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I wonder how much of this is related to the eviction moratorium. Anecdotally, my wife has a house that had a tenant in it. She was planning on selling it last y

I wonder how much of this is related to the eviction moratorium. Anecdotally, my wife has a house that had a tenant in it. She was planning on selling it last year, but she had a hard time getting the tenant out. His lease had expired, and he also hadn't paid rent. He thought that the moratorium should cover him even though his lease had expired for several months. She only recently got him to move out, and she put the house up for sale right away. I bet there are more sellers than her in this situation. I suspect that once the moratorium is up, there will be a lot of landlords looking to sell. They've been not getting rent for a long time, and they may have to sell in order to get out of the hole they're in. Many still have mortgages, but they will have a hard time collecting a year worth of rent. But the bank won't have the same problem foreclosing.

ianai 6y ago
Pretty sure she can still sue civically for back rent. Wish the renter had at least tried to pay some rent during that time out of good faith. I am almost certain this will be a trend.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  Winning a suit is one thing - collecting damages is something else.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    The civil courts are pretty useless if your adversary has no funds and nothing to lose.
    - setgree 6y ago
      Everyone has a credit score that can go down. (Is there a floor?) A record of a rent lawsuit is no good for anyone. I often wonder how people on the verge of eviction think about this kind of thing — whether it is salient or even understandable.
      - klyrs 6y ago
        I've lived most of my life without a credit card, never leased a car, never gave owning property much thought. Got some student loans when I was young, but that's about it for my credit history. This is all a result of me living responsibly within my means. Rental referrals are just about the only leverage that an ex-landlord would really have over me. You can duck collections pretty much forever if you don't need credit
        thephyber 6y ago
        Weird flex. People who aren’t paying rent after the pandemic started likely aren’t doing it for fun. Most likely they are underemployed, hence collections will stack up. “Living within your means” assumes it is even possible to find employment and a handful of life/medical/mental/family stability that not everyone has. You seem to underestimate how much of modern life in the USA depends on credit. Electric, water, telephone, internet service require credit or suffer the costs and inconveniences of prepayment. Rental housing almost always requires credit checks in any desirable market. You also seem to assume that collections can never be converted into a lean on your assets or garnishment of your wages. And that doesn’t even begin to crack the strange and painful tactics debt collectors use on your family, employment, friends, and other social pressures.
        ehavener 6y ago
        You're effectively paying a 1-5% tax on everything by not using a credit card.
        filoleg 6y ago
        > I've lived most of my life without a credit card > This is all a result of me living responsibly within my means. Implying that not using credit cards is how one lives responsibly within their means is kinda weird and wrong. Yes, you can live irresponsibly with a credit card. You can also live responsibly with it too. And it will give you extra consumer purchase protection (in case of a fraud or a bad fair vendor), as well as 1-5% return on purchases. Some would argue that missing out on that 1-5% return and extra consumer protections is the irresponsible move. But either way, the whole "using credit cards means living irresponsibly and outside of their means" is absolutely nothing but a complete lack of understanding of how credit works.
  - kevin42 6y ago
    Exactly. The renters are in a really bad situation as well. There's no way most of the people who couldn't or didn't pay rent for a year are going to have $20,000 to pay back rent, even if there's a judgement against them.
    - ianai 6y ago
      Right and I’d be for society helping them with that sort of debt. But having a judgement against someone does open avenues for future, slow recovery.
      - sky_rw 6y ago
        Nothing is stopping you, a member of society, giving somebody $20,000 to help them with back rent.
        munk-a 6y ago
        Relying on charity to make up for a lack of proper tax collection is a terrible thing for society in the long term. It's unsustainable and will just further wealth inequality. Also, most people, even most people on here, don't have 20k to throw around willy-nilly even if they have assets exceeding that amount.
        mattnewton 6y ago
        I don't get your point?
        DamnYuppie 6y ago
        I believe the point is that the OP is asking for everyone else to pay money for a cause they think is worthy, the comment you are responding to is that if they are that commit to the idea they can always pony up their own money.
        mattnewton 6y ago
        ah, thanks. Well, to that I'd say, if my money had anywhere near the impact of everyone's money pooled together I'd do it. Until then I'll keep advocating for public funds to be spent this way, and I assume OP would as well. If you lend each completely broke person $100 they are still about to be completely broke and your investment will be wiped out after a brief respite. But if you hand each bankrupt person $X,000 then many might be able to dig themselves out of the hole and remain productive members of society.
  - cletus 6y ago
    This depends on your outlook. You can stress about this and spend a lot of your time chasing down someone for repayment. This is the wrong approach IMHO. Instead just sure in small claims court (limited to $5,000). This is done without lawyers. You simply present your lease agreement, bank statement and any relevant communications. Once you get that judgment give it to a collections agency and forget about it. The agency will take a percentage of anything they collect. Then just look at anything you get back as a bonus.
    - RKearney 6y ago
      > Instead just sure in small claims court (limited to $5,000) Depends on your state. Here, small claims is limited to $25,000 with no limit for eviction suits.
    - deberon 6y ago
      I tried suing a landlord in small claims court. Their lawyer just had the court move the case to civil court so they could bring representation. It's a broken system imo.
    - Taylor_OD 6y ago
      Wouldnt that be like only 2-3 months of rent for most people?
      - cletus 6y ago
