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Rent collections are down in New York

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Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#531

Post by mullingitover »

pixel_popping wrote: post #475
Haven880 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore system won't work in USA cities. Their town councils are near scholars level. Quite a few of them doctorate. They are pretty much selected on 2 criteria, merit and perceived likability with accountabilities evaluated both by government and locals citizens. American leaders are selected based on sound bites with zero accountability to citizens for maybe 2 years to 4 years. They do accountable to mega donors…

One of the real reason Singapore system won't work is also the mentality (respect level is way higher), I believe it's actually the primary thing, at 15 years old many Singaporeans are already talking about investment, how to compete hard and so-on, the level is way higher than in the west and people are driven in life in general, but life is hard over there, harder even but more rewarding. In SG, they can also plan…

I don't think respect is the explanation for Singapore's success, it's more likely a side effect of the real magic: ethics and reputability.

Singapore is the third least corrupt country in the world[1]. Another country that has managed to pull off successful public housing, Finland, is the second least corrupt in the world.

The United States meanwhile is in 29th place (and that's being generous, imho) and at its worst ever in the corruption index[2]. It's been falling for a decade. Perhaps that's the real explanation: we can't have nice things because the resources needed to build and operate them are actively siphoned off through embezzlement, bribes, kickbacks, and fraud. Rigid class systems don't do anything to prevent fraud, either, in fact they entrench it deeply.

[1] https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/singapore

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/10/business/corruption-index-tra...

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#532

Post by hagbard_c »

albedoa wrote: post #88
hagbard_c wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

What a strange remark, both the 'no way' as well as the ad-hominem related to the odd choice of a 'democratic socialist' as mayor for NYC. There was a time when people with differing political opinions could get along outside of the realm of politics but this has been made impossible by people who react like you just did here.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#533

Post by apothegm »

treis wrote: post #474
apothegm wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can plunk $10-$20K and get land and a homestead in dozens of states. In a place where the only jobs to be had are at below-subsistence minimum wage at the dollar store and you have to drive 2 hours to see a doctor, sure.

There's a huge middle ground between Manhattan and homesteading on a $10k property. Here in Atlanta you can buy a 4/3 house for $270k or a 2/1 house for $160k. The rust belt and sunbelt are full of places with cheap housing.

That’s most definitely not $10-20k, tho.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#534

Post by mrguyorama »

cyberax wrote: post #273
pixelatedindex wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

> It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them. No. Have you heard the phrase: "justice delayed is justice denied"? I want this rule to apply to _everyone_. Also I would agree with all those rules with one addition: unpaid rent should not be discharged during bankruptcy.

The fact that you cannot evict your tenant until they get a court hearing IS the system providing justice. It's ensuring that a landlord can't just throw you out on a whim, and you have to figure out housing until you get a court to say "Actually you weren't allowed to throw out that tenant" and have to deal with evicting the new tenant who was moved into your unit and also get you back into it.

It sure seems funny that it's only "Injustice" when it hurts the landlord, because apparently landlords aren't allowed to read the history of before we had these kinds of things.

If you are upset that court takes forever now in the US, congratulations, join the rest of us. You are not special in that regard.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#535

Post by bluebarbet »

youre-wrong3 wrote: post #520
bluebarbet wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Because "social housing" is a general term that implies subsidization and affordability rather than any one specific ownership model.

No. Social housing is government owned and rented. Singapore is government built and sold. Singapore is a tiny island with little space. The government has to control what is built where and avoids it turning into Hong Kong slums.

You're being stubborn. From Wikipedia:

>Public housing, also known as social housing, is subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a combination thereof.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#536

Post by saalweachter »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #526
saalweachter wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile now count the number of places you can draw a 100 mile radius where the median height of the existing buildings is even that tall. 100 miles? My dude, that is a circle from Poughkeepsie to the tip of Long Island. Forget one-story single-family housing, there is farmland in that circle. There are hundreds of square miles of state parks in that circle. If people were willing and able to commute that distanc…

> My dude, that is a circle from Poughkeepsie to the tip of Long Island. Forget one-story single-family housing, there is farmland in that circle. That's kind of the point. Notice that housing demand is recursive. The area you're talking about is NYC metro. If you draw a 100 mile radius around Manhattan then Poughkeepsie is inside it. Is someone going to live in Poughkeepsie and commute to Manhattan? Probably not. Is…

Is your suggestion "we should do the status quo, except the bridge and tunnel commuters should be confined to tiny high-rise enclaves clustered around train stations strung out over a hundred miles"?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#537

Post by gazebo2 »

itake wrote: post #86
cherry_tree wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords typically have insurance coverage for damage by tenants, including lost rent.

