4 ms·

Apart from maybe being a little more flexible on evictions, none of the other reasons seem problematic. For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant

Apart from maybe being a little more flexible on evictions, none of the other reasons seem problematic. For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? The giving tenant three month rent thing is for a very small circumstance - for example huge rent increases if the tenant income is low, condo remodeling, etc. The wording is: “landlords who issue a housing cost increase of 10% or more (within a 12-month period) must pay relocation assistance if the affected household earns 80% or less of the Area Median Income and chooses to move.” Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them.

nikkwong 4mo ago
This is an insanely bad take. > For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. When the government forces you to choose the first applicant who meets your selection criteria, your selection criteria becomes incredibly strict—720+ credit score, makes 4x the rent, etc. Especially when evicting a bad tenant becomes basically impossible, landlords work even harder to vet candidates, meaning there are a lot of false negatives that aren't offered housing. Seriously, you can't evict a tenant just because its winter? You know how many people take advantage of that — read my sibling comment in my thread. I myself in Seattle have dealt with multiple tenants who have done this so they could have free rent as their lease expired. What do you think this does to my tenant selection process? I up the bar. > Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. You act like there's an oligopoly that dictates rent prices from their mountaintop that we all have to abide by. We live in a free market, and small landlords compete with large buildings for tenants. Creating these types of caps just makes the system less efficient — focuses efforts on the false pretense of tenants rights rather than the true equalizer like building more housing. And honestly, it just drives small landlords out of the market who can't handle it. This just leaves corporate landlords who are certainly less tenant friendly and will further this tenant vs landlord arms-race. We should be creating incentives and making it easy for individual homeowners to become landlords (at least in Seattle) if we want the paradigm to improve.
- pixelatedindex 4mo ago
  > You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. That’s basically discrimination? Make a strict selection criteria, that’s fine. The city also has affordable housing for people who don’t qualify. You set what works for you, why do you care if it’s too strict? I am not acting like there is an oligopoly, but not having tenant protections means tenants are at the mercy of shitty landlords. And there are a TON of them. Am I not supposed to have any rights, and the landlords gets to do whatever they want? Free market doesn’t mean regulation free. Edit: you said “We should be creating incentives and making it easy for individual homeowners to become landlords (at least in Seattle) if we want the paradigm to improve.” - what do you propose? What about landlords who don’t want housing built because they like owning a scarce asset? What kind of rights do you think tenants should have?
  - derektank 4mo ago
    Yes, discrimination based upon characteristics that aren't immutable is perfectly fine and something we do every day. I discriminate against my neighbor who invited me over drinks in favor of my best friend who invited me to his birthday. I discriminate against the potential hire who doesn’t have experience in this line of work in favor of the person who’s a nationally renowned expert. I discriminate against a tenant with a history of failing to make rent in favor of someone who consistently provides payment every month. People are different and valuing one over another in specific contexts is hardly scandalous. It only becomes a proble if you decide to discriminate against someone based upon immutable characteristics such as their race, sex, national origin, etc. because you’re not treating them as an individual.
    - pixelatedindex 4mo ago
      I get where you’re coming from, but none of them are scarce inelastic resources. The work one especially doesn’t feel like discrimination. It’s also very different - you’re hiring someone to do a job for you, vs wanting someone who’ll pay rent on time and not destroy the property. A mediocre employee vs an excellent employee can make any huge difference to a business. That’s not the case with renters - if person A and person B both pay on time and don’t trash the place then they are quite fungible.
halfxing 4mo ago
Are you also wanting a company to have to hire the first qualifying candidate and immediately stop all hiring? That is nonsensical. A landlord and a tenant should be free to contract as both parties wish.
mh2266 4mo ago
Does this "first tenant" rule not incentivize people to apply immediately, sight unseen, and then they just eat the credit check fee on the apartments that they end up not choosing? Or maybe they can even bail before the credit check is done, if they can see all of their candidate apartments in that time, or at least do see the one they applied for and decide they don't want it?
- pixelatedindex 4mo ago
  > Does this "first tenant" rule not incentivize people to apply immediately, sight unseen Is that a bad thing? Presumably that means they liked something about your rental. Happened a ton during COVID. > Or maybe they can even bail before the credit check is done, if they can see all of their candidate apartments in that time I highly doubt this happens in practice. It can be like $50 per application easy - renters are in general cost conscious. I certainly only put down the fees on apartments I’m serious about (usually two max). Why waste money?
cyberax 4mo ago
> It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them. No. Have you heard the phrase: "justice delayed is justice denied"? I want this rule to apply to _everyone_. Also I would agree with all those rules with one addition: unpaid rent should not be discharged during bankruptcy.
- mrguyorama 4mo ago
  The fact that you cannot evict your tenant until they get a court hearing IS the system providing justice. It's ensuring that a landlord can't just throw you out on a whim, and you have to figure out housing until you get a court to say "Actually you weren't allowed to throw out that tenant" and have to deal with evicting the new tenant who was moved into your unit and also get you back into it. It sure seems funny that it's only "Injustice" when it hurts the landlord, because apparently landlords aren't allowed to read the history of before we had these kinds of things. If you are upset that court takes forever now in the US, congratulations, join the rest of us. You are not special in that regard.

