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

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#201

Post by alistairSH » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:17 PM UTC

II2II wrote: post #89

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…

> If the government didn't want people evicted due to pandemic circumstances, what they should do is assess this on a case-by-case basis and pay the rent for people in genuine need. The question is, did the government have the manpower to do a case-by-case assessment. One of the issues faced in Canada was getting employment insurance money out to people in a timely manner. Their approach was very much loosen the crit…

No, the US didn't have the manpower for manual review. Further complicated by our federal system, with most social programs run at the state level. Even more complicated by a decades long effort by conservatives to make state/local programs difficult to use because everybody should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

The closest we could come was the stimulus checks that went to anybody with a prior-year's income below a certain threshold (IRS has that info).

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#202

Post by lamontcg » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #110

tjr225 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The current state of things appears to be that internet and media/ad revenue AI machine seem to have come together to put us in an sort of shepard tone of fear and impending doom. Pandemic, war, inflation, division, shortages, crypto, every storm has a name, everything is record breaking. I have more to be grateful for than I've ever had before, in spite of all of this some…

Simply abolish advertising and everything should revert to normalcy. Most of these humanity-corroding AI's were built to link eyeball attention to ad clicks; they won't exist in a world without ads. It's likely I'm wrong about this, but it's still worth trying this experiment. The potential upsides are too great to leave on the table.

Yeah I'd like to see a ban on intrusive advertising, so that (for example) to see advertisements I'd have to go to specific websites when i was actually looking for something I'd like to purchase. End direct mail advertisements completely, end e-mail spam.

We'd also probably be a politer and less defensive society if we weren't bombarded with constant arguments demanding we spend money on crap.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#203

Post by jMyles » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #172

fineIllregister wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't receive anything because I wasn't in a position to (don't own rental property, and don't qualify for income-based assistance even if it existed for this purpose).

But my less affluent neighbors also didn't receive anything in direct support of rent payments, despite their jobs disappearing.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#204

Post by tehwebguy » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #200

tehwebguy wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have absolutely been rental relief options available to landlords, I don’t know if your situation qualifies. You are also entitled to sue your tenants in arrears for every penny of unpaid rent plus the costs of collecting. Even with a judgement you may not be able to collect if they have become destitute, that’s the nature of the business you are in. I sincerely hope you get a chance to retire, society would be…

The friction to stop paying rent was essentially zero. A 1 page form with no verification. The friction to get reimbursed, depending on where you are, was very high, and in the case of my sister's situation, required cooperation of the tenant, who had zero incentive to provide it. I know you WANT to believe this program didn't screw over landlords, and that most of the people utilizing the program were honest, good h…

It seems we are hearing exact opposite stories from people on opposite sides of the landlord / tenant relationship.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#205

Post by danaris » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #186

maxmamis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it was “free money,” i said it was exploitation. just because it takes some effort to extract money from me doesn’t make it justifiable. In other words, here’s the world’s smallest violin for my landlord’s “potential eviction expense and risk” as for mortgages, please show me a worker living paycheck to paycheck who’s been approved for a mortgage for a twelve unit building

How is being a landlord any more exploitative than offering any other service? Tenants are under no obligation to rent to a given landlord or in a given area. Your example doesn’t really make sense - someone living paycheck to paycheck would default on a mortgage even if they got one. It’s for those people that renting makes the most sense. You originally implied that renting out property is not a job, which implies…

Landlords do not offer a service.

They hoard housing, making it scarce, thus forcing others to rent it from them if they want to be housed.

If we outlawed the practice, landlords would have to sell their properties, significantly increasing the number of residential units on the market, and thus reducing the price and making it much more likely that someone living paycheck to paycheck would be able to afford a mortgage on one.

None of the work involved in maintaining a property requires that the person (or company) doing so be the property's owner. It would still be perfectly reasonable for an apartment building, as a co-op, to hire a single management company to handle cleaning, maintenance, etc—somewhat similarly to how some HOAs hire a company to do landscaping for all their residents. And, yes, potentially subject to inefficiency and corruption, but we live in an imperfect world, and it's not like apartment maintenance is a perfect bastion of competence and altruism today.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#206

Post by thegrimmest » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

maxmamis wrote: post #190

endisneigh wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is being a landlord any more exploitative than offering any other service? Tenants are under no obligation to rent to a given landlord or in a given area. Your example doesn’t really make sense - someone living paycheck to paycheck would default on a mortgage even if they got one. It’s for those people that renting makes the most sense. You originally implied that renting out property is not a job, which implies…

> Your example doesn’t really make sense - someone living paycheck to paycheck would default on a mortgage even if they got one. It’s for those people that renting makes the most sense. you just made my point for me — there is a class of the population that is forced into spending a third (often more!) of their income on housing, which is being hoarded by another class. no different from a feudal serf being forced to…

So are you saying that people should not be allowed to.. accumulate capital? It's a bit of a radical thing to suggest. How did the landlord get the money to afford the building in the first place? Say he was a high-ranking professional or a successful entrepreneur and he used the capital he earned to buy a building - what's immoral here exactly?

