8 ms·

Watch “I am a New York City landlord and I'm Homeless.” on YouTube

39 points by xbmcuser 6y ago

valuearb 6y ago
Of course the eviction moratorium is being gamed
ng12 6y ago
I feel like when renter friendly laws get passed people think of fat-cat, tophat-wearing Manhattan landlords and don't really consider that the same exploitable laws also apply to an immigrant in Queens who needs rental income from the first floor unit to afford their mortgage.
- diebeforei485 6y ago
  Perhaps the state (or the city) can have some sort of program like tax relief for low-income landlords who were affected by this.
  - lbotos 6y ago
    This story seems like someone who is extremely over leveraged: - two properties (neither owned outright) - tesla I'm saying this as someone who is about to be 5x leveraged on a 2 fam property in NYC. What kind of leverage does this guy have 10x? 12x? More? In NYC, CONED is not shutting off gas for non payment due to covid: https://www.coned.com/en/about-us/media-center/news/coronavirus/updates https://www.coned.com/en/about-us/media-center/news/coronavi... If the gas was off prior to covid, I guess you could find yourself in a catch-22, where you'd need to bring the account current before they turned it on, but then they aren't shutting it off at this point. It's unclear if he fought the fine with the city. If this gets to court, I'm pretty sure he would have a cut and dry case that he as the landlord did not breach habitability (the gas worked) and that it was tenant misconduct (failure to pay the bill) that caused the gas to be shut off (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B) Now, I have no clue what kind of ruling the judge would make, but yeah. Additionally, the covid laws that are protecting from eviction are also enabling mortgage forbearance: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/coronavirus/mortgage https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/coronavirus/mortgage I haven't had to go through that process, so I'm not sure how many people are denied, but the wording on this page makes it seem like you have a few options (including complaining to the state -- like his tenant did for the gas bill) before you are out of luck. I feel for this guy, and as someone who intends to rent to a tenant in NYC this is scary, but I feel like my guy got way over leveraged, and because of it, this bad actor has hung him out to dry. There are a few pieces of this story that feel like they are left out to garner sympathy, which may or may not be warranted. - why is he not getting or eligible for mortgage forbearance? - why is he so over leveraged? - why didn't he negotiate with his tenant about the relocation fee? (get the tenant to sign a paper, give the 10k (or less) as a rent credit on back-owed rent, get them out.) ------ Hilariously, I had a similar situation happen to me as a roommate -- One of the roommates I lived with stopped paying rent, wanted to AirBnB their room, and sleep on the couch, while using the AirBnB money to pay rent. They were few months behind on their portion of the rent, we worked with the landord, and the landlord agreed to credit back rent to get them out. Covid makes this more complex, but those with mortgages should be getting some protection based on the way the law is written. If he's not able to I think thats the real story and much more interesting.
    - candybar 6y ago
      The leverage doesn't have to be high - the only reasonable conclusion you could make is that the owner doesn't have a lot of cash savings outside of his properties and likely doesn't make that much money from his job (in relation to the losses incurred). Alternatively, he may just be cheap and also trying to make a point. Even if he owns his properties outright, tax and maintenance aren't free and not everyone can afford to lose money from their income-yielding properties.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  The bigger problem is lack of understanding of basic economics. The investments into real estate made by those fat cat landlords are good for housing affordability, because they increase the stock of livable housing. The motives and stature of the investor are orthogonal to the effects of their investment.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  From the point of view of the greater economy it's not helpful to have people buy property (and thus increase property prices by creating demand) to just rent it back out. It's only helpful if they are helping increase the quantity of housing or somehow providing some other kind of service. Simply using rent to pay the mortgage is really not something that we as a people benefit from. It would be better for everyone if that immigrant in Queens invested their savings into something else that would provide value.
  - jshaqaw 6y ago
    I’m a renter. I like being a renter. If nobody owned properties to rent who would I rent from?
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      There are a lot of people to rent from that don't use that money to directly pay their mortgage.
      - candybar 6y ago
        How does that relate to your assertion that people buying a place and renting it out do not add any value?
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        There are a lot of places to rent out that are already outright owned, and there are a lot of places where buildings can be built to be rented out, thus increasing supply. People getting a mortgage and renting out the mortgage adds systemic risk without increasing supply, it doesn't provide any service that isn't provided otherwise.
        candybar 6y ago
        If a building is built to be rented out, does the builder typically rent out the place? No, it will be someone who buys the building, typically with large amounts of borrowed money, who will then rent out the place. Builders build (often also with borrowed money) because they can then sell the building to someone who can buy. This is all part of the economy. And you're certainly misusing the term "systemic risk" here - a small-time landlord borrowing money to buy a rental does not in any sense contribute to any kind of systemic risk. They are taking on personal risk in the hope of generating a return on their investment.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  That problem can by solved by selling the equity and charging a fee for property maintenance.
dundercoder 6y ago
A moratorium with no accountability was asking for this to happen.
beerbajay 6y ago
