Yep, easy come easy go. The quickest way to get landlords to become less selective would be to let them toss freeloaders on their ass on day one of delinquency.
Which would result in more improper evictions. As it is we have already seen multiple examples of landlords losing checks so they can evict and rent to someone else at a higher rate.
I've wondered about taking a different approach: The landlord is free to evict on the day of delinquency, but must move the possessions to a storage facility (paying a month's rent at that time) and they must post a substantial bond. If the tenant shows the eviction was improper they get the bond + costs. (And I would apply the same thing to foreclosures.)
Instead of a long process of showing that they are acting properly they are putting up a substantial financial promise that they are acting properly. Make improper actions a costly mistake and there will be few of them.
Somewhat of an aside, but as a non-American, I find it quite weird that it seems to be common to pay rent with a monthly check. Every place I've rented, I've paid automatically by standing order. (Oh, except in a couple of third-world countries, where cash was the norm.)
The building I live in has an online payment option, but the only payment option that the organization doing the collection takes is PayPal. Fuck PayPal, I can go to the bank and get a check (I haven't personally written a check for decades).
> The quickest way to get landlords to become less selective would be to let them toss freeloaders on their ass on day one of delinquency.
The quickest way to get landlords to become less selective is to say "any vacant apartment/home not occupied by at least one fulltime resident can be claimed by someone homeless as of [date]." You'd have landlords begging people to sign leases (and people would because then they would get a sure nice apartment as opposed to a lottery for one of the few ones left).
Now, that produces bad other results, but so does allowing people's homes to be ripped away from them at a moments notice.
> quickest way to get landlords to become less selective is to say "any vacant apartment/home not occupied by at least one fulltime resident can be claimed by someone homeless as of [date]."
This is basically extreme squatter's rights. Places which have those produce some combination of people paying guards, those who can't afford guards taking matters into their own hands, people demolishing perfectly-good housing to avoid risking the land, et cetera.
I actually meant via a lottery system, not armed competition. Paying the guards when the city says someone else gets the house is not a real thing. And demolishing housing could be fixed by going off zoning.
You’re proposing to reassign millions of dollars of property based on various levels of evidence for whether someone was physically present? That’s basically the 90s in Russia.
It’s certainly a neat fictional universe. I imagine everyone who can afford to would live in a hotel, leaving the scramble of defending your property to those who can’t. Also, fraud. Lots of fraud.
Simple, comrade. 15 years you work on potato farm and trade ration-booklet for wood and drywall. You pay for and possibly build with your own two hands nice home for hard working fellow comrade to live in, and you ask in return they pay you some amount to help you recoup your investment.
After a couple years, nice family leaves, so you spend long time to find another nice family to fit into the house you worked hard to provide. Instead Kommisar come along, give house to homeless in name of proletariat. Social welfare bureau hold lottery, and the neighborhood violent drunk under the bridge is ecstatic his number came up, as he was very sad he no longer has home to beat wife in. Much vodka is drunk while copper piping is gutted and appliances scrapped to dealers in nearby Ossetia.
Sit back and cry: I work on potato farm for 15 years to build nice second home to house hard working families! Instead government create lottery and hands to drunk who destroys house in only 15 days. Decide to stop trying. Start drinking everyday. Become a drunk yourself, enter the lottery, now you gut houses of others to survive. Process repeats -- now all units look like Grozny in the late 90s.
The point is that, if you want to incentivize landlords to rent out places, this does this. Other people hear your story and rent it out to a responsible person instead of waiting for a "nice family". Or they auction it off in the time they have and pocket the money.
Responsible people who don't rip up housing are sought after and pay a reasonable rental rate. People who buy and sit on property are taken out of the system. A new equilibrium is reached and most people take reasonable care of their rental properties they are given because they don't want to have to enter lotteries that will likely end them up in a slum. Homeless people end up in better than the street.
Either I'm being far less clear than I think or you're being deliberately obtuse.
