[lookalike74]

The yes/no in some cases could allow fixed-income people to be approved when they are short of the required income or credit history because they've never had a rental problem. A lot of fixed-income seniors pay a large portion of their income to rent but have done so reliably for decades, for example.

[function_seven]

So now that I know about these records, I better think twice before asserting my rights as a tenant. If my landlord decides to steal my deposit, ignore the leaky roof, and refuse to fix the furnace, I'll just roll over and take it. Can't have a "Yes" on my permanent record; won't be able to rent in the future!

[phil21]

This has been the advice for quite some time. Just having court cases on your record can be seen as a black mark for both housing and some employers regardless of you winning them or their merit.

It's not a majority yet, but it's been slowly eating it's way into these sectors for the past couple decades.

Similar "scores" are being silently enacted for such trivial things like returning merchandise to retail stores. Stores now share information and will outright reject returns if you are deemed to have done too many returns in the past at a totally unrelated business.

Leave town with a $2 bank balance and forget to close the account out? Good luck getting a new bank account for the next 7 years with the "minimum account balance" fees drawing it into the negative regardless of fixing the oversight when notified.

Same for chargebacks on your credit card - chargeback more than then the calculated long-term EV of your account and you will find the process all of a sudden becomes very difficult and your account is likely closed shortly thereafter.

Same goes with Amazon - have a high value account that does $50k/yr in purchases? Returns are always granted no questions asked. Low value? You will start seeing pushback from customer service very quickly and account closure regardless of the validity or reasons for return.

The above are all examples I've personally experienced or witnessed.

Airline mileage programs that turned into revenue programs are likely where most of this ends up. Companies simply will stop servicing low EV customers altogether on an individual vs. the group basis as it's done now.

[taylortrusty]

Honest question: what's wrong with any of these examples?

[CogitoCogito]

Just to take the bank example: the bank should block any attempts to remove money from the account once it goes negative and then put a hold on it until the owner contacts them. Charging negative and continuously charging fees should just be illegal.

[diordiderot]

But all the money they lose on administration expenses! /s

[Zak]

It's probably wrong for landlords to be able to hold suing a previous landlord and winning against a prospective tenant. The winning part implies the tenant was correct and asserted their rights.

Of course, tenants being afraid to assert their rights is in the unethical self-interest of a landlord. A society that's attempting to be just should not want that.

[voakbasda]

Winning or losing in court has very little to do with being right or wrong.

[ivalm]

That goes both ways. Tenant could lose and be in the right. At the very least if tenant won it shouldn’t be held against them as this discourages utilization of tenant protection laws.

[glogla]

> So now that I know about these records, I better think twice before asserting my rights as a tenant.

Yes, I'm sure that is the point.

[encryptluks2]

Most of the time the amount is sufficient for small claims, and usually those records, especially if given a settlement, are not so much public record.

[lupire]

Take out a loan and buy property.

Don't be a serf.

If you can't afford to buy a property, burn the system down.

[kazinator]

The point is that this yes/no datum is going to be interpreted as a black stain, regardless of what it means.

A landlord reviewing 50 applications for a place isn't going to go into the particulars. Depending on the landlord's approach, anything with a yes won't make the short list.

Credit reports should not have suspicious stains whose meaning could be that there is in fact nothing wrong (there was a dispute which was caused by someone else, and resolved in the applicant's favor).

[jeffbee]

The obvious solution is the one I've long advocated in this forum and elsewhere: a housing market where landlords can pick and choose tenants should not be permitted to exist. Build housing until the median number of applicants for a vacant home becomes 1 or 0. Make landlords desperate again.

[trashcan01]

If landlords aren’t allowed to pick tenants, then:

1. Bad tenants will have no incentive not to harm the property and the neighborhood.

2. Landlords will be forced to pay for insurance to cover all the bad things that tenants are now free to do.

3. Rents will rise to cover the costs of the insurance. Conscientious tenants will be penalized.

4. Even otherwise conscientious tenants will start to cut corners since they are having to pay for the insurance anyway and it’s clearly unfair.

What a nasty situation for conscientious tenants landlords and neighbors you are advocating.

Only the least conscientious people win.

[gpderetta]

You can make the exact symmetrical argument if tenants are not allowed to pick landlords (which is what happen in practice). Well, except about rent increase that happens anyways.

[gizmo686]

What market are you in where tenents can't pick landlords? With mom and pop landlords, it can be a crapshoot. But I have rented from coorporate landlords twice. Each time, I was able to research them, and I avoided several with bad reputations. I've never had problems with the landlords I did rent from.

[ericd]

Sounds like there should be some symmetrical landlord screening tools.

[kazinator]

Tenants cannot pick an arbitrary landlord L for a given, fixed rental unit U. They can pick a different rental unit with a different L.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Tenants pick what they can afford. Landlords charge what the market can bear.