        In coastal cities, sure. But in a lot of parts of the country it’s not. Also, as others have noted, different jurisdictions may have higher limits. But to go to civil court to recover $20,000 just isn’t worth it. Your legal expenses will be significant and you face the prospect of losing or being unable to collect. So by limiting your potential damages you don’t incur litigation expenses, spend less time and stress on it and your net return may be similar. What’s better? $5,000 it costs you nothing to get a judgement for (other than a nominal filing fee) minus 10-20% for the collection agency or $20,000 you may need to spend $10-20K to litigate?
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    There's going to be predatory companies popping up who buy up rights to collect on these lawsuits for pennies on the dollar and proceed to <vulgar transitive verb> the tenants. This situation is going to play out over the next decade at least and it will be terrible for (almost) everyone involved. If you're renting and can afford to: pay your damn rent! In five years, you don't want to be staring down a judgement for a year of rent, plus interest, plus "collection" fees.
- munk-a 6y ago
  > out of good faith This is weird to me - the renter wouldn't get an extension on remaining in their domicile if they payed for ten years straight and then hit financial hardships - if the renter is going to be bankrupted by Covid then they're better off hording as much as possible until that point. Also, you need to remember that, during this pandemic, people are feeling real financial pain. There is a possibility this renter is trying to stretch their budget to afford food and power as-is, the landlord is, at worst, going to lose some value out of their held properties which may hurt their long term financial health but won't threaten them with immediate homelessness unless they're extremely overleveraged. This isn't to dismiss the pain and stress of being a landlord - but there is a lot of pain going around right now and if your representative in congress or senators aren't fighting to distribute some relief for it then it'd be better to take that up with them. The economy is under heavy stress.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    How are people feeling such financial pain? In the US we gave every adult over $3,000 in direct cash, and radically expanded unemployment benefits. In many states the unemployment checks were over $1,000/week for six months, then reduced to mere $500 to $700 per week. We also expanded health care access, froze evictions, expanded food programs, and more. I fail to see how people could be struggling so when the US treasury has gifted people with tens of thousands of dollars.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      Ten thousand dollars isn't a huge grant when stacked up against the cost of living in America - there is a decent portion of the population that has been unable to work during the past year and forced to rely on a lot of programs they never had to in the past including SNAP(food stamps), medicaid and the extended unemployment benefit. The direct cash payments are extremely good because they're so unqualified, but in a lot of states intent to work requirements remain in place to collect unemployment benefits and while the payment amount has been increased the duration of payment hasn't gone up across the board. People can try and hoard the money they're getting out of unemployment but they'd be dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Maybe this will be over in four months - I sure hope so - but there is a chance a new vaccine resistant strain will emerge from spring break or states opening up prematurely and throw us back into full quarantine. The US government acts slowly to provide relief and the last bill passed purely on a party line (even with one person celebrating the bill while voting against it for political reasons) - if people are facing financial uncertainty I'd definitely understand if they're counting every dollar that comes in and hording it due to the uncertainty of when this will actually end.
undefined1 6y ago
similar recent case here, where the tenants stopped paying and wouldn't move out. the landlord ended up selling at a loss with the tenants still in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7AKN09vhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7AKN09vhM
nostromo 6y ago
I've been migrating my vacant rentals to Airbnbs during the moratorium for this very reason. I may not rent them out again to long-term tenants for quite some time. Local governments should consider all of the perverse incentives they create when making these sorts of changes. (If you do this, note that if you let someone stay in your Airbnb for a month, they also cannot be evicted in some jurisdictions.)
- majormajor 6y ago
  If you as a government make it hard enough to seek rent as a landlord, can you increase ownership proportions?
  - munk-a 6y ago
    You could indeed, which would generally be a positive for society.
  - datavirtue 6y ago
    You have to flip that around. It has to be easier and dearer to own than rent. Seeking rents is already hard. If you follow all the rules and regulations it takes decades to profit when renting out homes. We need tax relief and incentives to build affordable housing...bad.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      > it takes decades to profit when renting out homes Only if you don't count the equity built from the rent that you can cash in by selling at pretty much any time.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        You have to pay this thing called interest and it's pretty high in the first 10 years. Your equity portion is not that big.
        6y ago
scruple 6y ago
> I suspect that once the moratorium is up, there will be a lot of landlords looking to sell. They've been not getting rent for a long time, and they may have to sell in order to get out of the hole they're in. Many still have mortgages, but they will have a hard time collecting a year worth of rent. But the bank won't have the same problem foreclosing. My mother-in-law has 2 properties in SoCal and is dealing with this exact situation. She is speaking with a lawyer this week, in fact. I won't get into all of the details but will say that she owns these properties outright but has not collected rent on either since April and May of last year...
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > she owns these properties outright but has not collected rent on either since April and May of last year... Is this not just due to the eviction moratorium?
  - scruple 6y ago
    Sorry, just saw your reply. Like I said before, I'm not willing to get into all of the details. In this specific case, however, the eviction moratoriums do not cover the shenanigans that my MIL is dealing with.