Everyone has a primary residence. I'm saying, if the only goal is to force landlords to rent out houses, simply have any residential property without at least one person identifying it as their primary residence given away by the state, ideally in a lottery. It would only change things for landlords. And I don't know what "fraud" would be engaged in. I suppose a couple could rent two apartments only needing one, but I don't see why a landlord would do that as opposed to renting to someone who presumably wants it and would pay money.
> don't see why a landlord would do that as opposed to renting to someone who presumably wants it and would pay money
You’re not sure they will pay the money or not trash the place. Same reason landlords are hesitant about renting in the real world.
In any case, this would be defeated by enlisting family members as back-up primary residents. (As in the old world, when property rights were enforced at sword point, sucks to be someone without a dependable family.) Though, again, the wealthy would likely opt out of renting and favour not owning or just own a single massive house and opt out of renting.
The fraud would be in people lying about their primary residences. Also, people lying about others’ lack of primary residence to appropriate their homes for their cronies. The injured family would be homeless while fighting for their property back, which somewhat compromises their ability to engage.
> this would be defeated by enlisting family members as back-up primary residents
I don't see how. The family members still have to live somewhere. Oh no, the person rents to their kid as opposed to a stranger! It still means that wherever that kid was going to live otherwise isn't rented out to them and is on the market.
> fraud would be in people lying about their primary residences.
Yeah, I don't see how. Everyone gets one. So, if you don't need a home and are responsible maybe you get hired to rent out an empty place? It doesn't scale.
> people lying about others’ lack of primary residence to appropriate their homes for their cronies.
That's stupid. It seems just as possible as people lying to get your bank account. There are all kinds of ways that people have to let the government know where their primary residence is.
> wherever that kid was going to live otherwise isn't rented out to them and is on the market
The kid could have been living at home. One spouse in one house, one spouse in the other. Et cetera.
> just as possible as people lying to get your bank account
You're proposing an ad hoc centralized mechanism for expropriating and re-assigning a multi-trillion dollar asset class. This has clear and one-way precedence in history.
> he kid could have been living at home. One spouse in one house, one spouse in the other.
Yes. If the "super-fraud" is that 18 year olds move out to unclaimed apartments or that couples can have a vacation house, I am remarkably okay with that.
> You're proposing an ad hoc centralized mechanism for expropriating and re-assigning a multi-trillion dollar asset class. This has clear and one-way precedence in history.
Except for the ad-hoc nature, the fact that property records and ownership (as well as lists of people's primary residences) are already centralized, that centralization and decentralization of real estate have precedence within the same society at different times, I totally agree. So I guess that's "multi-trillion dollar asset class" I agree with.
>Now, that produces bad other results, but so does allowing people's homes to be ripped away from them at a moments notice.
What an entitled viewpoint. It's not their home; an entirely different person owns it and they failed to hold up to their end of the contract for the terms under which the owner agreed to let them occupy it. The person having their home ripped away at a moment's notice is the landlord.
> It's not their home; an entirely different person owns it
It's not their house. It certainly is their home. I would prefer those be the same person as often as possible to align incentives.
> they failed to hold up to their end of the contract for the terms under which the owner agreed to let them occupy it
Tenants, like many contract participants, have legal rights that cannot be waived (see also minimum wage.) They also have contractual rights due to the contract.
It's not uncommon for landlords to be the first party to breach the contract either intentionally (e.g. losing checks to move a tenant at below market rates out), neglectfully (e.g. ignoring upkeep or repairs) or unintentionally (e.g. entering at will).
Certainly, withholding rent from a breaching landlord is appropriate while the breach is resolved.
> The person having their home ripped away at a moment's notice is the landlord.
Unless the landlord lives there, the landlord's home is unrelated to the property.
>It's not their house. It certainly is their home. I would prefer those be the same person as often as possible to align incentives.
If you take something you're obliged to pay for without paying for it, it isn't "yours."
>Tenants, like many contract participants, have legal rights that cannot be waived (see also minimum wage.) They also have contractual rights due to the contract.