If what this guy is saying is true, that is clearly terrible. There are however thousands of people who aren't gaming the eviction moratorium and need the protections provided by it. Also just an aside here to say that both the NY DOB and NY landlords are shockingly terrible in pretty much all possible ways.
- tartoran 6y ago
  There should be a process to it and the case should be evaluated not granted by default. Renter should be unemployed and not have money in their account or something like that otherwise we end up with people saving on rent just because they’re douches and that at the expense of someone struggling to pay their mortgage. A lot of people don’t afford a whole mortgage and get a 2 unit house and rent one floor. Some cheaters have an income but manage to get the landlord to let them stay in their propery for months to years for free. So again, this should be evaluated on a case by case basis and people who lie and cheat severely penalized so this behavior is not rewarded. Some people abuse all these laws that are supposed to help people and there is never a consequence for this abuse. Are these laws fair? I think there is room for improvement here
- jshaqaw 6y ago
  The NY DOB is a textbook case of regulatory capture by the construction and real estate industries. I
rasz 6y ago
You cant evict, but its still your property so you should be able to move in. Cops cant throw you out because you have nowhere else to stay, and there is eviction moratorium. Bonus points for moving in with couple of obnoxious friends. Btw Sunny is hardly hurting, he has successful renovation business in NY.
- achillesheels 6y ago
  I never understood this line of reasoning. Where do you draw the line between “hurting” and “not hurting”? Surely you must make it quantitative, and if so how do you justify your numbers?
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  He can't move in because he can't evict the tenant, because of the eviction moratorium.
  - atat7024 6y ago
    No, GP means move in adjacent to the squatter.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Then what does he mean by "it's still your property"?
      - rasz 6y ago
        He means you can move in to your own property if you have nowhere else to live. You might not be able to kick someone out, but on the same note nobody can kick you out. You and a group of loud gym bros that moved in with you.
        CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Isn't moving into an already occupied unit trespassing?
tartoran 6y ago
So this bad tennant wants to sublet and make money from this propery while they are not paying anything in rent. Something’s gone terribly wrong here. Shouldnt the sublet money go directly to the landlord?
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Bad tenant is breaking the law. Laws are often difficult to enforce.
  - ng12 6y ago
    Well these laws are made difficult to enforce by design. In NYC and SF you can pretty easily squat for 2 years before facing any real penalty for non-payment of rent. In other countries that'll work for one month before you come home to changed locks.
CryptoPunk 6y ago
This is a massive discouragement to investment in real estate, which means less capital is made available to expand housing stock. Along the same vein, these are a couple mentions of how rent control constrained New York City housing supply expansion in this article on the effects of rent control: https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html >>New York State legislators defend the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act—also known as rent control—as a way of protecting tenants from war-related housing shortages. The war referred to in the law is not the 2003 war in Iraq, however, or the Vietnam War; it is World War II. That is when rent control started in New York City. Of course, war has very little to do with apartment shortages. On the contrary, the shortage is created by rent control, the supposed solution. ** >>Also, the decades-long boom in the New York City housing market is not in rent-controlled or rent-stabilized units, but in condominiums and cooperative housing. But these two forms of housing ownership grew important as a way of getting around rent control. One study estimates that if just three US cities; New York, San Francisco and San Jose, had maintained their land-use rights at the median level for US cities since 1964, US income would have been higher $3,685 by 2009: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/growth.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/growth.pdf
- msrenee 6y ago
  Can I just reply to your first line? I'm in the middle of the US. We have plenty of jobs here and poverty is less severe than on the coasts. I would like to purchase a house. 10 years ago, I could have gotten the size of house I want in the area I want for $125k. Now I'm looking at $200k-250k for the exact same house. Wages have not risen proportionally in that time. You say it's discouraging to investment in real estate, but in my situation, investment in real estate is what has left me in a position where it will cost me $75-125k more to purchase a house compared to 10 years ago. More houses are being built, but that hasn't helped to reduce the average cost of a home. I guess my question is in what way in this situation is investment in real estate a positive thing for the average person? Yes, more homes are being built, but the 100 year old homes in my area are somehow still all I can afford. To be honest, I'm not sure I can even afford them. We have radon to deal with here on top of all the maintenance and inconveniences that come with a 100 year old house.
Proven 6y ago
If you live in New York, Cali or one of other socialist states, GTHO while you can still sell your property.
jshaqaw 6y ago
As a renter in NYC I expect to pay for this for years to come as landlords have to price in periodic expropriation risk. Society absolutely had the right (and perhaps moral obligation) to prevent harms like evictions of the vulnerable in a crisis. There is always a tension in law drafting between maximum protection (in which case yes you will have more edge cases abuses by grifters) and maximum targeting which will bury everyone in legal/bureaucratic process and probably harm some of the deserving. What is almost always bad policy is to place all the expenses of a societal goal randomly on one class like landlords which is the easy way for society to get something without paying for it.

