[Breefield]

Speaking from Oakland CA here where the eviction moratorium is one of the most intense in the country. I think most renters who opt not to pay during eviction moratoriums suspect that being brought to court for rent arrears is akin to squeezing blood from a stone.

My lawyer advised me to negotiate rent to an amount my tenant can pay stating, "the only way you'll be able to collect is by a future collection action, and many times those types of judgments are worth about as much as the paper they're printed on."

I say this all to try and drive the point home, a moratorium on evictions is akin to an implicit rent reduction or rent elimination.

[danenania]

It's not like avoiding rent is a good deal for renters. They get out of paying for some number of months, yes, but they then face the likely prospect of both eviction and being unable to find new housing in the near future, which is an extremely harsh disincentive.

While there are always edge cases, I really doubt any significant number of people who can afford to pay would even consider taking advantage of this.

[m0zg]

They might not have a choice wrt paying vs not paying: some parts of the United States have chosen to cure a headache by decapitation, and are still shut down.

[joshuamorton]

To be fair, in many places (including the SFBA) you could get a rent reduction just by asking these last few months. My rent was knocked down significantly because we asked (and circumstances were reasonable), and I know of people on month to month leases who got reductions by threatening to move out.

[Breefield]

Anecdote time: My tenant said they were denied unemployment. They never tried to negotiate the rent. After 4 months of nonpayment when Oakland formalized my ability to offer them a "Covid19 rent reduction" which wouldn't affect their lease'd rent price on an ongoing basis I gave them a 20% reduction. 7 months later I still haven't received a dime.

I finally decided to look them up on LinkedIn—turns out they used to be a property manager, something I'd overlooked during my background check. I think they just know how long the rope is right now, and how my hands are tied, so they're using the system to their advantage ¯\_(ツ)_/

[brendoelfrendo]

Or... They actually were denied unemployment and their prior employment has no bearing on their current situation except that maybe they understand the fine print a little better? And you going out of your way to make negative assumptions about your tennant is a great example of why people think landlords are jerks?