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11M households could be evicted over the next four months
- joe_the_user 6y agoSo I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable. Moreover, this seems like a situation where an emergency event is treated like an ordinary, non-emergency situation. And the reason for this is apparently that America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation. https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report-legacy/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
- smt88 6y agoWhile I agree that this number is a catastrophe no matter how you look at it, it's unlikely 100% of those people would become homeless. Some would find (more expensive) shorter-term rentals, others would move in with relatives, and a small percentage would find a landlord willing to sign a new lease with them.
- mnky9800n 6y agoIf 95% of people find a place that still doubles the homeless population.
- karatinversion 6y agoThe number of renter-occupied residential units in the US is estimated at 44 million - this would be one quarter of rental stock being empty. I suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords.
- toxicFork 6y agoAnd thus the hermit crab shell exchange begins https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ https://youtu.be/f1dnocPQXDQ
- bilbo0s 6y agoI suspect _many_ would find new, cheaper rentals from cash-strapped landlords. Just Devil's Advocate, but wouldn't that still be just shuffling the chairs on the Titanic?
- a2tech 6y agoYou would think so--but I don't think the rental market is that elastic anymore. I'm in a college town, so take this with a grain of salt, your milage may vary, etc, but around here with the looming possibility of all the schools being online only in the fall, loads of houses are sitting unrented. In a naive model you would expect to see these houses rent fall in a bid to capture any sort of rent. However what we're seeing in many places here is the opposite--the rent is RISING. The owners behind these properties have non-elastic costs. They've purchased these properties as investments using borrowed money. The bank doesn't stop collecting their payments just because the house is empty. So they have a stable of properties and falling numbers of renters so they RAISE the rent to try and extract any value from the few renters they can capture to try and cover their debts. It was happening with commercial properties before the COVID pandemic. I started noticing this because I was looking for warehouse space for personal woodworking projects and office space for my business (neither with any sort of urgency, so lots of browsing over time). I noticed that the stock increased every month, but the prices never budged. Then in the local business newspaper they started listing square footage of unrented business properties. Month after month it has increased with no visible signs of rent adjustment. I suspect the only thing that will eventually cause rents to decrease property speculators defaulting on their loans, which will lead to bank foreclosures and sales. The banks will then hold on to the properties and keep listing them because they can afford to hold the properties and attempt to wait to receive a 'market rate' sale price. Once the banks can no longer afford to just sit on the properties and sell them for whatever they can get for them, then you'll start to see a cycle of falling rents. Until then I think you're going to see stagnant or even increasing rents.
- Someone 6y agoHow would people who can’t pay their rent pay for “(more expensive) shorter-term rentals”? If that means grouping with other households, wouldn’t the better choice be to do that in one of the less expensive existing rentals?
- gonzo41 6y agoOr, there's going to be 11M people who start squating and paying what they can. I'd be interested to see where the cops in America fall on this. It'll destroy cities and towns.
- ideals 6y agoWith DHS rolling into a city near you™ it looks like they aren't going to wait and see how local pd react
- dredmorbius 6y agoDHS has a limited capacity to do this, given present staffing, funding, responsibilities, and capabilities. While DHS boasts an impressive headcount of 240,000 employees, the bulk are unlikely to be paramilitary goons of the sort seen in Portland and Seattle, where several dozen troops have had minimal effectiveness in projecting force more than a few metres from the federal courthouse. Additional requisitions from a deeply divided Congress are unlikely. Where just a single city's police force numbers over 55 thousands (NYPD), the prospect that a few hundreds, or even thousands, of reassigned TSA screeners and border patrol might play landlord-support squad in 100s of cities throughout the US to an ever-growing public resistance is parlors thin.
- zaarn 6y agoYou don't need to evict all people via DHS. Only enough that the rest has enough fear put in them to do it themselves.