39 points by xbmcuser 6y ago

Of course the eviction moratorium is being gamed

ng12 6y ago

I feel like when renter friendly laws get passed people think of fat-cat, tophat-wearing Manhattan landlords and don't really consider that the same exploitable laws also apply to an immigrant in Queens who needs rental income from the first floor unit to afford their mortgage.

diebeforei485 6y ago
Perhaps the state (or the city) can have some sort of program like tax relief for low-income landlords who were affected by this.
- lbotos 6y ago
  This story seems like someone who is extremely over leveraged: - two properties (neither owned outright) - tesla I'm saying this as someone who is about to be 5x leveraged on a 2 fam property in NYC. What kind of leverage does this guy have 10x? 12x? More? In NYC, CONED is not shutting off gas for non payment due to covid: https://www.coned.com/en/about-us/media-center/news/coronavirus/updates https://www.coned.com/en/about-us/media-center/news/coronavi... If the gas was off prior to covid, I guess you could find yourself in a catch-22, where you'd need to bring the account current before they turned it on, but then they aren't shutting it off at this point. It's unclear if he fought the fine with the city. If this gets to court, I'm pretty sure he would have a cut and dry case that he as the landlord did not breach habitability (the gas worked) and that it was tenant misconduct (failure to pay the bill) that caused the gas to be shut off (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B) Now, I have no clue what kind of ruling the judge would make, but yeah. Additionally, the covid laws that are protecting from eviction are also enabling mortgage forbearance: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/coronavirus/mortgage https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/coronavirus/mortgage I haven't had to go through that process, so I'm not sure how many people are denied, but the wording on this page makes it seem like you have a few options (including complaining to the state -- like his tenant did for the gas bill) before you are out of luck. I feel for this guy, and as someone who intends to rent to a tenant in NYC this is scary, but I feel like my guy got way over leveraged, and because of it, this bad actor has hung him out to dry. There are a few pieces of this story that feel like they are left out to garner sympathy, which may or may not be warranted. - why is he not getting or eligible for mortgage forbearance? - why is he so over leveraged? - why didn't he negotiate with his tenant about the relocation fee? (get the tenant to sign a paper, give the 10k (or less) as a rent credit on back-owed rent, get them out.) ------ Hilariously, I had a similar situation happen to me as a roommate -- One of the roommates I lived with stopped paying rent, wanted to AirBnB their room, and sleep on the couch, while using the AirBnB money to pay rent. They were few months behind on their portion of the rent, we worked with the landord, and the landlord agreed to credit back rent to get them out. Covid makes this more complex, but those with mortgages should be getting some protection based on the way the law is written. If he's not able to I think thats the real story and much more interesting.
  - candybar 6y ago
    The leverage doesn't have to be high - the only reasonable conclusion you could make is that the owner doesn't have a lot of cash savings outside of his properties and likely doesn't make that much money from his job (in relation to the losses incurred). Alternatively, he may just be cheap and also trying to make a point. Even if he owns his properties outright, tax and maintenance aren't free and not everyone can afford to lose money from their income-yielding properties.
CryptoPunk 6y ago
The bigger problem is lack of understanding of basic economics. The investments into real estate made by those fat cat landlords are good for housing affordability, because they increase the stock of livable housing. The motives and stature of the investor are orthogonal to the effects of their investment.
