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Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

smartcompany.com.au

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Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#31

Post by justaguyhere »

t-writescode wrote: post #9
justaguyhere wrote: post #3

This makes a lot of sense. Rentiers are among the worst. My rental contract is so strict that it is insane. For example, I have to give 60 day notice, but those 60 days have to begin on the 1st of a month. It can't be 2nd or the last day of the previous month, it has to be the 1st. Rentiers deserve no protection, especially when everyone else is bleeding

I’ve never seen a contract so strict. There might be a lawsuit in there. If not, there’s definitely a complaint you can raise. They probably don’t accept the first of the month if it’s a Sunday, either, right?

Yes they will, my apartment's leasing office is open all day Saturday and half day Sunday. They have their bases covered. They know what they are doing, the company owns multiple buildings and hundreds of apartments. They have written contracts for every single teeny tiny thing.

I find it amusing that I am getting downvoted. Everything I said here is true. In places like NYC, it is not easy to get a half decent apartment without paying through the nose. I've heard it is worse in SF, but I haven't lived there, so can't comment.

Maybe people here own more than one home that they rent and get pissed at anything negative that is said about landlords. But the thing is, I've rented most of my life and despite being an ideal tenant (always pay rent on time, no parties/pets/noise ... and so on), all I have experienced is a serious headache while looking for apartments. All the downvotes isn't going to change that.

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#33

Post by appleiigs »

The article is dumb. If the statement "Landlords don’t employ anyone; their benefit to society is frankly pretty marginal" was true, why did the author willingly sign his rent or lease contract (which binds him to pay a large regular payments for a long period)... Why would he do it if there is no benefit!?

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#34

Post by snoopsbooks »

cutler wrote: post #15
Veen wrote: post #4

> Ban rent for COVID-19-affected businesses Landlords have mortgages and a host of other associated costs. If this were made a policy in the UK, you'd have a huge number of small-time buy-to-let landlords going bankrupt and losing their nest-egg to the bank.

So what? Why should society provide security for the gamblers of the property free-for-all? They took the risk. Too bad if it goes bad. Try working for your income instead of trying to get something for nothing.

Agree. Bankrupt everyone who takes a risk. That will teach them all a lesson.

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#35

Post by t-writescode »

Ancalagon wrote: post #30
t-writescode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly sounds like measures that could get pushed at local levels by local people, successfully

No because the local governments are owned by homeowners

That’s a quitting attitude. This is possible.

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#36

Post by robocat »

sschueller wrote: post #28
kadonoishi wrote: post #19

So stop all payments. Nobody pays rent, landowners don’t pay their mortgages, banks don’t pay interest. Companies don’t pay dividends, bonds don’t pay interest. Just stop using money to organize productive activity for a few months until the coronavirus curve flattens. If all payments are stopped for three months, then it’s simply hitting the “Pause” button on the whole money system. There are no economic data for th…

This doesn't work because not every one has stopped working. The best solution would be for the government to pay the bottom and have the payments "trickle up".

How does trickle up pay the commercial rent for the example in the article with an events business?

From article: “[businesses have gone] from regular trading to zero revenue in a week. My own sector, events, is literally illegal. Bars, restaurants and lots of others are in the same position or soon will be.”, “Some of our landlords have agreed to push a percentage of our rent back to later in the year, but it still has to be paid back. So we’ll pay double rent as we emerge into what will be a catastrophic recession.”

I agree the government paying his staff helps the staff and helps fix his other issue “My own business is spending every last cent of our cash to keep our 60-odd staff employed in some way, even though we’re not allowed to do what we do.”

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#37

Post by hellisothers »

Scoundreller wrote: post #14
taleodor wrote: post #2

> We need legislation to ban rents for COVID-19-affected businesses. This only works if the government mandates full moratorium on both rents and mortgages. That also means that no interest on mortgage is accrued during this time. Otherwise, landlords are screwed in the same way as tenants - they can't pay mortgage and the property may turn into foreclosure. More so, frequently landlords are screwed even more - becau…

But who should the government punish? Everyone equally? The richest X%? The poorest X%? Particular industr[y,ies]? If everyone says “not us, somebody else!” there will be no redistribution.

The parent comment is proposing a system where nobody is punished, everything is deferred. Not all landlords are fat cats in a mansion, if you remove the flow of cash to only some people, those people will be crushed if they depend on that flow to send it further upstream.

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#38

Post by romwell »

sschueller wrote: post #28
kadonoishi wrote: post #19

So stop all payments. Nobody pays rent, landowners don’t pay their mortgages, banks don’t pay interest. Companies don’t pay dividends, bonds don’t pay interest. Just stop using money to organize productive activity for a few months until the coronavirus curve flattens. If all payments are stopped for three months, then it’s simply hitting the “Pause” button on the whole money system. There are no economic data for th…

This doesn't work because not every one has stopped working. The best solution would be for the government to pay the bottom and have the payments "trickle up".

Aaaaand where will this money "trickle up"?

Surprise, it's the landlords! And on taxpayers' dime, at that.

Paying the bottom is what needs to be done. But we also need to halt the flow of money around real estate.

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#39

Post by rad_gruchalski »

Scoundreller wrote: post #14
taleodor wrote: post #2

> We need legislation to ban rents for COVID-19-affected businesses. This only works if the government mandates full moratorium on both rents and mortgages. That also means that no interest on mortgage is accrued during this time. Otherwise, landlords are screwed in the same way as tenants - they can't pay mortgage and the property may turn into foreclosure. More so, frequently landlords are screwed even more - becau…

But who should the government punish? Everyone equally? The richest X%? The poorest X%? Particular industr[y,ies]? If everyone says “not us, somebody else!” there will be no redistribution.

Is ‘punish’ even the right term? We’re all equally screwed one way or another. Everywhere in the world.

Re: Covid-19: Landlords will kill our economy

#40

Post by kadonoishi »

sschueller wrote: post #28
kadonoishi wrote: post #19

So stop all payments. Nobody pays rent, landowners don’t pay their mortgages, banks don’t pay interest. Companies don’t pay dividends, bonds don’t pay interest. Just stop using money to organize productive activity for a few months until the coronavirus curve flattens. If all payments are stopped for three months, then it’s simply hitting the “Pause” button on the whole money system. There are no economic data for th…

This doesn't work because not every one has stopped working. The best solution would be for the government to pay the bottom and have the payments "trickle up".

The government prints money and sends out those $1000 monthly checks so as to continue using money to organize transactions, and the people working essential jobs continue to get paychecks.

Make the distinction between financial capital and money. Money as medium of exchange continues to be used. Money as financial capital assets is paused for the duration of the crisis.

What’s the function of capital? To allocate labor to the highest-value uses. We can’t be bothered with that during a pandemic.

Capital allocation is important, and it is long-term. The pandemic is about short-term physical survival. Providing food water medicine electricity is straightforward enough that it can be done through command, and through the sheer momentum of our existing systems.

We need to drop back to a simpler version of our physical economy for awhile, where people sit in their houses and only use basic necessities. Once it’s all clear we can come out and resume the previous activities; but how exactly do we effectively pause the non-essential activities?

This article is pointing out, rightly, that landlords and rents are non-essential. So pause them along with the rest of the non-essential activities.

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