ianai 6y ago

Pretty sure she can still sue civically for back rent. Wish the renter had at least tried to pay some rent during that time out of good faith. I am almost certain this will be a trend.

commandlinefan 6y ago
Winning a suit is one thing - collecting damages is something else.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The civil courts are pretty useless if your adversary has no funds and nothing to lose.
  - setgree 6y ago
    Everyone has a credit score that can go down. (Is there a floor?) A record of a rent lawsuit is no good for anyone. I often wonder how people on the verge of eviction think about this kind of thing — whether it is salient or even understandable.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      I've lived most of my life without a credit card, never leased a car, never gave owning property much thought. Got some student loans when I was young, but that's about it for my credit history. This is all a result of me living responsibly within my means. Rental referrals are just about the only leverage that an ex-landlord would really have over me. You can duck collections pretty much forever if you don't need credit
      - thephyber 6y ago
        Weird flex. People who aren’t paying rent after the pandemic started likely aren’t doing it for fun. Most likely they are underemployed, hence collections will stack up. “Living within your means” assumes it is even possible to find employment and a handful of life/medical/mental/family stability that not everyone has. You seem to underestimate how much of modern life in the USA depends on credit. Electric, water, telephone, internet service require credit or suffer the costs and inconveniences of prepayment. Rental housing almost always requires credit checks in any desirable market. You also seem to assume that collections can never be converted into a lean on your assets or garnishment of your wages. And that doesn’t even begin to crack the strange and painful tactics debt collectors use on your family, employment, friends, and other social pressures.
      - ehavener 6y ago
        You're effectively paying a 1-5% tax on everything by not using a credit card.
      - filoleg 6y ago
        > I've lived most of my life without a credit card > This is all a result of me living responsibly within my means. Implying that not using credit cards is how one lives responsibly within their means is kinda weird and wrong. Yes, you can live irresponsibly with a credit card. You can also live responsibly with it too. And it will give you extra consumer purchase protection (in case of a fraud or a bad fair vendor), as well as 1-5% return on purchases. Some would argue that missing out on that 1-5% return and extra consumer protections is the irresponsible move. But either way, the whole "using credit cards means living irresponsibly and outside of their means" is absolutely nothing but a complete lack of understanding of how credit works.
- kevin42 6y ago
  Exactly. The renters are in a really bad situation as well. There's no way most of the people who couldn't or didn't pay rent for a year are going to have $20,000 to pay back rent, even if there's a judgement against them.
  - ianai 6y ago
    Right and I’d be for society helping them with that sort of debt. But having a judgement against someone does open avenues for future, slow recovery.
    - sky_rw 6y ago
      Nothing is stopping you, a member of society, giving somebody $20,000 to help them with back rent.
      - munk-a 6y ago
        Relying on charity to make up for a lack of proper tax collection is a terrible thing for society in the long term. It's unsustainable and will just further wealth inequality. Also, most people, even most people on here, don't have 20k to throw around willy-nilly even if they have assets exceeding that amount.
      - mattnewton 6y ago
        I don't get your point?
        DamnYuppie 6y ago
        I believe the point is that the OP is asking for everyone else to pay money for a cause they think is worthy, the comment you are responding to is that if they are that commit to the idea they can always pony up their own money.
        mattnewton 6y ago
        ah, thanks. Well, to that I'd say, if my money had anywhere near the impact of everyone's money pooled together I'd do it. Until then I'll keep advocating for public funds to be spent this way, and I assume OP would as well. If you lend each completely broke person $100 they are still about to be completely broke and your investment will be wiped out after a brief respite. But if you hand each bankrupt person $X,000 then many might be able to dig themselves out of the hole and remain productive members of society.
- cletus 6y ago