sudosysgen 6y ago
From the point of view of the greater economy it's not helpful to have people buy property (and thus increase property prices by creating demand) to just rent it back out. It's only helpful if they are helping increase the quantity of housing or somehow providing some other kind of service. Simply using rent to pay the mortgage is really not something that we as a people benefit from. It would be better for everyone if that immigrant in Queens invested their savings into something else that would provide value.
- jshaqaw 6y ago
  I’m a renter. I like being a renter. If nobody owned properties to rent who would I rent from?
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    There are a lot of people to rent from that don't use that money to directly pay their mortgage.
    - candybar 6y ago
      How does that relate to your assertion that people buying a place and renting it out do not add any value?
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        There are a lot of places to rent out that are already outright owned, and there are a lot of places where buildings can be built to be rented out, thus increasing supply. People getting a mortgage and renting out the mortgage adds systemic risk without increasing supply, it doesn't provide any service that isn't provided otherwise.
        candybar 6y ago
        If a building is built to be rented out, does the builder typically rent out the place? No, it will be someone who buys the building, typically with large amounts of borrowed money, who will then rent out the place. Builders build (often also with borrowed money) because they can then sell the building to someone who can buy. This is all part of the economy. And you're certainly misusing the term "systemic risk" here - a small-time landlord borrowing money to buy a rental does not in any sense contribute to any kind of systemic risk. They are taking on personal risk in the hope of generating a return on their investment.
alisonkisk 6y ago
That problem can by solved by selling the equity and charging a fee for property maintenance.

dundercoder 6y ago

A moratorium with no accountability was asking for this to happen.

beerbajay 6y ago

If what this guy is saying is true, that is clearly terrible. There are however thousands of people who aren't gaming the eviction moratorium and need the protections provided by it. Also just an aside here to say that both the NY DOB and NY landlords are shockingly terrible in pretty much all possible ways.

tartoran 6y ago
There should be a process to it and the case should be evaluated not granted by default. Renter should be unemployed and not have money in their account or something like that otherwise we end up with people saving on rent just because they’re douches and that at the expense of someone struggling to pay their mortgage. A lot of people don’t afford a whole mortgage and get a 2 unit house and rent one floor. Some cheaters have an income but manage to get the landlord to let them stay in their propery for months to years for free. So again, this should be evaluated on a case by case basis and people who lie and cheat severely penalized so this behavior is not rewarded. Some people abuse all these laws that are supposed to help people and there is never a consequence for this abuse. Are these laws fair? I think there is room for improvement here
jshaqaw 6y ago
The NY DOB is a textbook case of regulatory capture by the construction and real estate industries. I

rasz 6y ago

You cant evict, but its still your property so you should be able to move in. Cops cant throw you out because you have nowhere else to stay, and there is eviction moratorium. Bonus points for moving in with couple of obnoxious friends. Btw Sunny is hardly hurting, he has successful renovation business in NY.