Minimum wage is another thing that crushes the poor, as do eviction protections. Both serve to make jobs/housing (respectively) more difficult for the poor to acquire via regulatory barriers.
>Certainly, withholding rent from a breaching landlord is appropriate while the breach is resolved.
Conversely, withholding housing from a breaching tenant is appropriate.
>Unless the landlord lives there, the landlord's home is unrelated to the property.
In the US, "Home" can simply mean a house [1]. My apologies if you're using a different dialect of English and I misunderstood; I was using home as it's used in one common interpretation of the word in English in my country.
'Home' and 'house' are perhaps synonymous when preceded by the indefinite article. In the abstract, a house and a home can be considered the same thing. A house is, at least in principle, a home for somebody. But you can't call a rental property the landlord's home, since the key characteristic of somebody's home is that it's the place they live.
Nearly every landlord I have interacted with when renting single family housing has referred to the house he is renting as a 'home' even when no one was living in it. I understand local dialects may be differ.
That would probably be one of the terms. Which meets the stated goal of ensuring the housing is being used.
Although I don't see how that clause would be enforceable. A tenant almost certainly doesn't have enough assets to go after to make up for a building. Otherwise they could have bought the home for their own use.
That would very quickly escalate the already very bad homelessness crisis in many parts of the country. Some levels of tenant protection are a way society can help their citizens get back on feet after a difficult time, which almost every person will encounter. Freeloaders will eventually get kicked out.
I'd argue the effect may be the opposite. Tenant protections lead to homelessness by forcing landlords to be selective against vulnerable peoples, making it harder to get back on their feet after difficult times. Risk in renting to these people is greatly reduced if you can toss them out as soon as they stop paying.
Either way, you’re making someone homeless, which is an intractable problem as long as the housing demand exceeds supply. The only change being made is the criteria for who gets to suffer.
If you're looking to increase the number of temporarily homeless people, this sounds like a great approach.
Unfortunately, temporarily homeless people have a habit of turning into chronic homeless people. And living in a city that's full of chronic homeless people, I don't think we need more.
Your comfort and convenience as a landlord does not rank higher than my desire to not step over human shit on my way to work.
Raising regulatory barriers increases cost of housing. Increased cost of housing disproportionately effects those who have less money. Eviction protections are incredibly harmful to homeless as it makes it can make it risky (costly) to rent to homeless, taking housing even further out of reach. Homeless become even less competitive renters.
Your comfort and convenience to have the option not to pay a landlord does not rank higher than the desire of homeless to have better access to housing. Places with homeless problems badly need to remove these protections from renters.
Except it doesn't work the way you describe, because all it does is determine the quality of tenant that gets to stay in a housing unit in a shortage.
Eviction protections are incredibly helpful at preventing people on the margin from ending up homeless, by increasing the friction of evictions for landlords. This is absolutely necessary, because the cost to the tenant of getting kicked out of where they live is enormous - doubly and triply so if you are the kind of marginal person that gets kicked out of their home. It is incredibly disruptive to their life - much moreso than for someone in a stable situation not being able to find a different place to live.
Remove friction from evictions, and everyone on the margins is constantly at risk of losing their home - and once you do so, your ability to stay afloat becomes incredibly precarious.
If, on one extreme, tenancies were for life, and you had no way to kick someone out of a unit, you'd have an 'unfair' but stable distribution of housing. There would be very few life disruptions to people's lives, at the cost of housing being stuck in a local optimum.
If, on the other extreme, tenancies were day to day, and you constantly had to outbid other contenders for your apartment, you'd have a 'fair' but incredibly unstable distribution of housing. Between the incredibly high pain of moving/looking for a new place to live, anyone on the margins would suffer incredibly from this.
Economists rage against a stable but 'suboptimal' distribution of goods. But people whose lives constantly get upended from the instabilities of an 'optimal' distribution of goods are the ones who will suffer.
Harm minimization is exactly why there is more friction to throwing someone out of their house than 'the landlord feels like it'.
>Except it doesn't work the way you describe, because all it does is determine the quality of tenant that gets to stay in a housing unit in a shortage.
