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The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

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Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#101

Post by yellowapple »

refurb wrote: post #96
yellowapple wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My FIL is the hardest working person I know. A landlord's wealth derives from being a middleman between the tenants and the property, not from the landlord's own labor. That wealth is quite literally the whole point of being a landlord in the first place; if the income from rent didn't significantly exceed the value of the labor your FIL performs as "maintenance", then why would he bother with dealing with all the…

Sure the landlord is doing something I can’t, as a tenant, can’t do myself - if all I have is an income of a few thousand a month and I need housing, the landlord is providing me housing I couldn’t otherwise afford.

You could pool your money with other people needing housing and collectively obtain that housing, with all y'all having equal ownership of it. This is known as a "housing cooperative" - kind of like if you rented from a corporation, but one in which you and your fellow tenants (and nobody else) are all equal shareholders.

A housing cooperative is about as economically efficient as it gets; you and your tenants would only need to pay the bare minimum to keep up with loan payments (and possibly, as I've proposed elsewhere in this thread and others, a land value tax) and maintenance, with no middlemen taking any cut out of your rent.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#102

Post by [deleted] »

sep_field wrote: post #92

All the land in the Bay Area was stolen from indigenous peoples as part of a pogrom of genocide. Many other areas in the United States have a similar issue. Until reparations are paid to the people who were here first, I have zero sympathy for so called "land owners".

[deleted]

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#103

Post by heavyset_go »

imtringued wrote: post #77

>"Those are part of the costs of being a landlord," Weaver responds. No they aren't. Landlords want to at least cover their costs. If they lose out on rental income they are forced to raise rents to compensate their loss. This will mean higher rents and a subsidy for dishonest squatters. The idea that you can make housing cheaper by making it a bad investment is hilarious. If constructing new housing is a bad investm…

> No they aren't. Landlords want to at least cover their costs. If they lose out on rental income they are forced to raise rents to compensate their loss.

Costs don't dictate prices, the market dictates prices.

Nobody is going to pay $50 for a quart of milk just because it cost you that much to produce it.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#104

Post by heavyset_go »

nostrademons wrote: post #69
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]

Leverage & frugality. Double 3/1 duplexes in Queens go for about $1M; the monthly payments on this are about $5200/month [1]. Each unit will rent for about $2700/month [2][3], so you're making a profit of about $200/month and paying down the principal steadily. You just need to cover a $200K down-payment. Minimum wage in NYC is $15/hour, so a two-earner couple working 40-hour weeks makes about $60K/year; it could be…

Statistically, it's just as likely, or more likely[1], that the owners inherited the properties, which is how most wealth is acquired.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-l...

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#105

Post by chub500 »

Abraham buys land in Genesis: "For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place." Gen 23:9. Private property contract law is nothing new. My thought is how many of these landlords will end up turning to more nefarious means to make ends meet? It seems when the legal system fails people inevitably turn to vigilantism.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#106

Post by nostrademons »

heavyset_go wrote: post #104
nostrademons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leverage & frugality. Double 3/1 duplexes in Queens go for about $1M; the monthly payments on this are about $5200/month [1]. Each unit will rent for about $2700/month [2][3], so you're making a profit of about $200/month and paying down the principal steadily. You just need to cover a $200K down-payment. Minimum wage in NYC is $15/hour, so a two-earner couple working 40-hour weeks makes about $60K/year; it could be…

Statistically, it's just as likely, or more likely[1], that the owners inherited the properties, which is how most wealth is acquired. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-l...

The article is about immigrants. The parents of immigrants don't live in the U.S, so it's extremely unlikely that they got property through inheritance. (You can't apply statistical conclusions about a large group [all Americans] to individual subgroups [Chinese immigrant waiters & home-care providers] without adjusting your priors, and in this case there is a very strong prior for "parents did not own property in the U.S.")

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#107

Post by refurb »

yellowapple wrote: post #101
refurb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure the landlord is doing something I can’t, as a tenant, can’t do myself - if all I have is an income of a few thousand a month and I need housing, the landlord is providing me housing I couldn’t otherwise afford.

You could pool your money with other people needing housing and collectively obtain that housing, with all y'all having equal ownership of it. This is known as a "housing cooperative" - kind of like if you rented from a corporation, but one in which you and your fellow tenants (and nobody else) are all equal shareholders. A housing cooperative is about as economically efficient as it gets; you and your tenants would…

But what if I don't want to own?

If I'm some early 20's person just starting out, no money to my name, I need a cheap place to rent. I don't want to own or in fact, I probably can't own.

And it's not just early 20's people. I moved to a new city for 1 year with the intent of returning. I don't want to buy anything, I want to rent.

Landlord's are providing me a service in that case - housing.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#108

Post by heavyset_go »

nostrademons wrote: post #106
heavyset_go wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically, it's just as likely, or more likely[1], that the owners inherited the properties, which is how most wealth is acquired. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/06/people-l...

The article is about immigrants. The parents of immigrants don't live in the U.S, so it's extremely unlikely that they got property through inheritance. (You can't apply statistical conclusions about a large group [all Americans] to individual subgroups [Chinese immigrant waiters & home-care providers] without adjusting your priors, and in this case there is a very strong prior for "parents did not own property in th…

There is nothing stopping family members in the US from gifting or passing on property to their immigrant family members, or inheriting property through marriage.

Re: The Victims of the Eviction Moratorium

#109

Post by yellowapple »

refurb wrote: post #107
yellowapple wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could pool your money with other people needing housing and collectively obtain that housing, with all y'all having equal ownership of it. This is known as a "housing cooperative" - kind of like if you rented from a corporation, but one in which you and your fellow tenants (and nobody else) are all equal shareholders. A housing cooperative is about as economically efficient as it gets; you and your tenants would…

But what if I don't want to own? If I'm some early 20's person just starting out, no money to my name, I need a cheap place to rent. I don't want to own or in fact, I probably can't own. And it's not just early 20's people. I moved to a new city for 1 year with the intent of returning. I don't want to buy anything, I want to rent. Landlord's are providing me a service in that case - housing.

> If I'm some early 20's person just starting out, no money to my name, I need a cheap place to rent. I don't want to own or in fact, I probably can't own.

Which is exactly why it's handy to be able to pool resources with other people looking to do the same thing, thus spreading the debt (if there is any) - and the risks thereof - across multiple parties. Think of it less like a real estate purchase and more like a startup, because that's what it is.

> I moved to a new city for 1 year with the intent of returning.

In which case a housing cooperative would've served your needs just fine. Again, less like owning a home outright, and more like owning a share in a company (because, well, you would own a share in a company). And when you're done with it you can sell that share.

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