It’s hard for new landlords. People that bought houses to rent compete against property owners of paid off homes or people with 3% mortgages. Tacking on optional insurance products on a property that’s already in the red further encourages landlords to push up rents prices.

Maybe people shouldn't be buying homes for the purpose of renting them then?

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#538

Post by asdff »

itake wrote: post #194
asdff wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the lesson is just to not be so overleveraged.

If grandma pays 90% less taxes than me (prop13), where is the leverage? If grandma bought the the house in 1990 and property values have risen faster than wages and inflation, where is the leverage? If grandma is under insured, either due to the insurance company not updating coverages with inflation or no insurance bc she isn’t required to, where is the leverage?

The leverage I am talking about is being a landlord where most of your cash flow is dependent on one or a handful of tenants reliably paying rent. Maybe it would have been better to not be a single owner of a fourplex, but to go in with 20 other people on ownership of an underlying llc of that fourplex, and invest in another 19 similarly structured fourplex llc's. Same investment but de risked due to spreading it across some 80 people paying rent vs just four people. Or you can just put that money into REITs where now its what several hundred or maybe thousands of people in the tenancy pool you are investing in.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#539

Post by nikkwong »

Applejinx wrote: post #376
nikkwong wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the OP—just chiming in, I can just hardly live off the rental income I make, but its a lot less than my salary as a senior SDE. Yes what I am is not analogous to someone renting out a few extra rooms. I just think my experience is analogous to that of a small time landlord in that I know each tenant very well and we have good relationships—and I manually handle each part of their tenant experience. To add more de…

That's a telling detail. How many 'big time landlords' are in the position of living in one of their 25 bedroom units? I'm going to skip the 'share a bedroom' 'cos that might well mean something otherwise desirable. In the best case scenario I too would be sharing a bedroom, but it wouldn't be my best case scenario to be in a 25 unit building unless it was quite large and well built.

Sorry, I meant I live in a bedroom in the 25 br house. Its not a particularly nice or well-built house; it's a frat house near the UW campus in Seattle. As a matter of fact, I live in the basement in the smallest room in the house. I am not a fancy person and don't need anything more than the basic necessities to remain content, and I like the neighborhood here.

Re: Rent collections are down in New York

#540

Post by nikkwong »

WhyIsItAlwaysHN wrote: post #416
nikkwong wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you own 6 houses, you don't only have an income the size of a full-time job but also make money out of the appreciation of property prices. Couldn't you and your immediate family retire by just selling these 6 houses? Or is the situation different in Seattle? Also you are saying you are also working as a senior SWE. How are you so involved with 55 tenants and balance a full-time job at the same time? I've known pe…

I could sell all of the houses and retire, yeah. Especially the poor performing ones, after accounting for the mortgage I am in the red on two of them every month. I don't know if I expect property prices to appreciate in Seattle as we're flooding the market with housing and in the US we're having some unstable demographic shifts so I try to select properties that perform well on day 1, going forward.

Yes, my family also asks me how I do it. I am just working constantly, from sunup to sundown; pretty much 7 days a week. I don't always do a perfect job juggling the responsibilities but I do my best and I think 99-100% of my tenants would say they're enjoying the accommodations; and I think my manager would say my performance is good. Hoping I can get married and start a family soon and at that point I think hiring a property manager would be the correct move. But I have a very high amount of resilience to stress and being upset so being consistently under pressure isn't too much of a problem for me personally.

Also keep in mind there are certain types of tenants that are lower maintenance than others, so proper tenant selection is important.

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