- jhayward 6y agoDHS is already training up vigilante militia[1]. Don't underestimate what this administration is willing to do. "attendees will participate in scenario-based training and exercises conducted in a safe and positive environment, including, but not limited to defensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests." [1] https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-citizens-trainings-may-be-a-vigilante-academy-chicago-alderman-warns https://www.npr.org/local/309/2020/07/10/889726473/i-c-e-cit...
- CaptArmchair 6y ago> So I see 553,742 people homeless at last estimate (2017, unfortunately). 11M would 20x this amount, an amount that seems catastrophic and unmanageable. Not people. Households. 11 million households. Different metric. So, if you want to convert to people, you have to break that down into an equation where the ratio of households reflects their diversity: single, children, extended families, shared accommodation, collectives,... Plug 11 million into that equation and the output will be a magnitude of several orders of that. The U.S Census data shows an average household in the U.S. having 2.63 persons between 2014-2018. So, a ballpark guestimate would be 28.93 million individuals. However, this could still be way off: if evictions happen in highly populous areas, or coincides with areas where the demographics show large households, you'll get a much larger number. For instance, California has, on average 3.1 persons, whereas North Dakota only 2.1. To put all of that into perspective: There are currently 37 million Canadians. So, basically, the problem probably entails a group as large as the entire Canadian population.
- hanche 6y agoA “ballpark guestimate” with four significant digits? (Not to detract from your main point in any way.)
- craftinator 6y agoYou're always welcome to do your own napkin math and share it!
- hanche 6y agoIn this case, 29 million seems reasonable. One factor was given as 11 million, after all, not 11.00 million. And don’t take my comment too seriously. It’s a minor nit, but one that frequently bugs me.
- CaptArmchair 6y agoOh! More then happy to answer. :-) So, I was just shooting a dart at a target. Translate the target to a Cartesian plan and you can express the position of the dart as a tuple (x,y) with two real numbers. However, you don't know the exact position of the bulls eye you're aiming at. At best, you're aiming for a bounded area representing an approximation. So, you're basically guestimating the distance between the position of the dart, and any other point within that area which might probably be what you're shooting for. Maybe I'm close, maybe I'm less close. I could have rounded upwards to 29 million, but unless you know exactly what you're aiming for, it's not possible to establish how rounding impacts accuracy. We do know that rounding within an interval of 1 million likely won't skew the answer too much, so both numbers are acceptable.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> America's system of governance is so polarized and dysfunctional that no entity either can or will put forward a broad plan to escape the situation There is a federal eviction moratorium in effect on federally-subsidized and federally-backed housing [1]. Many states and cities have more-comprehensive moratoria in place [2]. I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package (over 7x if one ignores its loans) and 4 months earlier. The Republican's follow-up bill, half the size of the Democrats', is still larger than the EU's single package. American government has plenty of faults. But inability to act in a crisis is not one of them. [1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-housing-assistance/renter-protections/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/coronavirus/mortgage-and-hou... [2] https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-york-eviction-moratorium-covid-19 https://ny.curbed.com/2020/3/26/21192343/coronavirus-new-yor...
- pythonslayer 6y agoThese bills did almost nothing for working Americans, though. They were overwhelmingly just payouts to corporations and some to small business owners.
- jaybeeayyy 6y agoHere in the southern US we've already started up the process of evicting people. Richmond, VA (which always finds itself in the top 10 cities in the US with the highest eviction rates) is in full swing. I know it's easy for a lot of us to forget about people outside NYC and LA but there are not many renter protections down here in general, let alone during an economic crisis/pandemic.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I'll also note that CARES Act was almost 3x the size of the EU's recent package The EU isn't a national government, their package is a lot more generous than any comparable US-centered supernational regional org. As far as national governments go, the German package passed in April was about US$10,000 per capita, about 1/5 of GDP. CARES was about US$5,000 per capita, about 1/12 of GDP. Germany passed additional packages, for a total aid passed through through June of over $17,000 per capita, over 1/3 of GDP.
