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Rent collections are down in New York

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Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#91

Post by dfxm12 »

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…

The landlord can divest themselves of the property. It's also ok if people lose money on investments. I don't think you have to feel especially bad for landlords.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#92

Post by pixelatedindex »

cyberax wrote: post #70
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

There are such people. I have a unit in Seattle that sits empty because I don't want to risk getting stuck with such tenants. In Seattle, you can't: 1. Evict people from November to April (it's "winter"). 2. Evict people with schoolchildren during the school year. 3. Run background checks on prospective tenants. 4. You _must_ rent to the first qualifying tenant. 5. You must offer 3 months in rent as compensation if y…

Apart from maybe being a little more flexible on evictions, none of the other reasons seem problematic.

For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate?

The giving tenant three month rent thing is for a very small circumstance - for example huge rent increases if the tenant income is low, condo remodeling, etc. The wording is: “landlords who issue a housing cost increase of 10% or more (within a 12-month period) must pay relocation assistance if the affected household earns 80% or less of the Area Median Income and chooses to move.”

Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move.

It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#93

Post by nradov »

archagon wrote: post #62
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.…

Do you own your own house? Are you rich? I’ve known acquaintances who got de facto evicted without warning just because their landlord decided to make a few extra bucks. Were that to happen to me, I would not be able to rent in my current city at all due to the recent influx of wealthy tech workers. (Read: extremely high rents with ridiculous income requirements.) Fortunately, my city has robust tenant protections an…

It sounds like you're living in a badly governed city. Have you considered voting for politicians with an abundance agenda? Or moving to a city with more intelligent housing policies such as Dallas?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#94

Post by nikkwong »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #36
alexjplant wrote: post #2

> “There is a subset of people, maybe the smallest subset, who are literally making a choice not to pay rent, and we don’t do well with acknowledging that but there is a subset for whom that is the case,” [...] Others bristle at the notion that some tenants are not paying rent just because they may be able to get away with it. These people absolutely exist. To pretend that they don't is willful ignorance. They are, h…

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…

It's not rare. I repeat. It's not rare. I am a landlord in Seattle with ~55 active tenants/leases. Let's just say that I know of many landlords in the circles I run in that have absolutely stopped renting to leftie types because they've had so many issues over the last few years with many of them over litigating everything; and deciding not to pay rent over the smallest non-issues, or just not paying rent at all. I could cite case after case; and this topic is especially salient to me in the present moment because I am in fact dealing with one of these tenants right now and its a total nightmare. I will spare you the gruesome details of trying to work with this particular tenant but just trust me—I have an incredibly high tolerance to stress and this individual is doing their best to get as far under my skin as possible.

When the political class or the cultural zeitgeist tells you over and over that landlords are leeches and that "any attempt to profit off of housing is unethical"—people are going to take that to heart and have a hatred for even well-meaning small landlords. If you don't believe this is the attitude, go visit r/Seattle. The inflammatory language of politicians and cultural leaders sets the tone which plays out as legal battles and fights in properties across the city.

This obviously creates an adverse selection problem where small landlords illegally apply their own prejudices and biases in tenant selection. Honestly—could you expect them not to—when the repercussions of picking a bad tenant are so great? And when there are other demographic groups—like immigrants—who are absolutely, verifiably and consistently reliable as tenants. It used to be that it was the section 8 or low income type that were a huge problem but now there's an educated leftish fringe that landlords are also avoiding. Honestly with good reason, IMO.

Some homeowners just decide to not list extra rooms in their house outright. I remember hearing something like that Seattle has the highest number of unrented empty rooms in the country (though someone should fact check that). With the political climate the way it is here, it's obvious as to why this is the case.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#95

Post by pixelatedindex »

naturalmovement wrote: post #19
alexjplant wrote: post #2

> “There is a subset of people, maybe the smallest subset, who are literally making a choice not to pay rent, and we don’t do well with acknowledging that but there is a subset for whom that is the case,” [...] Others bristle at the notion that some tenants are not paying rent just because they may be able to get away with it. These people absolutely exist. To pretend that they don't is willful ignorance. They are, h…

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…

Doesn’t help that the landlords want to squeeze the renter for what they are worth. It’s weird to me that shitty landlords are normalized but shitty tenants get a (rightfully) bad rap.

These laws become the way they are because landlords brought it upon themselves for the most part - they’re keeping assets that have massively increased in price and want to extract more and more out of the tenant.

If you have a home that’s paid off your expenses are basically just property taxes, maybe they should do what they can to keep good tenants instead of chasing profits.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#96

Post by verall »

itake wrote: post #81
mmooss wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence? There is evidence that RealPage software illegally coordinated (maybe coordinates) landlords in keeping units off the market in order to reduce demand and increase prices for everyone. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/technology/realpage-doj-s...

Me (and others in this thread). I have a 5 bedroom house that I rent out 2 rooms, but not interested in accepting more people unless they are friends or have a very high income. At my home’s peak, we had 6 adults living there, now its at 50% capacity.

How many high income individuals want to share a house with 5 strangers?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#97

Post by pixelatedindex »

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.…

> The only effective way to protect tenants is to set public policies that encourage new housing development

Which the local landowning population promptly block with NIMBY tactics. Have you wondered if that has any impact? Not everything is some progressive boogeyman.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#98

Post by BoxFour »

> The uptick in rental delinquency isn’t new. It started six years ago

It has nothing to do with Mamdani, for those of who don't want to bother to read. Most of this occurred under Eric Adams's watch.

Anecdotally, I do think covid made people a lot more aware of how deeply backlogged the housing courts are. It seems like a lot of people (like the anonymous one in the article) realized they could not pay rent and avoid being actually evicted for quite some time.

This is a recurring theme in city problems: Backlogged courts. Sometimes that's to the benefit of the less fortunate (here), but it also often results in terrible outcomes (see: Kalief Browder).

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#99

Post by craftkiller »

itake wrote: post #90
archagon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty simple. There’s a tech boom or similar, a bunch of rich workers move in, rents go up. Landlord spikes rent by 30% to take advantage. You can see this happening in r/sanfrancisco today, for non-rent-controlled units.

Sf is kinda a mess. Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave (locking up more housing, reducing supply, forcing everyone else to pay more), thus continue to discourage rent controlled tenants from moving since moving means even higher prices. The property tax situation in SF is a mess. SF also requires a lot of expensive regulations (earthquake proofing, renovation permits, rising California insurance costs,…

> Sf’s rent control also means tenants can’t leave

They have exactly as much freedom to leave as they would without rent control. They _choose_ to stay because rent control has made it advantageous to stay. The way you phrased it implies you're suggesting this is a bad thing for renters but that is strictly a positive. Without rent control they'd have zero affordable options, with rent control they have 1 affordable option. Woe to the inhabitants of rent controlled apartments with their golden handcuffs.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#100

Post by pixelatedindex »

ethbr1 wrote: post #64
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…

> especially in these large cities with kooky renter protections that make it nearly impossible to evict someone The problem is that there will always be more voting renters than voting landlords. So in a purely democratic system, policies which favor renters at the expense of landlords will always be supported. And that said, some renter protections are definitely needed, because there is a subset of landlords that…

> The problem is that there will always be more voting renters than voting landlords. So in a purely democratic system, policies which favor renters at the expense of landlords will always be supported.

I don’t know about that… the voting landlords (NIMBYs) sure make it a point to reduce development “to preserve their neighborhood character”.

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