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That's exactly the problem. "Outsourcing" affordable housing is always going to lead to abuse. Slumlords are going to be slumlords as long as it's profitable. Y

by ng12 8y ago

That's exactly the problem. "Outsourcing" affordable housing is always going to lead to abuse. Slumlords are going to be slumlords as long as it's profitable. You can't legislate that away.

vkou 8y ago
You can't legislate murder away, but that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up in the air, sigh, and let predators run loose among us (After all, killing is in their nature!) We need to make tenant abuse as ruinous to the landlord as it is to their tenants.
- orangecat 8y ago
  What we need is to consider the incentives that laws create. If you're a landlord with rent-controlled units, there is no benefit in doing anything beyond the legally required minimum, and a large benefit in getting the tenants to leave. You can say they shouldn't do that, and you'd even be right, but that's about as useful as saying "people shouldn't sell drugs".
  - vkou 8y ago
    The problem isn't that the landlord is doing the legally required minimum. The problem is that the landlord isn't even meeting the legally required minimum. When we catch people selling drugs, we take their drugs, and their money, and throw them into prison. When we catch landlords doing this, we should take their properties. They aren't operating some secret underground criminal enterprise here - many of these abuses are well-documented. I assure you, if you make an example out of a few landlords, the rest will stop with the frivolous evictions. The reason they are playing these games is that they have a lot less to lose then their tenants.
    - RhysU 8y ago
      > I assure you, if you make an example out of a few landlords, the rest will stop with the frivolous evictions. I suspect the landlords would up their aggressiveness to collect a higher risk premium on account of having a higher rate of getting busted. In expectation, it would likely be a wash.
    - taysic 8y ago
      Lawsuits or stricter laws have a cost too - even good landlords need to calculate that into their cost of doing business (of getting sued). Once the cost becomes too high, if landlords cannot sell their buildings, they simply abandon them.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    The incentive to evict is created by vacancy decontrol, a concession made to free-marketers. I’d guess most rent control proponents want rents set by fiat at all parts of the lifecycle (allocating apartments by chance instead of income) which has some problems, but not this one.
oh_sigh 8y ago
Why would slumlords choose to be slumlords, if they had the choice to own high end luxury units, where the tenants were generally more on-time with their payments and they turned a bigger profit?
- taysic 8y ago
  Not sure - but a question is who would buy a building that barely makes any profit due to a large portion of rent controlled units there? Possibly the type of person who thinks they could make a profit where others wouldn't - ie try an eviction. Others just look past the idea.

by ng12 8y ago

That's exactly the problem. "Outsourcing" affordable housing is always going to lead to abuse. Slumlords are going to be slumlords as long as it's profitable. You can't legislate that away.

vkou 8y ago

You can't legislate murder away, but that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up in the air, sigh, and let predators run loose among us (After all, killing is in their nature!) We need to make tenant abuse as ruinous to the landlord as it is to their tenants.

orangecat 8y ago
What we need is to consider the incentives that laws create. If you're a landlord with rent-controlled units, there is no benefit in doing anything beyond the legally required minimum, and a large benefit in getting the tenants to leave. You can say they shouldn't do that, and you'd even be right, but that's about as useful as saying "people shouldn't sell drugs".
- vkou 8y ago
  The problem isn't that the landlord is doing the legally required minimum. The problem is that the landlord isn't even meeting the legally required minimum. When we catch people selling drugs, we take their drugs, and their money, and throw them into prison. When we catch landlords doing this, we should take their properties. They aren't operating some secret underground criminal enterprise here - many of these abuses are well-documented. I assure you, if you make an example out of a few landlords, the rest will stop with the frivolous evictions. The reason they are playing these games is that they have a lot less to lose then their tenants.
  - RhysU 8y ago
    > I assure you, if you make an example out of a few landlords, the rest will stop with the frivolous evictions. I suspect the landlords would up their aggressiveness to collect a higher risk premium on account of having a higher rate of getting busted. In expectation, it would likely be a wash.
  - taysic 8y ago
    Lawsuits or stricter laws have a cost too - even good landlords need to calculate that into their cost of doing business (of getting sued). Once the cost becomes too high, if landlords cannot sell their buildings, they simply abandon them.
- closeparen 8y ago
  The incentive to evict is created by vacancy decontrol, a concession made to free-marketers. I’d guess most rent control proponents want rents set by fiat at all parts of the lifecycle (allocating apartments by chance instead of income) which has some problems, but not this one.

oh_sigh 8y ago

Why would slumlords choose to be slumlords, if they had the choice to own high end luxury units, where the tenants were generally more on-time with their payments and they turned a bigger profit?

taysic 8y ago
Not sure - but a question is who would buy a building that barely makes any profit due to a large portion of rent controlled units there? Possibly the type of person who thinks they could make a profit where others wouldn't - ie try an eviction. Others just look past the idea.