- lioeters 6y agoFrom their source, the HUD Exchange, I found a more recent report. > On a single night in 2019, roughly 568,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. > Nearly two-thirds (63%) were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters or transitional housing programs—and more than one-third (37%) were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation. The 2019 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress - Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. - https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness-in-the-us/ https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/5948/2019-ahar-part-1-... --- Personally, having lived among the homeless in the U.S. (for a period of a few long years in my youth), half a million seem like a low estimate. There are systemic, structural, and political/cultural reasons for the plight of the homeless, and much of their unnecessary suffering (their treatment by police, lack of healthcare, to count a couple aspects in addition to lack of affordable housing).
- Skunkleton 6y agoTo put this in perspective, the linked data shows that 43% of all renters are at risk of eviction, which is 17M households. The 11M number is just in the next four months.
- iandanforth 6y agoThis reminds me of the saying "If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem." There has to be an opportunity for collective action here.
- novok 6y agoYou sit there and do nothing. The sherrif eviction backlog alone would take forever I would imagine.
- onetimemanytime 6y agoor they may come to you first. That's not a solution...daily torture.
- dredmorbius 6y agoCollective action is predicated both on a unified front in response and a strike fund to support pickets. In this case, housing assistance would mitigate any individually targeted evictees.
- organsnyder 6y agoImagine trying to raise kids like that. You enroll them for school (whatever that means right now), not knowing whether you'll be able to maintain a residence within the school district for the entire school year. This is already the reality for many families, and this year it's going to be the reality for countless more.
- Overtonwindow 6y agoIn Georgia it only takes 30 days.
- robjan 6y ago* Under usual circumstances
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- DoreenMichele 6y agoPointless blurb that won't get traction: This is part of why I blog and run r/GigWorks and r/ClothingStartups: I figured out how to make money from the street while very ill. This is solvable. We just aren't working on the right things. We need to get people working again in a way that doesn't spread the virus. We need to work on resolving our housing supply issues. We've torn down a million SROs and not replaced them. We've largely zoned Missing Middle housing out of existence. We collectively know how to create affordable market rate housing in walkable neighborhoods. We just basically choose not to in the US. And now it's A Real Crisis, not "just a few losers with personal problems". We need to get our head out the sand and stop pretending we are too stupid to fix this, good god. We aren't too stupid. That's not the issue.
- kennyadam 6y agoI'm not very comfortable with the answer to this problem being 'how to make homeless and sick people keep working'. America desperately needs better social security nets. (for example) Seeing Bezos net worth skyrocket by billions at the same time as millions of people losing their homes is absolutely disgusting.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoA third of Americans not paying their rent or mortgage is not about sick and homeless people not working. It's about people not working due to lockdown. A lot of those people not working are lower class. A lot of professional jobs just shifted to work from home. We need that one third of Americans working. They need opportunity. They aren't getting it.
- fiblye 6y agoI think the point of the person you responded to is it's not really reasonable to tell the poor and homeless to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to work some low wage job during a pandemic. The problem is until the world manages to find a safe way through this problem, we should have a social safety net for those who can't work--and the thing standing in the way of getting there is a few people who have enough wealth to wholesale purchase a medium sized country if they wanted to. Yes, there are some jobs that we do need done and are safe to do, but the labor bubble probably isn't big enough to accommodate all of those currently suffering.
- Proven 6y agoWon't happen, the risk is 0. Because the Fed's creeping mandate and upcoming elections. The both parties want to buy votes. If you like your fiat money, you can keep your fiat money (and your Big Government). By the time this is over savers will be completely destroyed.
- pengaru 6y ago> By the time this is over savers will be completely destroyed. As a saver who owns his home outright, this statement cracks me up. My outlook on this situation is that I can weather the storm for years with zero income and stay in food and shelter throughout without government aid. The folks with little savings and high rent or expensive mortgages are who I'm concerned about. They seem far more likely to be "destroyed" in the coming months/years. Us savers can either sit pretty and watch the chaos, buy the dip and profit handsomely from the recovery, or go shopping for cheap homes.
