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The idea that landlords should be bailed out in any fashion seems folly to the extreme and I’m glad to see it argued against here. Collecting rents from people

The idea that landlords should be bailed out in any fashion seems folly to the extreme and I’m glad to see it argued against here. Collecting rents from people without the capital to own housing, in addition to increases in land value, is about as textbook an example of parasitism as one could imagine. Let them all take a bath and keep people housed.

save_ferris 6y ago
The problem is that it’s not folly to those who own the land, who are also typically in a better position to influence this kind of policy.
innocentoldguy 6y ago
You do realize that many property owners would be rendered homeless if we did as you’re suggesting, right? Why should the owners lose everything they have so that their renters don’t (at least in the short term, until the property gets foreclosed on and everyone is homeless)?
- amiga_500 6y ago
  Yes that's right, they destroy the houses when landlords have to sell up. And then they remove the land. It's just a void.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  It’s a pretty simple calculus. The damage caused by kicking everyone out of their homes far exceeds the landlords losing out, from both an individual and public health perspective.
  - jackcosgrove 6y ago
    > The political damage caused Renters outnumber landlords. Easy peasy.
  - pb7 6y ago
    What part of this is calculus?
- qqssccfftt 6y ago
  Maybe they should get a job?
  - innocentoldguy 6y ago
    They have a job. They rent property.
    - qqssccfftt 6y ago
      They should get a second job then. There's no excuse.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      That’s not a job. That’s collecting money from someone else who has a job because you own something.
      - AuryGlenz 6y ago
        My parents own a small apartment building in a rural area - about 10 units. They’re there several times a week, and when someone moves out it can be days of work. Not to mention paperwork, collecting, occasionally needing to go to court, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s decent money for the time they put in to it, but it also took a large investment and is absolutely a job. That deserves a payoff, just like any other.
      - jacobr1 6y ago
        Property Management (not the ownership part, but the operations part) is very much a job. And how much of a job depends upon the pool of properties, their level of maintenance/upkeep, and the tenants. Managing repairs, proactive maintenance, the finding and of vetting tenants, accounting, landscaping (if applicable) etc ... all add up.
- battery_cowboy 6y ago
  They'll only lose the rental properties if they cannot afford them, sorry, but everyone will suffer. I'd rather have a landlord lose a property than the family inside being forced to the street. A landlord who cannot afford their own primary home because of this should not have been been so leveraged.
  - innocentoldguy 6y ago
    But you’re OK with the landlord being out on the street?
    - qqssccfftt 6y ago
      I think it's a moral essential for landlords to be homeless.
      - hellisothers 6y ago
        Why all landlords? Business arguably is also ruining the world and people’s lives, should all business owners also give their assets away for free in these trying times?
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      It’s a pure numbers game. There are less landlords than renters, so even if every landlord became homeless (unlikely), the consequences would still be orders of magnitude less damaging than if everyone was evicted.
    - zwkrt 6y ago
      A landlord who is 'out on the street' because they are no longer getting the rent from their investment property is in no different or worse a position than a worker who becomes homeless because they no longer have a job. A landlord with no back-up plan when rent doesn't come in is someone who made a very large and risky investment but did not consider the possible downside to that investment, and should be punished for their poor investment no differently than someone who takes out a loan to buy a risky stock. I don't think that tenants have an indelible right to live where they are forever, and a land owner has the right to charge what they see fit for rent, but in these types of extenuating circumstances it would be shameful if landlords did not carry some if not the majority of the burden for their risky decisions.
- mydongle 6y ago
  I think it's in the landowner's interest to not have a bunch of people with nothing to lose on the streets. What does your property value look like after riots, looting, and societal breakdown? How much is your house worth burned down to the ground?
  - atypicbiped 6y ago
    There’s plenty of steady states between looting and universal abundance in which the landlords have abused their power to trick tenants into accepting to remain in a parasitical relationship.
- innocentoldguy 6y ago
  Holy fuck! What the hell is wrong with you people? You DO realize that a VAST number of property owners are renting out their basements to people. How you think saying "Fuck you!!!" to the property owner is going to help the renter is entirely beyond me. If the property owner can't make their payments because renters aren't paying them, then both the property owner AND the fucking renters are out on the street. Use your fucking brains for something other than envy and greed!