The entirely predictable result is some very rich landlords and some very homeless people.

[adfgadfgaery]

I don't see how what you are saying makes any sense at all.

>1. Bad tenants will have no incentive not to harm the property and the neighborhood.

Of course they will: they may lose the security deposit, may be evicted, may be sued, and may even be arrested.

>2. Landlords will be forced to pay for insurance to cover all the bad things that tenants are now free to do.

They already pay for insurance.

>3. Rents will rise to cover the costs of the insurance. Conscientious tenants will be penalized.

Building more housing will make housing more expensive?

>4. Even otherwise conscientious tenants will start to cut corners since they are having to pay for the insurance anyway and it’s clearly unfair.

No, for the same reasons I gave before they still have an incentive to behave well.

[lupire]

None of this is a problem because everyone will own their own home.

[kazinator]

> a housing market where landlords can pick and choose tenants should not be permitted to exist

1. That implies that home owners would not be permitted to rent only to family members (or friends), because that constitutes picking and choosing tenants.

2. Not being able to pick and choose tenants literally means you cannot evict existing tenants for any reason, like years of non-payment of rent, or damage to the unit or whatever. Such a move can be interpreted as trying to replace tenants with a better choice of tenants; i.e. picking and choosing tenants.

3. Only a complete fool or someone desperate would rent their home out under such a rule. (Even in a housing market in which you can screen tenants, you can still get awful tenants. Imagine if you had tenants foisted upon you by some rules. Yikes!) The result would be fewer rental units on the market.

4. But, in this imaginary world, banks would likewise not be allowed to pick and choose to whom they give money to buy a house, so there would be a lot less renting.

[reedjosh]

> Build housing until the median number of applicants for a vacant home becomes 1 or 0. Make landlords desperate again

This is so silly.

Who's going to build these hypothetical housing units? So many that there are more houses than applicants.

[adfgadfgaery]

There are so many investors who want to build apartments that most cities have laws to keep them out.

[wan23]

You should expect that the market would build enough units that there were about as many homes as applicants in the absence of regulation. Getting to more than that should be doable with only minor incentives.

[reedjosh]

> You should expect that the market would build enough units that there were about as many homes as applicants in the absence of regulation.

While I sympathize with the logic, there is no reason to expect that.

[jeffbee]

Why don't you ask people in any nation where this is already national policy, such as Austria? Don't just imply that it is not possible, when there are existence proofs.

For that matter, just ask your parents. It was national policy of the U.S. to build an overabundance of housing for the 50 years after the Great Depression, which is why landlords' income as a fraction of the national economy hit an all-time low in the mid 1980s. It has since rebounded to all-time highs, which is why nobody can find a place to live.

[ChuckNorris89]

>Why don't you ask people in any nation where this is already national policy, such as Austria? Don't just imply that it is not possible, when there are existence proofs.

What? How? Real estate prices to income ratio in Austria is one of the worst in the EU. Few people can afford to buy without inheritance. Austrian real estate market is broken AF.

[kazinator]

The population of Austria has grown by around 38% in the past ... 100 years.

During this time, the world population has more than quadrupled.

[TheOtherHobbes]

I'm not following why you believe people in Austria should have their rent calculated based on the population of China and India.

Can you explain what you mean in more detail?

[dagw]

Make being a landlord too onerous and people will stop being landlords. Take Sweden for example, landlords are selling off their rental apartments at an increased rate as the profits of renting are decreasing and the risks increasing. The end result is that there is almost nothing available to rent at any price and it can take 5-10 years of standing in line to get a halfway decent rental apartment.

Having a liquid supply of decent rental apartments on the market is important for a dynamic economy.

[Ekaros]

Wouldn't that increase the rents even further? Specially if we were go below 1 on long term. As the existing renters must also cover the building and maintenance cost for the empty units...

General prices would drop, but renters would end up paying for something they are not using or even have access to...

[IncRnd]

> The obvious solution is the one I've long advocated in this forum and elsewhere: a housing market where landlords can pick and choose tenants should not be permitted to exist.

Do you leave your domicile unlocked for anyone to visit, while you are elsewhere? No? A landlord doesn't want to do that, either.

[Simon_says]

An apartment with 50 applicants is underpriced.

[dont__panic]

That would also be addressed by a more detailed explanation of court records, or a binary yes/no of whether the tenant was ultimately found guilty of a transgression against previous landlords, no?

The previous comment is pointing out that this could be a problem if you've been sued by an unscrupulous landlord in the past. That problem exists for fixed income people as well.

[kragen]

BTW, you were right that Pebble used those memory LCDs in their smartwatches. Unfortunately I can't reply to your comment from that time. Thanks for letting me know!