- danhak 6y agoThe parent seems to be implying that fed policy will continue to drive down the value of the dollar. In this scenario savers get crushed as inflation whittles away the value of cash while asset prices climb. And the “folks with little savings and expensive mortgages” that you allude to actually come out on top.
- pengaru 6y ago> the “folks with little savings and expensive mortgages” that you allude to actually come out on top. What good is an expensive mortgage when you can't pay it, lose your home, and now have bad credit preventing you from capitalizing on all the new opportunities created by all the foreclosures and vacant rentals? The savers have options. At any given moment a saver can decide to buy a pile of stock, or go get a mortgage. Why would we sit idly by while inflation gets so bad it no longer makes sense to hold cash? It doesn't happen overnight, there will be plenty of interesting opportunities in the mean time available to those with good credit and/or a pile of cash.
- LatteLazy 6y agoI find this really interesting because if I were a landlord and had a tennant who was now paying and otherwise had a good history, I would NOT want to be trying to fill a place at a time like this. I'd just forgive and forget.
- danhak 6y agoThere’s just that pesky issue of having to pay a mortgage...
- mcpherrinm 6y agoYou're still going to have to pay the mortgage on a vacant unit.
- Overtonwindow 6y agoNot if you sell it. The real estate market is extremely active right now, especially with interest rates dropping below 3%. if I’m stuck with a renter who can’t pay the rent, causing me to not be able to pay the mortgage, sorry, I have to evict so I can sell.
- beardedetim 6y agoI wonder what the Expected Value is of selling today vs holding and waiting for the rental income to come back. Surely some smart person has figured out an algorithm to plug in numbers to figure out the EV?
- ithkuil 6y agoIn Italy landlords have to pay taxes for the rents even if the tenant doesn't pay (the government defaults to not trusting citizens to declare income), thus creating a pressure to formally evict tenants. (This problem was fixed a few years ago for residential rents but it's still a problem for commercial rents). How does this work in the US? How does it compare, as a landlord, to face months of likely vacant property versus months of months continued use but with missed payments?
- Pfhreak 6y agoIn the US, landlords would still pay property tax, but not income taxes if they didn't collect any income. Things might get complicated if you rent significantly below market rates though I'm not sure about that. The US, unfortunately, has an ethos that failure to pay rent is almost always an individuals personal failure. This makes it culturally acceptable (generally) to evict someone who can't make rent because it is a moral failing of the renter (and not, say, the outcome of systemic failures beyond the renters control.) So while landlords probably benefit from getting a portion of their normal rent, they are under significant cultural pressure to evict people who can't pay.
- cman1444 6y agoI would hesitate to say that there is "cultural" pressure to evict a tenant. Landlords aren't evicting people because their friends tell them to. They evict people because they think they will have better luck trying to find a new tenant who will hopefully be able to pay their rent.
- peacemaker 6y agoIn some countries they banned landlords from evicting tenants during the pandemic to stop stuff like this happening. They then asked banks to provide mortgage holidays so that the landlords could afford to keep non paying tenants. In my opinion this is a good example of government intervention for the greater good. Is there any political will in the US to do the same? Could something like this ever be considered in congress or would it be seen as too 'socialist' maybe?
- jackson1442 6y agoI wouldn't be surprised to see a bill with mortgage holidays, etc pass the House. The Senate is far too conservative to even let this go to a vote, though; McConnell just put a relief bill to a vote that dramatically reduces unemployment assistance ($600/wk -> $200/wk), and I doubt we'll see anything better.
- flywheel 6y agoThe Republicans have always been the problem. They are rat-fucking the country and laughing about it - McConnell laughed when asked about unemployment assistance - he has no intention of helping Americans. He is a ghoul. We are doomed as long as the Republicans have power.