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    If they're both out of money the owner still has a roof over his head.
    - innocentoldguy 6y ago
      You’ve obviously never owned property and failed to make your payments for, what, four months now? I just got off the phone with a property owner who lost their house (as did their renter). He called me from a homeless shelter.
      - Daishiman 6y ago
        So what you're telling me is that their position is not really less different than from a renter. Ok, why should this group be protected particularly over a substantially more numerous and vulnerable group? The solution can be super simple if the government had the balls to deal with it: forbid evictions for the next few months and encode into law deferred payments for mortgages, property taxes and rent.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
christiansakai 6y ago
Is your definition of landlord also includes mom and pop who only own 1 property (on which they rent some of the rooms out)?
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Yes?
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    Can you explain why this is fair? I might misunderstood your point.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  Yes.
- Arbalest 6y ago
  That sounds reasonable, but even this little bit causes wealth transfer by setting home ownership just a little bit more off limits to the majority by increasing the supply of slightly too cheap rooms. Thus creating an incentive to the wider more moneyed classes to increase demand on the stock of housing. So while the language used is evokative, the reality is, at scale, all those mom's and pops end up being a very large and powerful group with aligned interests, whose actions also enable even bigger players.
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    I’m not sure I understand. If I were in their situation I won’t want that to be applied to me. What about you?
    - Arbalest 6y ago
      Of course people want money, everyone else does. But it doesn't matter what they feel, and it doesn't matter what I would feel, nor how you would feel. What matters is how those who are most vulnerable are treated. It's not fair to say, well those mom's and pops would be worse off, when the people who were already poor would be even worse off otherwise. When rent becomes involved, the system becomes pretty close to zero sum.
amiga_500 6y ago
Hacker news loves landlords. No faster way to get downvoted on here.
quicklyfrozen 6y ago
Who would you suggest should own the property instead of landlords? Should all housing be state owned instead? Without bail outs we have the potential to see many more properties bought by the largest companies, who are often far harsher on tenants then small mom-and-pop owners.
- ardy42 6y ago
  >> Collecting rents from people without the capital to own housing, in addition to increases in land value, is about as textbook an example of parasitism as one could imagine. Let [the landlords] take a bath and keep people housed. > Who would you suggest should own the property instead of landlords? Should all housing be state owned instead? Why would state ownership be their first choice? There are obviously other, more moderate options that solve the landlord issue, such as having housing units owned by their occupants.
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    Where do new houses come from, if occupants aren't paying their share of the labor and material cost that went into them? There are always popular areas without enough space for everyone, who decides who gets to live there? Why single out my landlord to lose everything for choosing a different asset class than I did?
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > Where do new houses come from, if occupants aren't paying their share of the labor and material cost that went into them? Landlords are out to make a profit, so renters are obviously already "paying their share" of the cost of their unit in rent. If they weren't, their landlord would be broke. > Why single out my landlord to lose everything for choosing a different asset class than I did? Call it "creative destruction." Like the buggy-whip makers of old, maybe he made a bad choice about what business to get into?
      - erik_seaberg 6y ago
chadcmulligan 6y ago
For rental properties in Australia landlords can 'negative gear' the losses against other income (salary for example). So a common ploy is to buy a house where the mortgage payments are greater than the income (rent) and claim a deduction from salary. The argument made for its validity is that property owners are taking a risk by buying property - property can go down in value, however everything is being done by the govt at the moment to keep rent being paid, so the risk isn't real. Not only that by having a large number of people buying rental properties it pushes out first home buyers who are forced to rent. Its effectively a wealth transfer from the young to the old who were lucky enough to be around when house prices were cheaper. Not only that, foreign investors (mainly chinese) are forcing up entry level apartment prices, and extracting rent from them. As well, because a lot of business owners have a mortgage on their house to keep their business going, house prices can't be allowed to drop because it will have a knock on effect, and drag the businesses down with it. The whole system has been propped up by increased immigration creating demand on housing, this has been government policy for some time. Now there are no immigrants and all the tourists are leaving, its just a matter of time.

