Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends • Hacker News Board

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#171

Post by ratsmack » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

taftster wrote: post #163

ratsmack wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>out of any news sources, the comments here continue to be mostly grounded and reasonable, not hyperbolic and dramatic. Unfortunately, somber and stoic news does not have the monetary return from advertising revenue that most news organizations seek. News has become more of an entertainment endeavor rather than one for disseminating information on the state of current affairs. It also seems that the NPR and BBC have…

I agree, as others have said in this post/thread, advertising seems to be at least some of the cause of the problem. But it doesn't seem any other economic model works, sadly. I'm curious about your comment about NPR and BBC. Granted, it seems like they have moved more towards the stupidity that we're describing. But not as much as the traditional news networks, in my opinion.

Yes, the BBC and NPR are not as bad, but you can see the creep in that direction.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#172

Post by mywittyname » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

fineIllregister wrote: post #106

mywittyname wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was all kinds of federal stimulus money given to businesses/property owners. It was just gobbled up by those who knew how to work the system (read: large property owners).

So... not "0%" as claimed in the comment I replied to.

Yes, I was in agreement with you and expanding upon what you said. The OP might have received nothing, but that's not because nothing was available, just that property is a dog-eat-dog world and OP was dog chow this time around.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#173

Post by maxmamis » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #162

maxmamis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that work is done by maintenance workers — unless the landlord is personally out performing all the repairs, in which case they deserve to be compensated for their labor like anyone else. as mentioned below, the maintenance workers mysteriously aren't the ones entitled to a third of my paycheck... secondly, ask anyone who's ever rented — landlords are notoriously awful at keeping up with maintenance. so if we're cons…

> that work is done by maintenance workers — unless the landlord is personally out performing all the repairs, in which case they deserve to be compensated for their labor like anyone else. as mentioned below, the maintenance workers mysteriously aren't the ones entitled to a third of my paycheck... I'm not really following what you're saying here. It doesn't really make any difference whether or not the landlord doe…

> If being a landlord is so easy, why wouldn't everyone do it?

maybe just sit and think about this one for a minute?

the answer is that they don't have the capital, which is why it's a relationship of exploitation. by virtue of owning more capital than me, my landlord feels entitled to the fruit of my own labor. it's just feudalism in a new garb, as reflected in the terms we use (landlord/lady)

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#174

Post by tehwebguy » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #19

I'm all for providing a social safety net in exactly the way the US doesn't. Housing (aka shelter) is a key part of that but the way the US does this is completely backwards. The government saying you can't evict someone is basically telling people they don't have to pay rent anymore regardless of need . Rent control is the same way: you can't raise the rent regardless of need . So these programs don't really help pe…

You aren’t wrong about many of the details but leave out the massive landlord relief programs and the fact that landlords are still free to sue for unpaid rent.

But yes, there is no doubt that the way this went down is making the moat (between labor and capital, middle class and upper, small business and massive conglomerate, etc) bigger and bigger.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#175

Post by Cd00d » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

abletonlive wrote: post #48

cletus wrote: post #19

I'm all for providing a social safety net in exactly the way the US doesn't. Housing (aka shelter) is a key part of that but the way the US does this is completely backwards. The government saying you can't evict someone is basically telling people they don't have to pay rent anymore regardless of need . Rent control is the same way: you can't raise the rent regardless of need . So these programs don't really help pe…

> But no rentals at all? So the only way to have somewhere to live is to buy a house? Really? How is that practical and not a recipe for massive homelessness? As an aside, we do need to do something about hedge funds running around and buying up all the property, only building ultra-luxury property and the ultra-wealthy just parking money in real estate but none of those issues invalidates the need for a rental marke…

What is SFH? Google says some kind of supplement, but I'm guessing your 'H' refers to 'housing'.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#176

Post by endisneigh » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

maxmamis wrote: post #173

endisneigh wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that work is done by maintenance workers — unless the landlord is personally out performing all the repairs, in which case they deserve to be compensated for their labor like anyone else. as mentioned below, the maintenance workers mysteriously aren't the ones entitled to a third of my paycheck... I'm not really following what you're saying here. It doesn't really make any difference whether or not the landlord doe…

> If being a landlord is so easy, why wouldn't everyone do it? maybe just sit and think about this one for a minute? the answer is that they don't have the capital, which is why it's a relationship of exploitation. by virtue of owning more capital than me, my landlord feels entitled to the fruit of my own labor. it's just feudalism in a new garb, as reflected in the terms we use (landlord/lady)

You don’t need much capital to be a landlord, hence mortgages. If you’ve never owned a house you can put literally 0% down.