- logicchains 6y agoThe Republicans aren't the ones pushing so aggressively to shut down the economy and destroy these people's livelihoods. Unemployment is significantly higher in states with stronger lockdowns (https://www.aier.org/article/unemployment-far-worse-in-lockdown-states-data-show/ https://www.aier.org/article/unemployment-far-worse-in-lockd...), and Blue states generally have the strongest lockdowns.
- scarface74 6y agoYes if we open up the country, more people actually die. That’s not actually good for your livelihood either.
- Pfhreak 6y agoIt's well past time we built and maintained affordable social housing in this country. Not gigantic, underfunded, monolithic projects but appropriately scaled, tax funded, distributed apartments. It's been successful in many parts of the world, including in the US. It won't be enough to solve this immediate crisis, but maybe it helps us land on our feet better and builds resilience for the next time.
- hkai 6y agoWhat problem are you hoping to solve through this? We did it in Hong Kong. Over 30% of the population lives in virtually free housing rented from the government. They don't have an incentive to work. They get to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world for free, without contributing. Meanwhile, those who have a job slightly better than McDonald's are not eligible for this generous giveaway, and are punished by being forced to live in tiny private apartments that they are unlikely to ever afford to buy. Is this what you consider justice? Punish the working class?
- Pfhreak 6y agoRoughly half of Hong Kong received subsidized housing in 2019. I strongly doubt they all choose not to work. The idea that because one receives a benefit like housing or socialized medicine they'll just decide not to work is absurd. The people collecting these benefits aren't living like kings, there's plenty of incentive to seek a higher quality of life through work if one is able.
- ajmadesc 6y ago1. You're saying that anyone who can't afford housing is a leech without any alternative explanation. 2.You straw man. He didn't say we need to give people who don't work houses that are above the private standard.
- ragebol 6y agoI would consider it justice either to put people on the streets because the job that supports them falls away from underneath them, of no fault of their own. Having a roof over your head, having shelter is a human right. Granted, that does not have to be in an expensive city, but transporting people to a cheap, rural place is not great either. In a big city, at least there should be a large opportunity to find a job. But overall, the issue you seems to be having with this is that a person's worth is tied to their (having a) job.
- schoolornot 6y agoI've forever been a proponent of personal responsibility. Saving a few bucks here and there and building up an emergency fund that can carry you through 6-8 months. With that said, the current situation seems untenable. I'm curious to read other opinions and suggestions here because to me the only solution appears to be a re-opening and relaxing of current restrictions in order to restore economic activity. Surprising enough, all this chatter about evictions and missed payments hasn't rocked the US housing market one bit. In fact, prices are up.
- DoreenMichele 6y agocurious to read other opinions and suggestions here because to me the only solution appears to be a re-opening and relaxing of current restrictions in order to restore economic activity. We do need to resume working. But we need to do it without relaxing pertinent restrictions. Little Caesars has a pizza portal. We should have every eatery have something similar for contactless walk up take out. We need more remote and work from home opportunities for people who aren't highly skilled white collar professionals. We need more solutions that meet both standards: an earned income and germ control. We can't get there if we don't even bother to try because we insist it has to be one or the other.
- blablablerg 6y agoWith the rising costs of living and low wages we have seen in the last couple decennia, making ends meet is troublesome for a lot of people, let alone the having the capacity to save for an emergency fund. Personal responsibility is easy to say, but when you are born rich or advantaged you need minimal personal responsibility to get by and when born poor you can have all the personal responsibility you want and still get f*cked over. The problem is bigger than personal responsibility. Social security is very poor in the US compared to modern European countries.
- scarface74 6y agoHow do you save six to eight months of livelihood if you can barely afford to make ends meet month to month? How long do you suppose it takes to save 6 to eight months of income even if you could save 10% of your income every month? This is also not taking into account that most people who do have insurance have deductibles. Let’s not even consider a minimum wage worker, let’s talk about FC workers at Amazon (the nations second largest employer) making $15/hour. It hasn’t effected the housing market because few people are selling.