  This depends on your outlook. You can stress about this and spend a lot of your time chasing down someone for repayment. This is the wrong approach IMHO. Instead just sure in small claims court (limited to $5,000). This is done without lawyers. You simply present your lease agreement, bank statement and any relevant communications. Once you get that judgment give it to a collections agency and forget about it. The agency will take a percentage of anything they collect. Then just look at anything you get back as a bonus.
  - RKearney 6y ago
    > Instead just sure in small claims court (limited to $5,000) Depends on your state. Here, small claims is limited to $25,000 with no limit for eviction suits.
  - deberon 6y ago
    I tried suing a landlord in small claims court. Their lawyer just had the court move the case to civil court so they could bring representation. It's a broken system imo.
  - Taylor_OD 6y ago
    Wouldnt that be like only 2-3 months of rent for most people?
    - cletus 6y ago
      In coastal cities, sure. But in a lot of parts of the country it’s not. Also, as others have noted, different jurisdictions may have higher limits. But to go to civil court to recover $20,000 just isn’t worth it. Your legal expenses will be significant and you face the prospect of losing or being unable to collect. So by limiting your potential damages you don’t incur litigation expenses, spend less time and stress on it and your net return may be similar. What’s better? $5,000 it costs you nothing to get a judgement for (other than a nominal filing fee) minus 10-20% for the collection agency or $20,000 you may need to spend $10-20K to litigate?
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
- mywittyname 6y ago
  There's going to be predatory companies popping up who buy up rights to collect on these lawsuits for pennies on the dollar and proceed to <vulgar transitive verb> the tenants. This situation is going to play out over the next decade at least and it will be terrible for (almost) everyone involved. If you're renting and can afford to: pay your damn rent! In five years, you don't want to be staring down a judgement for a year of rent, plus interest, plus "collection" fees.
munk-a 6y ago
> out of good faith This is weird to me - the renter wouldn't get an extension on remaining in their domicile if they payed for ten years straight and then hit financial hardships - if the renter is going to be bankrupted by Covid then they're better off hording as much as possible until that point. Also, you need to remember that, during this pandemic, people are feeling real financial pain. There is a possibility this renter is trying to stretch their budget to afford food and power as-is, the landlord is, at worst, going to lose some value out of their held properties which may hurt their long term financial health but won't threaten them with immediate homelessness unless they're extremely overleveraged. This isn't to dismiss the pain and stress of being a landlord - but there is a lot of pain going around right now and if your representative in congress or senators aren't fighting to distribute some relief for it then it'd be better to take that up with them. The economy is under heavy stress.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  How are people feeling such financial pain? In the US we gave every adult over $3,000 in direct cash, and radically expanded unemployment benefits. In many states the unemployment checks were over $1,000/week for six months, then reduced to mere $500 to $700 per week. We also expanded health care access, froze evictions, expanded food programs, and more. I fail to see how people could be struggling so when the US treasury has gifted people with tens of thousands of dollars.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    Ten thousand dollars isn't a huge grant when stacked up against the cost of living in America - there is a decent portion of the population that has been unable to work during the past year and forced to rely on a lot of programs they never had to in the past including SNAP(food stamps), medicaid and the extended unemployment benefit. The direct cash payments are extremely good because they're so unqualified, but in a lot of states intent to work requirements remain in place to collect unemployment benefits and while the payment amount has been increased the duration of payment hasn't gone up across the board. People can try and hoard the money they're getting out of unemployment but they'd be dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Maybe this will be over in four months - I sure hope so - but there is a chance a new vaccine resistant strain will emerge from spring break or states opening up prematurely and throw us back into full quarantine. The US government acts slowly to provide relief and the last bill passed purely on a party line (even with one person celebrating the bill while voting against it for political reasons) - if people are facing financial uncertainty I'd definitely understand if they're counting every dollar that comes in and hording it due to the uncertainty of when this will actually end.