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#207

Post by kristjansson » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #197

kristjansson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were subsidies provided by multiple levels of government[1][2], down the city level where I live. Apparently there was at least (if not more than) the usual level of misappropriation of those subsidies, so complaints from landlords abound. [1] https://dfpi.ca.gov/2021/03/15/covid19/ [2] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistan...

My sister manages a large portfolio of properties in Virginia and North Carolina in her role as a director at a medium-sized property management firm. The reality for her company, and many landlords, is that it was extremely easy for a deadbeat tenant to stop paying rent. They simply printed out the form, filled it out (it was essentially a 1 page form), and they could immediately stop paying rent and not be subject…

Yup, the programs could have been better implemented, and requiring action from the tenant (presumably to prevent landlords from claiming 'unpaid' rent on empty units) supposes more cooperation between tenants and landlord than is reasonable to expect.

The deadbeat tenants don't really escape their liabilities though. They've gone for so many months not paying and not pursuing aid. So when they're evicted, eventually, they owe so many months back rent to the landlord. I'm sure some will escape through bankruptcy, expatriation, new aid, etc, and that the annoyance (if not the cost) of pursuing the rest will be substantial. But anyone that actually realized a financial gain at the landlords expense through is going to face liens, garnishment, and seizures until they're square. If there really are tons of these people, it would seem like a good time to be in the collections business.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#208

Post by thegrimmest » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #205

endisneigh wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is being a landlord any more exploitative than offering any other service? Tenants are under no obligation to rent to a given landlord or in a given area. Your example doesn’t really make sense - someone living paycheck to paycheck would default on a mortgage even if they got one. It’s for those people that renting makes the most sense. You originally implied that renting out property is not a job, which implies…

Landlords do not offer a service. They hoard housing, making it scarce, thus forcing others to rent it from them if they want to be housed. If we outlawed the practice, landlords would have to sell their properties, significantly increasing the number of residential units on the market, and thus reducing the price and making it much more likely that someone living paycheck to paycheck would be able to afford a mortga…

Housing doesn't just grow on trees. It's capital-intensive to produce. Capital that needs to see a return on investment, since it doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are a certain class of people that simply cannot be relied on to pay a mortgage. These people still demand housing, so are served by the renters market. If you force every landlord to sell their housing, you're basically punishing them for investing. Since your heavy-handed regulation has now scared off all the capital from housing, how will you build new houses?

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#209

Post by notch656a » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #183

notch656a wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if we're talking about loaning 100k for the house, you can always execute your lien holder privileges to take back the house if they don't pay. Mortgage insurance providers a like service to the mortgage provider to minimize losses. I'd much rather be in position backing mortgage on 100k house, backed by mortgage insurance, than risking someone I don't trust with that same 100k having full custody of my house wo…

Your premise still doesn't make any sense. There are far more people who can be trusted not to cause massive property damage to their own homes (which they will then be liable for) than can be trusted to proactively work to repay a mortgage. It's a lot easier not to destroy value than to create it. Mind you, many people do cause significant damage to the spaces they rent. This being among the most frequent complaints…

You have to _proactively_ work to pay rent. Someone financially struggling does not have an easier time paying rent on a 700k home than mortgage on a 100k home, that doesn't even make sense to make an argument on the proactive payment difference. Merely not paying rent is a damage to a landlord who still has to maintain a property that the unpaying renter enjoys, so we can't argue that merely not damaging the home avoids damaging the landlord.

At equal level of negligence risk (which for most people, yes, is quite low), the monetary expected loss through negligence or crime on 700k home should be greater than that on 100k home, all else equal (same person, location, etc).

And all of this fails to account for the greater personal incentive one has to pay for their own house and take care of their own house than for someone else's they're just renting.

Re: Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends

#210

Post by maxmamis » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #206

maxmamis wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your example doesn’t really make sense - someone living paycheck to paycheck would default on a mortgage even if they got one. It’s for those people that renting makes the most sense. you just made my point for me — there is a class of the population that is forced into spending a third (often more!) of their income on housing, which is being hoarded by another class. no different from a feudal serf being forced to…

So are you saying that people should not be allowed to.. accumulate capital? It's a bit of a radical thing to suggest. How did the landlord get the money to afford the building in the first place? Say he was a high-ranking professional or a successful entrepreneur and he used the capital he earned to buy a building - what's immoral here exactly?

it’s only “radical” from the narrow perspective of the last few hundred years of western capitalism.

> Say he was a high-ranking professional or a successful entrepreneur and he used the capital he earned to buy a building - what's immoral here exactly?

he’s using his capital to extract more wealth from those with fewer resources than himself. (that’s also how he accumulated the capital in the first place — but that’s another conversation.)