- hnarn 6y ago11M out of the current US population is 3.3% Think about that for a second. If this article is correct, more than three percent of the US population may become homeless in only four months. It's estimated that about 2M people were homeless during the great depression in the US, which is only about 1.6% of the population at that time. I don't enjoy sounding like an alarmist but at this point I can't help it: my opinion is that if the US does not introduce something pretty close to democratic socialist policies soon to ensure there's a safety net to take care of these people, massive civil unrest is all but guaranteed.
- karatinversion 6y agoNote that this is households, not people. There are c. 130 million households, so this is almost 10% of households.
- morceauxdebois 6y agoSocial safety net is not "democratic socialism". This is not some exceptional, ground breaking policy, the US is just catching up to the rest of the planet. Americans have to stop poisoning online political discourse with their illiteracy.
- hnarn 6y agoI’m not American, and yes it is democratic socialism (social democracy). What’s politically illiterate is avoiding the S-word at all costs when what you’re talking about is wealth redistribution.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago11,000,000 * $1500 = $16.5 Billion a month. Since we've gotten to the point where we talk about $trillion deficits and bailout, this will not break the bank. Yes, why not give me too money, they'll just stop working and live rent free..etc etc. All valid points, but Covid is a real thing and the economy is shot. or the government can send anyone up to a certain income limit in need $1500 per household for 6 months. If they sent to all 128 million households it would be about $1.2 Trillion for 6 months. If I was a politician, this is what I'd do for votes /popularity since the purse is being opened anyway
- sdinsn 6y agoThe federal government is already sending out $2400 per month to people who are unemployed.
- onetimemanytime 6y agohow so?
- sdinsn 6y agoWhat do you mean, "how so"? Federal unemployment is $2400/mo.
- codingdave 6y agoClearly, this many evictions would be a bad thing. But being allowed to evict is only the first of multiple roadblocks. The local eviction court has to grant the eviction, and law enforcement has to show up to actually force them out. Even if all 11M evictions get approved, I don't foresee law enforcement having the bandwidth to make them all happen. When I was a landlord, even under normal times, it would take weeks to get an appointment set with the sheriff to show up and force the eviction. I'm not saying this is a good situation, I'm saying that there is more to this process than just stamping some paperwork, with multiple opportunities to slow it down.
- ryan_lane 6y agoDepends on where the eviction is occurring (some states/cities/counties are faster/slower). When I worked for a property manager, you didn't have to wait weeks for the deputies to show up. If an eviction was scheduled for a date, a deputy is there. The landlord hires contractors to move everything onto the curb, and the deputy is there to ensure there's no violence. If there's really this many evictions, they'll likely group them so that less deputies will be required. Hopefully lots of things will slow it down, but I doubt that's one of them. The only thing that will definitely slow it down is to have longer moratoriums.
- cwhiz 6y ago“Could” is a pretty important word here. This estimate is from a survey of how people feel about their ability to pay rent. It’s not an actual estimate of the number of distressed tenants or the number of landlords looking to evict. I would imagine there is plenty of uncertainty at the moment due to Congress being completely dysfunctional. But let’s say they pass an unemployment extension and send out another round of stimulus checks. What’s the next survey going to look like?
- koheripbal 6y agoAs a landlord, I'm sure some of our tenants _feel_ like they might get evicted, but the reality is that we aren't processing almost any evictions at the moment. We have to maintain the same tough processes (threatening letters, late fees, etc) on rent collection because we have no way of knowing who can/can't afford it right now.
- ISL 6y agoIs this truly the optimal process? One might be able to find a way to inquire about tenants' financial stability. Tough policies, without intent to follow-through seems a little like bullying/extortion. Finding a way to work with tenants seems like an opportunity for a win-win. Deferring partial rent payments should see some uptake among those who will find work when the country finds a way to right the ship. If you have good tenants whom you want to keep, keeping them may take work and discounts. I have colleagues who are working/schooling from home who have opted not to renew their expensive urban leases for the coming year. I suspect they would have renewed at a temporarily-discounted rate.