The reasons to not be a landlord are plenty:

- potential downturn in the area

- tenants ruining your property

- inability to do maintenance affordably

- provide basic amenities and keep up with legal obligations can and do change unexpectedly

- potential eviction expense and risk

- rent collection, as we’ve seen from the pandemic

- dealing with people

People who think being a landlord is a slam dunk as long as you have the capital and it’s no work don’t know what they’re talking about.

Reminds me of people who think running a website is free money because the computer does everything.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#177

Post by nemothekid » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #168

nemothekid wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a landlord, I can tell you that the government does NOT replace ANY of the missed rent. I can see why people get so frustrated with landlords. It’s the same kind of frustration when Wall Street asks for government intervention after making a series of bad trades

This isn't a fair analogy at all. Landlords didn't cause the cause the pandemic. If anything, the government did. However, they are the ones who are forced to pay for provide a service that the government desires, housing, at their own expense. This might make sense if it were a tax, but it disproportionately effects certain people. Imagine if they 1% of people were randomly selected to forfeit 10% of their 401k for…

>This isn't a fair analogy at all. Landlords didn't cause the cause the pandemic. If anything, the government did.

If the government bans cigarettes, should the government then reimburse every shareholder in Philip Morris?

>However, they are the ones who are forced to pay for provide a service that the government desires, housing, at their own expense

Someone had to brunt the cost of the pandemic. It would have been bad public policy if the government had let people go homeless.

Regardless, my point isn't that the government acted piously here, it's that real estate is a capital asset class and should be treated as such. If you get in the game of capital speculation you shouldn't get to go crying to the government when things don't go your way. I have the same amount of sympathy for people who all-in on urban real estate and the people who go all in near to expiration SPY calls. The government's primary concern shouldn't be protecting people's capital investments.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#178

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #153

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People getting evicted from a two bedroom apartment aren't going to a homeless shelter, they're going to a studio apartment that costs half as much. People getting evicted from a studio apartment aren't getting replaced by Jeff Bezos, they're getting replaced by someone else who can only afford a studio apartment and might have otherwise been homeless. Increasing the number of units on the market will tend to reduce…

You might be surprised the limited extent to which this is true. In many places in the US starting residence requires 3x rent (first, last, deposit) and vacancy rates are low. Getting the deposit back from the previous landlord routinely takes months and while legal assistance can usually expedite this it's hard to find (the public law clinic and the law school clinic are running on waitlists), so deposit return does…

> I've seen 20% jumps from tenant to tenant.

It's the eviction moratorium making this worse.

You have someone who was paying $1600 in rent, now they can only afford $800 and stop paying but can't be evicted. So they're still effectively bidding $1600 for that unit and the two people who both want the vacant unit next door have to outbid each other instead of one taking the vacancy and the other taking the eviction. So the price of those units rises to $2000.

Now the person who can only afford $800 is effectively bidding $2000 for that unit and still can't be evicted. Prices for everyone go up to subsidize the person who isn't paying at all. Which makes the first+last+security problem worse by making it a larger amount of money.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#179

Post by ModernMech » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

hermannj314 wrote: post #84

bdcravens wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords don't like to evict. They prefer to receive rent.

I was a landlord. I preferred to receive the rent late from someone that didn't want to be evicted. The maximum profit is renting to someone that can barely afford to pay, but also desperately doesn't want to leave. In total, I probably made a 13th months rent each year in fees. You are leaving money on the table renting to people that can afford to pay on time.

You're proud of the fact that you exploited your tenant's desperation to extract an extra month's rent when they can barely afford 12?

For everyone wondering why landlords get a bad reputation, this right here is the reason. It's also what people mean when they say "It's expensive to be poor".

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#180

Post by herlitzj » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #75

herlitzj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assess this on a case-by-case basis and pay the rent for people in genuine need I'm not sure you've fully thought through how complex this would be. There are 40 million rental households in the US. Even if only 1% (400,000) decided to be a part of this program and you could close every case in 1 hour (which is probably wildly low) that's 45 man-years of effort.

So, to run with your for-instance, if we wanted to do all of that in a month, then we'd have to put 45 x 12 = 540 people on it. Nationwide. For a month, and then we're done. That doesn't seem particularly difficult. Of course, it would take three years to roll out the computer application that they would need in order to make and document the decision, but that's somewhat a separate problem...

Well, that's just the time necessary to action the accounts. You'd still need to hire all of those people, get them equipment and software, pay them, etc. IT, HR, management, payroll. Probably double or triple your man-hours. But on top of that, I specifically chose what are probably unrealistically low numbers. It would maybe be closer to 20-30% utilization and 8-20 hours to close a case (totally guessing here :shrug:). So maybe 730 - 2700 man-years, roughly. Plus above-mentioned overhead.

Spinning up a 500 person accounting firm wouldn't be snappy.