save_ferris 6y ago

The problem is that it’s not folly to those who own the land, who are also typically in a better position to influence this kind of policy.

innocentoldguy 6y ago

You do realize that many property owners would be rendered homeless if we did as you’re suggesting, right? Why should the owners lose everything they have so that their renters don’t (at least in the short term, until the property gets foreclosed on and everyone is homeless)?

amiga_500 6y ago
Yes that's right, they destroy the houses when landlords have to sell up. And then they remove the land. It's just a void.
claudeganon 6y ago
It’s a pretty simple calculus. The damage caused by kicking everyone out of their homes far exceeds the landlords losing out, from both an individual and public health perspective.
- jackcosgrove 6y ago
  > The political damage caused Renters outnumber landlords. Easy peasy.
- pb7 6y ago
  What part of this is calculus?
qqssccfftt 6y ago
Maybe they should get a job?
- innocentoldguy 6y ago
  They have a job. They rent property.
  - qqssccfftt 6y ago
    They should get a second job then. There's no excuse.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    That’s not a job. That’s collecting money from someone else who has a job because you own something.
    - AuryGlenz 6y ago
      My parents own a small apartment building in a rural area - about 10 units. They’re there several times a week, and when someone moves out it can be days of work. Not to mention paperwork, collecting, occasionally needing to go to court, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s decent money for the time they put in to it, but it also took a large investment and is absolutely a job. That deserves a payoff, just like any other.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
      Property Management (not the ownership part, but the operations part) is very much a job. And how much of a job depends upon the pool of properties, their level of maintenance/upkeep, and the tenants. Managing repairs, proactive maintenance, the finding and of vetting tenants, accounting, landscaping (if applicable) etc ... all add up.
battery_cowboy 6y ago
They'll only lose the rental properties if they cannot afford them, sorry, but everyone will suffer. I'd rather have a landlord lose a property than the family inside being forced to the street. A landlord who cannot afford their own primary home because of this should not have been been so leveraged.
- innocentoldguy 6y ago
  But you’re OK with the landlord being out on the street?
  - qqssccfftt 6y ago
    I think it's a moral essential for landlords to be homeless.
    - hellisothers 6y ago
      Why all landlords? Business arguably is also ruining the world and people’s lives, should all business owners also give their assets away for free in these trying times?
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    It’s a pure numbers game. There are less landlords than renters, so even if every landlord became homeless (unlikely), the consequences would still be orders of magnitude less damaging than if everyone was evicted.
  - zwkrt 6y ago
    A landlord who is 'out on the street' because they are no longer getting the rent from their investment property is in no different or worse a position than a worker who becomes homeless because they no longer have a job. A landlord with no back-up plan when rent doesn't come in is someone who made a very large and risky investment but did not consider the possible downside to that investment, and should be punished for their poor investment no differently than someone who takes out a loan to buy a risky stock. I don't think that tenants have an indelible right to live where they are forever, and a land owner has the right to charge what they see fit for rent, but in these types of extenuating circumstances it would be shameful if landlords did not carry some if not the majority of the burden for their risky decisions.
mydongle 6y ago
I think it's in the landowner's interest to not have a bunch of people with nothing to lose on the streets. What does your property value look like after riots, looting, and societal breakdown? How much is your house worth burned down to the ground?
- atypicbiped 6y ago
  There’s plenty of steady states between looting and universal abundance in which the landlords have abused their power to trick tenants into accepting to remain in a parasitical relationship.
innocentoldguy 6y ago
Holy fuck! What the hell is wrong with you people? You DO realize that a VAST number of property owners are renting out their basements to people. How you think saying "Fuck you!!!" to the property owner is going to help the renter is entirely beyond me. If the property owner can't make their payments because renters aren't paying them, then both the property owner AND the fucking renters are out on the street. Use your fucking brains for something other than envy and greed!
- Daishiman 6y ago
  If they're both out of money the owner still has a roof over his head.
  - innocentoldguy 6y ago
    You’ve obviously never owned property and failed to make your payments for, what, four months now? I just got off the phone with a property owner who lost their house (as did their renter). He called me from a homeless shelter.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      So what you're telling me is that their position is not really less different than from a renter. Ok, why should this group be protected particularly over a substantially more numerous and vulnerable group? The solution can be super simple if the government had the balls to deal with it: forbid evictions for the next few months and encode into law deferred payments for mortgages, property taxes and rent.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