- koheripbal 6y agoMost small time landlords like me cannot implement an that process because we have kids at home, mortgages, and also full time jobs, in addition to all the same pandemic problems everyone else has. I do not have the time to vet the financial situation of every tenant, even if I could assume they provided honest data. Moreover, most are working from home and still able to pay full rent - so the danger is having word spread that I'm giving out discounts. For me, the more efficient process is actually to pressure non-payers to leave and just accept lower rents on incoming tenants. I'm not saying that's the best ethical way to handle it, but it is the most cost and time efficient method - given my limited resources.
- Bombthecat 6y agoI wonder how many voted for trump, and even living on the street, probably vote for him again... As a German, it is really hard to feel sorry for you guys over there..
- creaghpatr 6y agoGermans don't pay their bills, got it. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/trump-approves-plan-to-withdraw-9500-us-forces-from-germany.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/trump-approves-plan-to-withd...
- sumedh 6y agoWhen you have propaganda running 24x7 on TV, you do not get the full picture. Lot of Americans do believe that Trump is doing a good job because the TV says so.
- Bombthecat 6y agoMy down votrs already shows, that propaganda works. As a German i also can say: been there, done that :)
- ShamelessC 6y agoIt's possible you're getting down voted even by people who hate Trump. Keep in mind, he lost the popular vote by 3 million and has never had decent approval ratings. How is it hard to feel sorry for us? We didn't _all_ bring this on ourselves. Certainly not the majority of us.
- Bombthecat 6y agoNot all Germans killed jews or supported hitler. But we all know how that played out..
- torgian 6y agoWhat I find darkly hilarious is that these landlords won’t find anyone to replace those they evicted... because nobody can pay the rent
- BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 6y agoNot gonna happen. Brrrrrrr. //------------------- Long version for HN moderators: In the current climate, I believe, the outcome suggested in the title of the article, could be largely avoided, if suitable monetary policies are timely introduced, via responsible bipartisan legislation.
- rondennis 6y agoI really can't believe this is happening. The pandemic is making people so desperate.
- tolbish 6y agoIs it just the pandemic, or is there something fundamentally fragile about how American society is set up? Why aren't other countries so desperate?
- harambae 6y ago>I really can't believe this is happening That's because it's not. "could be evicted over the next four months" is the phrasing in the article, and its wildly unlikely. Look at the posts at /r/realestate. They show the Redfin/Zillow statistics and people selling their houses for more than last year in every major metro area I've been interested in. There's also a lot of concern that lack of construction during covid will lead to a shortage. If there's going to be 11M households evicted, why are real estate prices doing better than ever? Because all of America is clueless except this one brilliant Fast Company journalist?
- webninja 6y ago10 reasons why real estate prices are going up: 1) Home buyers are more likely to be younger people and older people are more likely to be home sellers. Younger people (buyers) are more likely to be active now and willing to move. 2) People are rethinking the small studio apartment they were quarantined in and are looking for better or larger places to WFH in. 3) Money is usually a chief concern for sellers but with the mortgage forbearance and deferral options why would anyone bother to sell their appreciating asset that they can keep and live almost for free in? 4) Interest rates dropped to near 0% and will remain there for about 2 years. That substantially boosted home prices. 5) Some people living in apartments felt that it was hard to social distance there so they bought a house with land and separation. 6) Substantially more free time to browse houses for some people now! 7) The inflation rate is increasing. Fed target is to overshoot 2% to get to 3% or more annual inflation. 8) Old people aren’t interested in moving out to nursing homes and end-of-life care facilities now where cases are perceived to be more concentrated and undesirable. 9) The Census is happening this year and the government would prefer if people move around less to keep their numbers accurate. 10) Homes containing unevictable tenants can’t be freed up for the housing market to consume. Even all the bad tenants that mistreat and mishandle their landlord’s rental homes get to keep mishandling their home while you have to keep looking for an unoccupied affordable home. There is a massive shortage of homes in certain parts of this country so existing homes keep getting bid up and up. Even if some of these reasons disappear, the others will still remain. On the first home I offered 5k over asking price when there were 10 other offers and was bid out by 1 other guy. The second home I offered 10k over asking price and narrowly beat out the 10 other offers. With that many offers, the housing supply could double in my area and housing prices would still keep going up. It’s a very hot market and I don’t see it shifting anytime soon. Not at least until we see the Momths of Inventory metric (which is a leading indicator for home price direction) increase to over 6 months and that might not happen until next year or beyond.
