> “There is a subset of people, maybe the smallest subset, who are literally making a choice not to pay rent, and we don’t do well with acknowledging that but there is a subset for whom that is the case,” [...] Others bristle at the notion that some tenants are not paying rent just because they may be able to get away with it.
These people absolutely exist. To pretend that they don't is willful ignorance. They are, however, indeed a "small[est] subset" to quote the gentleman in the article. In the era of $4 McDoubles and $6 gallons of gas I have trouble believing that one in four people is my burnout college roommate who spends on Fireball shots and Xbox games instead of paying rent. Life is expensive these days.
> They are, however, indeed a "small[est] subset" to quote the gentleman in the article.
The numbers don't have to stay small because this behavior is not generated independently in a population. Multiple people may become aware of it by talking to each other, social media, forums, some crazy news event that refers to it, etc. All of the sudden a lot more people decide they can do it as well and tell their friends.
I am not defending it or saying one side is right or wrong just that when it comes to things like this there may be a different model at play on how this behavior is generated.
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 circles.
It is corrosive to the social contract when government policy tacitly encourages this behavior.
He said “anecdotally”. In any case, I was wondering that if I know a friend who does this, how could I ever present a verifiable citation for it? You may have to rethink your ask.
In my city, and I assume many others, there's an informal landlord's group that shares lists of problem tenants to avoid renting to. While problematic, I wonder if it's made any impact.
Usually this is handled with credit reports right? It’s only when the state forbids landlords from demanding credit reports that informal networks are necessary.
In general as a tenant you can only get away with not paying rent once (until eviction happens, no one will ever rent to you again without federal or state assurances), and as a landlord you will only skip the credit report requirement once (because your first tenant is going to be a deadbeat who screw’s you).
In cities with excessive tenant protection laws, sometimes landlords will negotiate agreements with deadbeat tenants in which the tenant agrees to leave and the landlord doesn't report anything to the credit bureaus.
There's entire Reddit communities of these people where they encourage and validate their shitty behavior.
With some of the stories I've read, you'd have to be positively insane to be a small-time landlord these days, especially in these large cities with kooky renter protections that make it nearly impossible to evict someone.
Go watch Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton for a fictionalized account but this stuff absolutely happens every day.
I saw one recently where the renter has not paid rent for six years and is unable to be evicted. It made national news.
So where does that leave the industry? You eventually push out the mom and pop landlords by making the regulations so insane it only leaves behind the large corporate property management companies and their army of lawyers. Who will collude and drive rents up. It's a vicious cycle and these cities are not helping one bit.
Tenant "protection" laws are the type of idiocy that economically illiterate progressive politicians always produce. They end up having the opposite effect by making property owners less willing to rent out to anyone. The only effective way to protect tenants is to set public policies that encourage new housing development. When there is a housing surplus, the laws of economics force landlords to treat tenants well. Build more housing!
There's an economic floor for the price of housing: the amortized cost of the building and its maintenance, plus taxes and overhead imposed by governments, utilities, mortgages, etc.
In other words: even in a plentiful housing market, there will always be someone who struggles to pay rent (including transiently), because a rational housing market can't offer $0 rents. Tenant protection laws exist to protect that person from a landlord who would otherwise be incentivized to throw them onto the street.
sure because a property owner is going to not rent out a property and just take the month on month hit for having an empty property. They'll either rent it or sell it.
There is a middle ground, just need to find that point.
I have friends and coworkers that want to have rental properties, and I advise them it's not worth it.
I don't want to be in a position where I have to pay more to fix damages than I collectected in rent if I accidentally rent to deadbeats. Or in a position where I have to provide services to someone not paying me.
One of those friends has parents that rented out their old house to deadbeats at the top of the housing market instead of selling it. Those deadbeats have been nothing but trouble and yet my friend still wants to be a landlord.
Somehow the idea of owning rental properties became a pervasive notion in the U.S.
The question that many do not want to think about. We (as a society (referring to all Western Liberalism, not just the US)) are so thoroughly convinced that Liberal Democracy is the End of History, and it's the 'flawed but best,' as many say, but refuse to imagine something better.