nikkwong 4mo ago

This is an insanely bad take. > For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. When the government forces you to choose the first applicant who meets your selection criteria, your selection criteria becomes incredibly strict—720+ credit score, makes 4x the rent, etc. Especially when evicting a bad tenant becomes basically impossible, landlords work even harder to vet candidates, meaning there are a lot of false negatives that aren't offered housing. Seriously, you can't evict a tenant just because its winter? You know how many people take advantage of that — read my sibling comment in my thread. I myself in Seattle have dealt with multiple tenants who have done this so they could have free rent as their lease expired. What do you think this does to my tenant selection process? I up the bar. > Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. You act like there's an oligopoly that dictates rent prices from their mountaintop that we all have to abide by. We live in a free market, and small landlords compete with large buildings for tenants. Creating these types of caps just makes the system less efficient — focuses efforts on the false pretense of tenants rights rather than the true equalizer like building more housing. And honestly, it just drives small landlords out of the market who can't handle it. This just leaves corporate landlords who are certainly less tenant friendly and will further this tenant vs landlord arms-race. We should be creating incentives and making it easy for individual homeowners to become landlords (at least in Seattle) if we want the paradigm to improve.

pixelatedindex 4mo ago
> You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. That’s basically discrimination? Make a strict selection criteria, that’s fine. The city also has affordable housing for people who don’t qualify. You set what works for you, why do you care if it’s too strict? I am not acting like there is an oligopoly, but not having tenant protections means tenants are at the mercy of shitty landlords. And there are a TON of them. Am I not supposed to have any rights, and the landlords gets to do whatever they want? Free market doesn’t mean regulation free. Edit: you said “We should be creating incentives and making it easy for individual homeowners to become landlords (at least in Seattle) if we want the paradigm to improve.” - what do you propose? What about landlords who don’t want housing built because they like owning a scarce asset? What kind of rights do you think tenants should have?
- derektank 4mo ago
  Yes, discrimination based upon characteristics that aren't immutable is perfectly fine and something we do every day. I discriminate against my neighbor who invited me over drinks in favor of my best friend who invited me to his birthday. I discriminate against the potential hire who doesn’t have experience in this line of work in favor of the person who’s a nationally renowned expert. I discriminate against a tenant with a history of failing to make rent in favor of someone who consistently provides payment every month. People are different and valuing one over another in specific contexts is hardly scandalous. It only becomes a proble if you decide to discriminate against someone based upon immutable characteristics such as their race, sex, national origin, etc. because you’re not treating them as an individual.
  - pixelatedindex 4mo ago
    I get where you’re coming from, but none of them are scarce inelastic resources. The work one especially doesn’t feel like discrimination. It’s also very different - you’re hiring someone to do a job for you, vs wanting someone who’ll pay rent on time and not destroy the property. A mediocre employee vs an excellent employee can make any huge difference to a business. That’s not the case with renters - if person A and person B both pay on time and don’t trash the place then they are quite fungible.

halfxing 4mo ago

Are you also wanting a company to have to hire the first qualifying candidate and immediately stop all hiring? That is nonsensical. A landlord and a tenant should be free to contract as both parties wish.

mh2266 4mo ago

Does this "first tenant" rule not incentivize people to apply immediately, sight unseen, and then they just eat the credit check fee on the apartments that they end up not choosing? Or maybe they can even bail before the credit check is done, if they can see all of their candidate apartments in that time, or at least do see the one they applied for and decide they don't want it?

pixelatedindex 4mo ago
> Does this "first tenant" rule not incentivize people to apply immediately, sight unseen Is that a bad thing? Presumably that means they liked something about your rental. Happened a ton during COVID. > Or maybe they can even bail before the credit check is done, if they can see all of their candidate apartments in that time I highly doubt this happens in practice. It can be like $50 per application easy - renters are in general cost conscious. I certainly only put down the fees on apartments I’m serious about (usually two max). Why waste money?

cyberax 4mo ago

> It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them. No. Have you heard the phrase: "justice delayed is justice denied"? I want this rule to apply to _everyone_. Also I would agree with all those rules with one addition: unpaid rent should not be discharged during bankruptcy.

mrguyorama 4mo ago
The fact that you cannot evict your tenant until they get a court hearing IS the system providing justice. It's ensuring that a landlord can't just throw you out on a whim, and you have to figure out housing until you get a court to say "Actually you weren't allowed to throw out that tenant" and have to deal with evicting the new tenant who was moved into your unit and also get you back into it. It sure seems funny that it's only "Injustice" when it hurts the landlord, because apparently landlords aren't allowed to read the history of before we had these kinds of things. If you are upset that court takes forever now in the US, congratulations, join the rest of us. You are not special in that regard.