- mnm1 6y agoThis is yet another failing of the federal government. They have the funds to bail people out just like they did in the last recession. They just won't do it. I hope people remember that when they are on the streets. Their government could have helped in the worst crisis in almost a century, but it didn't. It chose to bail out big companies instead. It chose to reduce the extra unemployment to force people back to risking their lives. These would have been easy issues to fix (the unemployment even was temporarily) but our representatives chose not to. Two months the Senate has been sitting on the next corona bill and have done nothing while Americans suffer and now are completely fucked eviction and unemployment wise. They also didn't do shit to fight the virus itself and instead actively sought to spread it as much as possible.
- sdinsn 6y ago> They have the funds to bail people out just like they did in the last recession. Uh, what? The US is $26 trillion in debt. We also are bailing people out anyway- the extra federal unemployment made unemployment benefits worth more than workers' average pay. > Two months the Senate has been sitting on the next corona bill Because the first bill doesn't expire until the end of this month. > They also didn't do shit to fight the virus itself and instead actively sought to spread it as much as possible. It's the people that chose to not wear masks. It's the people that chose to go to events and go on vacation.
- mnm1 6y ago> We also are bailing people out anyway- the extra federal unemployment made unemployment benefits worth more than workers' average pay. We had no problem bailing out a ton of businesses that didn't need it, so clearly there is no shortage of money. Also, making more money from unemployment during a pandemic is a feature, not a bug. People need to stay at home. That's the whole, entire goal. > Because the first bill doesn't expire until the end of this month. The checks have stopped. Unless you think they can get the bill passed and checks sent and delivered by this Friday, then there will be a gap that most people can't cover. So the Senate has indeed decided not to care as they are quite aware this is the case and have had two months to deal with it, yet refused to. So it's irrelevant when "the bill" expires when people aren't getting anymore money already and there's no plan for them to get any in the near future. > It's the people that chose to not wear masks. It's the people that chose to go to events and go on vacation. I agree. But the government has the biggest responsibility. And they haven't done anything but sabotage the process.
- kwhitefoot 6y agoSurely 2.3 M households is at least 1% and perhaps close to 2% of the US population. If that is the case and if it were evenly distributed pretty much everyone would know someone who had received such a notice. How can this be happening in a developed country? So I suppose that it is very unevenly distributed so that most people are blissfully unaware that it is happening.
- pjdemers 6y agoThe small city I live in is paying people's rent to avoid having small landlords go bankrupt. Because bankruptcy owned buildings can stay vacant for years, while the courts figure out who gets what. All that time, no property taxes are paid.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoSo the city is paying peoples' rent in order to save money. Interesting. Nice longer-term thinking. May I ask which city?
- MR4D 6y agoThe real gem in this article is the Eviction Estimation tool linked to from the second paragraph: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNzRhYjg2NzAtMGE1MC00NmNjLTllOTMtYjM2NjFmOTA4ZjMyIiwidCI6Ijc5MGJmNjk2LTE3NDYtNGE4OS1hZjI0LTc4ZGE5Y2RhZGE2MSIsImMiOjN9 https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNzRhYjg2NzAtMGE1MC00N...