These protections determine that quality of tenant preferred is higher, thus vulnerably are forced away during a shortage. For those who are accepted, risks mean increased housing costs and thus lower access to the poor.
>Eviction protections are incredibly helpful at preventing people on the margin from ending up homeless, by increasing the friction of evictions for landlords. This is absolutely necessary, because the cost to the tenant of getting kicked out of where they live is enormous. It is incredibly disruptive to their life - much moreso than not being able to find a different place to live.
Eviction protections are incredibly _harmful_ at allowing those on the margin to avoid homelessness, by increasing the friction of becoming a tenant. This is absolutely unnecessary, because the cost of a tenant refusing to leave after non-payment can be _enormous_. It is incredibly disruptive to the housing market -- much more so than not being able to find a different tenant to rent to.
>Remove friction from evictions, and everyone on the margins is constantly at risk of losing their home - and once you do so, your ability to stay afloat becomes incredibly precarious.
I'd argue the opposite, those at the margins who are able to meet their commitment but otherwise look bad at paper are at incredibly higher likelihood to gain a home -- and once you gain a home, your ability to stay afloat becomes much less precarious.
>If, on one extreme, tenancies were for life, and you had no way to kick someone out of a unit, you'd have an 'unfair' but stable distribution of housing. There would be very few life disruptions to people's lives, at the cost of housing being stuck in a local optimum.
This is achievable via something close to the 99-year leases available in many nations, where you prepay the lease up-front. You can negotiate for one of these if you can find a voluntary counterparty.
>If, on the other extreme, tenancies were day to day, and you constantly had to outbid other contenders for your apartment, you'd have a 'fair' but incredibly unstable distribution of housing. Between the incredibly high pain of moving/looking for a new place to live, anyone on the margins would suffer incredibly from this.
That's basically what a hotel is, which those on the margins often end up in due to renter protections that introduce risk for landlords to take in those on the margins.
>Economists rage against a stable but 'suboptimal' distribution of goods. But people whose lives constantly get upended from the instabilities of an 'optimal' distribution of goods are the ones who will suffer.
Renter protections make it look more 'optimal' to rent to the rich and stable. We're actually in a suboptimal state that disfavors the homeless, and allowing a freer market would give better opportunities to the homeless.
>Harm minimization is exactly why there is more friction to throwing someone out of their house than 'the landlord feels like it'.
Increasing regulatory barriers to homeless gaining housing is harm maximization, and should be eliminated. These renter protections maximize harm.
"Increasing regulatory barriers to homeless gaining housing is harm maximization, and should be eliminated. These renter protections maximize harm."
I am sirry but this sounds like youve never seen the bottomn of the housing market and what actually goes on there, and basically live in cloud coocooland.
I know a landlord who should be in jail for abusing student tenants, commiting fraud on deposits, renting out houses with mold, rats and leaking riofs, without working heating. Safety railing on stairs sre attached with hot glue. After years of criminality she got a RangeRover and a small fine.
Proving the point further. The regulations fail to protect the intended individuals, only serving to make housing even further out of the reach of the vulnerable.
>I am sirry but this sounds like youve never seen the bottomn of the housing market and what actually goes on there, and basically live in cloud coocooland.
Well at one point (and not so long ago) I lived in a closet in a basement for ~$100 a month in a relatively nice part of Oregon, and frankly I was damn happy someone was willing to look beyond the "formal" means available. Had only the "legitimate" means been available to me, I definitely would have been homeless. Renter protections would have eliminated the only housing available to me. I'm definitely no stranger to "substandard" housing.
>I know a landlord who should be in jail for abusing student tenants, commiting fraud on deposits, renting out houses with mold, rats and leaking riofs, without working heating.
Agree that elimination of renter protections should go hand in hand with elimination of landlord protections: that is, if someone moves out because the landlord hasn't held up to his end of the contract (provide habitable housing), then there should be no protection for that landlord in the courts to force the tenant to continue paying.
