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Rent collections are down in New York

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Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#311
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, all of Europe post-WW2. A significant share of new build in the 50s-60s was social housing.

No one absolutely no one considers that to be remotely true. Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair. And while Vienna or Stockholm are often cited as Utopias, the citees often intentionally leave out the negative side effects (ie. Waiting-times of years, housing black markets, etc) that are eventually coming full cir…

This was aggravated by modern city planning with it's separation of function that left these new districts with no third spaces, barely any shops and large spaces of 'no man's land' between buildings.

In classics European cities there were shops on street level and dense blocks that generated demand for those.

The post war developments followed the 'high rise in the park' concept, lots of greenery and parking lots between buildings to create a mid density neighborhood.

But there is no life in the streets and you have to walk a lot through repetitive environment but to do anything you still have to go to the 'old city'.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#312

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…

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 c…

Lefty tenant here. I def. stopped paying my rent a few times until my landlord fixed their shit or agreed to stop scamming me.

Last time I did it I signed a lease for a year, with 2 months of advance notice if I decided to leave (in the UK). I told them 2 months before the end of my lease, and they told me I had to wait for the end of my lease, then wait 2 months, and then I could be out.

I just stopped paying rent, and left them a horrible one star review on gmaps.

One day he showed up at my place (with soup who was coming to fix something) and tried to enter. I told him to stay out. And then he started crying and telling me how I could not just stop paying rent. I could tell how hard it was to be a small landlord.

I told him that I would resume paying if they signed smthg to agree to let me break the lease at the year end AND reimburse me the fees that appeared at the least minute, a year ago, right as I was signing the lease in front of them.

They agreed, reimbursed me my caution/deposit at the end, easy.

Would recommend just stop paying your rent if anything ever happens. I would do it again.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said my only interest is money. At your job, is your only interest money? Do you not feel a social obligation to your coworkers; want to do good for your teammate and your company? Again, talk about a stupid take, as if humans are one dimensional like that. Corporate landlords and hedge funds that own apartment sky rises are probably only in it for the money. You can't say the same thing about every small lan…

[flagged]

Wow, way to not actually read what a person said, and then quote things and say they mean something that they don't.

I get that you don't like the concept of people owning property and renting it to others, but maybe stop arguing in bad faith?

Here's a hint: it's possible to be doing something for the money, but not only do it for the money. It's possible to operate a business, but also be a well-meaning person who treats customers of that business with empathy and compassion.

I don't know the landlord in this subthread, so I can't say if he's telling the truth about how he treats his tenants, but if he is telling the truth, he sounds better than the vast majority of landlords out there. Not just better, actually good.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#314
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore doesn’t have social housing. HDB is government built and sold for 99 year lease hold.

You're describing a form of social housing.

No. Because HDBs are not owned by the government.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore doesn’t have crime like the U.S. There is also no free public housing. You still must work and the housing is subsidised. But not free.

Why bother with such details? Class warfare is right, and details are details. /sarcasm For example mixed income housing is really nice for “us” that have been in generational poverty. For “them” it is just living with signals of alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and more. All while their children get a good front seat into “empowerment”. With sarcasm over, details matter, complexity matters, social assistance matters, a…

It only works in Singapore because there’s too little land. There is too little options. HDBs are capped value. While Condos are quite expensive in comparison, and you cannot own both. Singapore system for housing would be hard to replicate anywhere else without government stealing everything off the citizens and disallowing private ownership of land.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one that actually exists? Have you never heard of the HUD fair housing initiatives programs? You hire a white actor and a black actor with the same job, income, credit, etc and if a landlord consistently refuses to rent to the black actors, you sic the DoJ on them for violating the Fair Housing Act

Nope, I hadn't heard of that. Neat. I see two problems though: 1. I can see this being effective against larger landlord that will have many units available every year, ensuring that adequate testing can be performed. But on smaller landlords with only a few units, it seems like it'd be hard to test. (for example, you get rejected from an apartment. The landlord rents it out to someone else. You file a FHIP complaint…

Re #2: I feel like people of the kinds of races that often get discriminated against have pretty decent radar when it comes to figuring out why they were rejected.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#317

For those looking for the actual data. It's from 2024 - says nothing about the current situation. * ~37K affordable housing units (baseline) across ~400 projects * 89% rent collection rate (down from 90.6% in 2023) * That's 600 units that went 'delinquent' in 2024 - assuming a $24K 'base' rent (just a guess) that's $15M in lost rent. * Deeply troubled projects (that can't survive without this rent) are at 11% - seems…

Cities have to truly compete with private rent-seekers for it to work.

In Vienna they are still building state of the art for that reason:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc...

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house We already tried that. It turns out that people are racist, so now we need laws to protect against that. It sucks for all the decent non-racist folks but the alternative of not having those protections was far worse.

This is utter BS. Seattle is about 40% non-White. And has never been racist, or even had slavery (outside the Native population).

If you think there aren't any racist landlords in Seattle (or any particular place), then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...

Having a large non-white population is not a protection against race-related discrimination.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#319

For those looking for the actual data. It's from 2024 - says nothing about the current situation. * ~37K affordable housing units (baseline) across ~400 projects * 89% rent collection rate (down from 90.6% in 2023) * That's 600 units that went 'delinquent' in 2024 - assuming a $24K 'base' rent (just a guess) that's $15M in lost rent. * Deeply troubled projects (that can't survive without this rent) are at 11% - seems…

I don't understand why we can't just copy another country's housing strategy. There are many countries in the world where housing is affordable, relatively high quality, and the homelessness rate is low. What are we doing that makes this problem so seemingly intractable? Why is our approach to public housing seemingly worse than any other approach in history?

It's the other way round:) Europe is salivating at the American real estate market. Some European countries don't have capital gains tax on real estate and real estate is the only investment vehicle without this tax. The only country where real estate prices haven't skyrocket looks to be Finland but their general situation is very specific and it's hard to say whether it's by design or by accident.

Social housing in Europe while exists, distribution of it is extremely corrupted process. Applying and waiting will give you something in 5 years or never, you'll know in 5 years. You have to be young couple both employed with perfect portfolio, or whatever the role model in that time and location is. Young couples both employed in desirable city basically don't exist anymore, even if you are after two rounds of waiting suddenly you are not a young couple anymore:) Usually you have to know someone and give a bribe.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insanely bad take. > 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? You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. When the g…

> You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. That’s basically discrimination? Make a strict selection criteria, that’s fine. The city also has affordable housing for people who don’t qualify. You set what works for you, why do you care…

> That’s basically discrimination?

Discrimination is fine, as long as the discrimination is not based on protected classes. If I were a landlord, I'd discriminate against people who act like assholes, for example, regardless of their ability to pay the rent, my rationale being that an asshole will likely be a problem tenant. And that I just don't enjoy dealing with assholes. Not sure "no assholes" is a reasonable thing to list on an official rental advertisement.

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