Rent collections are down in New York • Hacker News Board

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#51

Post by nradov » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 12:37 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #50

nradov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenant "protection" laws are the type of idiocy that economically illiterate progressive politicians always produce. They end up having the opposite effect by making property owners less willing to rent out to anyone. The only effective way to protect tenants is to set public policies that encourage new housing development. When there is a housing surplus, the laws of economics force landlords to treat tenants well.…

sure because a property owner is going to not rent out a property and just take the month on month hit for having an empty property. They'll either rent it or sell it. There is a middle ground, just need to find that point.

Apparently you haven't been paying attention to what's happening in the rental market. Landlords in cities with strong tenant protection laws will absolutely leave a unit vacant for months until they find someone with a high income ratio and credit score. This leaves poorer people stuck with no options.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#52

Post by lelandfe » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 12:37 AM UTC

CursedSilicon wrote: post #42

jandrewrogers wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I anecdotally know of a few cases in Seattle where tenants with high incomes that could easily pay just don't. There is a subculture that actively encourages this type of behavior and the laws are setup such that there are almost no consequences for it. I've also met people who bragged about doing it. While rare, it is still common enough that it has become a real problem and has become socially acceptable in some ci…

As someone who also lives in Seattle, I'd be curious to see any verifiable citations to such a wild claim

I only know of one https://komonews.com/news/local/twitter-shutdown-seattle-off...

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#53

Post by 1986 » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 12:46 AM UTC

polski-g wrote: post #48

toofy wrote: post #35

i occasionally come across some of the forums and online groups of landlords and the things they have to deal with, particularly in cities with strong protections for the tenants and its interesting to watch the perspectives. on one hand i feel for some of the landlords who have to deal with some of the very real slacks who go out of their way to be difficult tenants. on the other we’re talking about homes, by this i…

[flagged]

They're being evicted from their home, but from the landlord's property. It would be the landlord's home if the landlord lived there, but they don't, because they're renting it to the tenant.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#54

Post by woodruffw » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 12:54 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #34

naturalmovement wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's entire Reddit communities of these people where they encourage and validate their shitty behavior. With some of the stories I've read, you'd have to be positively insane to be a small-time landlord these days, especially in these large cities with kooky renter protections that make it nearly impossible to evict someone. Go watch Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton for a fictionalized account but this stuff ab…

Tenant "protection" laws are the type of idiocy that economically illiterate progressive politicians always produce. They end up having the opposite effect by making property owners less willing to rent out to anyone. The only effective way to protect tenants is to set public policies that encourage new housing development. When there is a housing surplus, the laws of economics force landlords to treat tenants well.…

There's an economic floor for the price of housing: the amortized cost of the building and its maintenance, plus taxes and overhead imposed by governments, utilities, mortgages, etc.

In other words: even in a plentiful housing market, there will always be someone who struggles to pay rent (including transiently), because a rational housing market can't offer $0 rents. Tenant protection laws exist to protect that person from a landlord who would otherwise be incentivized to throw them onto the street.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#55

Post by margalabargala » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #49

weakfish wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question that many do not want to think about. We (as a society (referring to all Western Liberalism, not just the US)) are so thoroughly convinced that Liberal Democracy is the End of History, and it's the 'flawed but best,' as many say, but refuse to imagine something better. It's puzzling that a system that is supposed to reward creativity and genius like capitalism limits it's inhabitants in their imagination…

What would you like us to imagine? So far everything that we've tried at scale other than liberal democracy and capitalism has inevitably led to war, famine, and genocide. Western liberalism appears to be the only system that empirically works. Some would claim that "socialism with Chinese characteristics" works better, but if you look below the surface prosperity in first-tier cities the actual economic situation is…

Arguably, benevolent dictatorships tend to be the best. Singapore is a good example.

The trouble is making a system that can guarantee the "benevolent" part in the longer term.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#56

Post by CursedSilicon » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

abhinai wrote: post #46

CursedSilicon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also lives in Seattle, I'd be curious to see any verifiable citations to such a wild claim

He said “anecdotally”. In any case, I was wondering that if I know a friend who does this, how could I ever present a verifiable citation for it? You may have to rethink your ask.

Anecdotes aren't usually admissible as evidence, is the thing

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#57

Post by CursedSilicon » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC

lelandfe wrote: post #52

CursedSilicon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also lives in Seattle, I'd be curious to see any verifiable citations to such a wild claim

I only know of one https://komonews.com/news/local/twitter-shutdown-seattle-off...

I mean, Elmo's SpaceX is busy lying about being "In Redmond" too (they're in Redmond Ridge, a significantly more rural area about 6 miles away)

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#58

Post by margalabargala » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 1:36 AM UTC

polski-g wrote: post #48

toofy wrote: post #35

i occasionally come across some of the forums and online groups of landlords and the things they have to deal with, particularly in cities with strong protections for the tenants and its interesting to watch the perspectives. on one hand i feel for some of the landlords who have to deal with some of the very real slacks who go out of their way to be difficult tenants. on the other we’re talking about homes, by this i…

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#59

Post by _DeadFred_ » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 1:44 AM UTC

rationalist wrote: post #23

naturalmovement wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's entire Reddit communities of these people where they encourage and validate their shitty behavior. With some of the stories I've read, you'd have to be positively insane to be a small-time landlord these days, especially in these large cities with kooky renter protections that make it nearly impossible to evict someone. Go watch Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton for a fictionalized account but this stuff ab…

I have friends and coworkers that want to have rental properties, and I advise them it's not worth it. I don't want to be in a position where I have to pay more to fix damages than I collectected in rent if I accidentally rent to deadbeats. Or in a position where I have to provide services to someone not paying me. One of those friends has parents that rented out their old house to deadbeats at the top of the housing…

Wage theft is the number one form of theft in the USA at around $15 billion. Hopefully you advised your friends to avoid working for wages as that is the number one way to be ripped off by deadbeats in the USA.

Somehow the idea of working for wages became a pervasive notion in the U.S.

https://www.denver7.com/news/national-politics/the-race/wage...

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#60

Post by _DeadFred_ » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 1:52 AM UTC

All slack has been removed from society. All pricing has been maximized. Every interaction capitalized. Every point of extraction extracted from.

People living in these situations now live from crisis to crisis. Not paying rent/dealing with the consequences is just another on the list. At some point people just become numb. Modern society at the peripherals is not sustainable. There will always be people in the peripherals, but society is now structured to require middle class type stability as the bottom baseline for an individual to survive.