undefined1 6y ago

similar recent case here, where the tenants stopped paying and wouldn't move out. the landlord ended up selling at a loss with the tenants still in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7AKN09vhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7AKN09vhM

nostromo 6y ago

I've been migrating my vacant rentals to Airbnbs during the moratorium for this very reason. I may not rent them out again to long-term tenants for quite some time. Local governments should consider all of the perverse incentives they create when making these sorts of changes. (If you do this, note that if you let someone stay in your Airbnb for a month, they also cannot be evicted in some jurisdictions.)

majormajor 6y ago
If you as a government make it hard enough to seek rent as a landlord, can you increase ownership proportions?
- munk-a 6y ago
  You could indeed, which would generally be a positive for society.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  You have to flip that around. It has to be easier and dearer to own than rent. Seeking rents is already hard. If you follow all the rules and regulations it takes decades to profit when renting out homes. We need tax relief and incentives to build affordable housing...bad.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    > it takes decades to profit when renting out homes Only if you don't count the equity built from the rent that you can cash in by selling at pretty much any time.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      You have to pay this thing called interest and it's pretty high in the first 10 years. Your equity portion is not that big.
      - 6y ago

scruple 6y ago

> I suspect that once the moratorium is up, there will be a lot of landlords looking to sell. They've been not getting rent for a long time, and they may have to sell in order to get out of the hole they're in. Many still have mortgages, but they will have a hard time collecting a year worth of rent. But the bank won't have the same problem foreclosing. My mother-in-law has 2 properties in SoCal and is dealing with this exact situation. She is speaking with a lawyer this week, in fact. I won't get into all of the details but will say that she owns these properties outright but has not collected rent on either since April and May of last year...

whimsicalism 6y ago
> she owns these properties outright but has not collected rent on either since April and May of last year... Is this not just due to the eviction moratorium?
- scruple 6y ago
  Sorry, just saw your reply. Like I said before, I'm not willing to get into all of the details. In this specific case, however, the eviction moratoriums do not cover the shenanigans that my MIL is dealing with.