviction moratoriums to be lifted. The second peak of the pandemic is behind us in nearly all datasets in the United States.

We should look forward and choose the best policy for the situation we have at hand, not look backwards with relief that it is getting better.

I don't mean that as an argument in favor of rent control or eviction moratoriums, it is an argument in favor of using the best basis for policy decisions.

I'd rather see the government just hand landlords money vs throwing people who may just be getting back on their feet into disarray. There has to be some point where things go back to normal, but we are at a point where 2 months from now is basically certain to be a better time to do it than right away.

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