It's puzzling that a system that is supposed to reward creativity and genius like capitalism limits it's inhabitants in their imagination when it comes to how one might structure society.
I don't claim to have the answer, and _no,_ my issues with Liberal Democracy/Capitalism don't mean I'm a communist / socialist / thing-people-don't-like.
What would you like us to imagine? So far everything that we've tried at scale other than liberal democracy and capitalism has inevitably led to war, famine, and genocide. Western liberalism appears to be the only system that empirically works. Some would claim that "socialism with Chinese characteristics" works better, but if you look below the surface prosperity in first-tier cities the actual economic situation is rather grim and the human rights situation is horrific.
i occasionally come across some of the forums and online groups of landlords and the things they have to deal with, particularly in cities with strong protections for the tenants and its interesting to watch the perspectives.
on one hand i feel for some of the landlords who have to deal with some of the very real slacks who go out of their way to be difficult tenants.
on the other we’re talking about homes, by this i mean to stress home over investment. i think we’ve made a terrible mistake in incentivizing people to use homes as an investment. it should be difficult to evict someone from their home, and it should be risky and a pain in the ass to use someone else’s home as an investment.
i feel bad for _some_ of the landlords but from a larger societal perspective we’re going to look back at incentivizing so many people to invest as a landlord as a massive mistake.
They're being evicted from their home, but from the landlord's property. It would be the landlord's home if the landlord lived there, but they don't, because they're renting it to the tenant.
> We have to consider what the unintended consequences are of public policies or practices where there are no immediate consequences for someone who falls behind on rent
> Many [landlords] say they don’t actually intend to evict anyone, but that filing these cases is the most expedient way to get emergency rental aid from the city.
While that is certainly true, it's a very narrow view disconnected from the reasons for the policies. The most likely explanation for more people not paying their rent is that even fixed rents have become increasingly unaffordable because other costs have risen faster than wages. So yes, people are "choosing" not to pay rent because the consequences of not paying the rent lag substantially behind the consequences of not eating or buying gas. But it's an absolutely rational decision. FTA:
>...plenty of economic indicators suggest worsening financial duress for people already struggling. Costs are going up faster than wages, and inflation that took hold after the pandemic has proven painfully persistent.
Now that i saw the framing, i am looking differently on the discussion here. The smalles troublemakers are more news worthy than broad economic factors behind us all, so you dumb down your headline...
I'd say rent collections are down because those who play with the thought of 'rent striking' are more inclined to do so now that a 'democratic socialist' has been voted into power on a wave of 'rent freeze' and 'bad evil landlords versus oppressed renters' rhetoric. I'm pretty sure the Politico writers realise this as well but they seem hesitant to say so, probably because it is a bit too much on the nose. The woman standing to the right of Mamdani (left on the photo) is Cea Weaver, appointed by him to the post of "executive director of the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants". She's quite a piece of work, a typical 'progressive' activist who has called for the seizure of private property and linked home ownership to white supremacy. With someone like that in the position she now holds it comes as no surprise that more people are thinking twice before signing that rent cheque.
I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of low-income people who are delinquent on their rent have no clue who Cea Weaver is. Nor is there any kind of organized rent strike occurring. Do you live in NYC?
No, I don't even live in the USA. I followed the election of Mamdani as an outside observer because it is quite a thing for a 'democratic socialist' to become mayor of what can be considered to be the 'financial capital of the world'.
People can't afford to live and food comes before paying your landlord? Economy is fucked right now. Income inequality pushes any gains into the hands of the wealthy.
And frankly, more and more people are willing to stuff their landlord if they feel their landlord isn't holding up their end of the deal.
These people absolutely exist. To pretend that they don't is willful ignorance. They are, however, indeed a "small[est] subset" to quote the gentleman in the article. In the era of $4 McDoubles and $6 gallons of gas I have trouble believing that one in four people is my burnout college roommate who spends on Fireball shots and Xbox games instead of paying rent. Life is expensive these days.