achillesheels 6y ago
I never understood this line of reasoning. Where do you draw the line between “hurting” and “not hurting”? Surely you must make it quantitative, and if so how do you justify your numbers?
CryptoPunk 6y ago
He can't move in because he can't evict the tenant, because of the eviction moratorium.
- atat7024 6y ago
  No, GP means move in adjacent to the squatter.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Then what does he mean by "it's still your property"?
    - rasz 6y ago
      He means you can move in to your own property if you have nowhere else to live. You might not be able to kick someone out, but on the same note nobody can kick you out. You and a group of loud gym bros that moved in with you.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Isn't moving into an already occupied unit trespassing?

tartoran 6y ago

So this bad tennant wants to sublet and make money from this propery while they are not paying anything in rent. Something’s gone terribly wrong here. Shouldnt the sublet money go directly to the landlord?

alisonkisk 6y ago
Bad tenant is breaking the law. Laws are often difficult to enforce.
- ng12 6y ago
  Well these laws are made difficult to enforce by design. In NYC and SF you can pretty easily squat for 2 years before facing any real penalty for non-payment of rent. In other countries that'll work for one month before you come home to changed locks.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

This is a massive discouragement to investment in real estate, which means less capital is made available to expand housing stock. Along the same vein, these are a couple mentions of how rent control constrained New York City housing supply expansion in this article on the effects of rent control: https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html >>New York State legislators defend the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act—also known as rent control—as a way of protecting tenants from war-related housing shortages. The war referred to in the law is not the 2003 war in Iraq, however, or the Vietnam War; it is World War II. That is when rent control started in New York City. Of course, war has very little to do with apartment shortages. On the contrary, the shortage is created by rent control, the supposed solution. ** >>Also, the decades-long boom in the New York City housing market is not in rent-controlled or rent-stabilized units, but in condominiums and cooperative housing. But these two forms of housing ownership grew important as a way of getting around rent control. One study estimates that if just three US cities; New York, San Francisco and San Jose, had maintained their land-use rights at the median level for US cities since 1964, US income would have been higher $3,685 by 2009: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/growth.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~moretti/growth.pdf

msrenee 6y ago
Can I just reply to your first line? I'm in the middle of the US. We have plenty of jobs here and poverty is less severe than on the coasts. I would like to purchase a house. 10 years ago, I could have gotten the size of house I want in the area I want for $125k. Now I'm looking at $200k-250k for the exact same house. Wages have not risen proportionally in that time. You say it's discouraging to investment in real estate, but in my situation, investment in real estate is what has left me in a position where it will cost me $75-125k more to purchase a house compared to 10 years ago. More houses are being built, but that hasn't helped to reduce the average cost of a home. I guess my question is in what way in this situation is investment in real estate a positive thing for the average person? Yes, more homes are being built, but the 100 year old homes in my area are somehow still all I can afford. To be honest, I'm not sure I can even afford them. We have radon to deal with here on top of all the maintenance and inconveniences that come with a 100 year old house.

Proven 6y ago

If you live in New York, Cali or one of other socialist states, GTHO while you can still sell your property.

jshaqaw 6y ago

As a renter in NYC I expect to pay for this for years to come as landlords have to price in periodic expropriation risk. Society absolutely had the right (and perhaps moral obligation) to prevent harms like evictions of the vulnerable in a crisis. There is always a tension in law drafting between maximum protection (in which case yes you will have more edge cases abuses by grifters) and maximum targeting which will bury everyone in legal/bureaucratic process and probably harm some of the deserving. What is almost always bad policy is to place all the expenses of a societal goal randomly on one class like landlords which is the easy way for society to get something without paying for it.