christiansakai 6y ago

Is your definition of landlord also includes mom and pop who only own 1 property (on which they rent some of the rooms out)?

claudeganon 6y ago
Yes?
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Can you explain why this is fair? I might misunderstood your point.
Daishiman 6y ago
Yes.
Arbalest 6y ago
That sounds reasonable, but even this little bit causes wealth transfer by setting home ownership just a little bit more off limits to the majority by increasing the supply of slightly too cheap rooms. Thus creating an incentive to the wider more moneyed classes to increase demand on the stock of housing. So while the language used is evokative, the reality is, at scale, all those mom's and pops end up being a very large and powerful group with aligned interests, whose actions also enable even bigger players.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  I’m not sure I understand. If I were in their situation I won’t want that to be applied to me. What about you?
  - Arbalest 6y ago
    Of course people want money, everyone else does. But it doesn't matter what they feel, and it doesn't matter what I would feel, nor how you would feel. What matters is how those who are most vulnerable are treated. It's not fair to say, well those mom's and pops would be worse off, when the people who were already poor would be even worse off otherwise. When rent becomes involved, the system becomes pretty close to zero sum.

amiga_500 6y ago

Hacker news loves landlords. No faster way to get downvoted on here.

quicklyfrozen 6y ago

Who would you suggest should own the property instead of landlords? Should all housing be state owned instead? Without bail outs we have the potential to see many more properties bought by the largest companies, who are often far harsher on tenants then small mom-and-pop owners.

ardy42 6y ago
>> Collecting rents from people without the capital to own housing, in addition to increases in land value, is about as textbook an example of parasitism as one could imagine. Let [the landlords] take a bath and keep people housed. > Who would you suggest should own the property instead of landlords? Should all housing be state owned instead? Why would state ownership be their first choice? There are obviously other, more moderate options that solve the landlord issue, such as having housing units owned by their occupants.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  Where do new houses come from, if occupants aren't paying their share of the labor and material cost that went into them? There are always popular areas without enough space for everyone, who decides who gets to live there? Why single out my landlord to lose everything for choosing a different asset class than I did?
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Where do new houses come from, if occupants aren't paying their share of the labor and material cost that went into them? Landlords are out to make a profit, so renters are obviously already "paying their share" of the cost of their unit in rent. If they weren't, their landlord would be broke. > Why single out my landlord to lose everything for choosing a different asset class than I did? Call it "creative destruction." Like the buggy-whip makers of old, maybe he made a bad choice about what business to get into?
    - erik_seaberg 6y ago

chadcmulligan 6y ago

For rental properties in Australia landlords can 'negative gear' the losses against other income (salary for example). So a common ploy is to buy a house where the mortgage payments are greater than the income (rent) and claim a deduction from salary. The argument made for its validity is that property owners are taking a risk by buying property - property can go down in value, however everything is being done by the govt at the moment to keep rent being paid, so the risk isn't real. Not only that by having a large number of people buying rental properties it pushes out first home buyers who are forced to rent. Its effectively a wealth transfer from the young to the old who were lucky enough to be around when house prices were cheaper. Not only that, foreign investors (mainly chinese) are forcing up entry level apartment prices, and extracting rent from them. As well, because a lot of business owners have a mortgage on their house to keep their business going, house prices can't be allowed to drop because it will have a knock on effect, and drag the businesses down with it. The whole system has been propped up by increased immigration creating demand on housing, this has been government policy for some time. Now there are no immigrants and all the tourists are leaving, its just a matter of time.