Making it harder to evict drives up rents and worsens the housing crisis by restricting supply (why rent out a home or build units if the government can force you to let people live in it for free for well over a year) and by raising the bar for tenant selection (someone with poor credit or unconventional life history is a far greater risk if it will take months on end to get them out for not paying). I'm not a homeowner or a landlord, so I'm not exactly talking my book here.
I just don't understand how the government postponed evictions without paying landlords. Can you just tell people they don't have to work while forcing companies to pay employees? Etc it's just bizarre. I feel for the people who needed these protections, but also recognize the people on the other side of the coin who have mortgages, utilities, etc.
All over the Internet you'll see these predictions of doom and gloom as the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures ends. I honestly just don't buy it.<p>For one you have a certain number of actors who haven't paid their rent or mortgage simply because they haven't had to. This doesn't erase previous obligations but such people may be willing to walk away for other reasons or may attempt to negotiate with the owner or bank for a lower overall payment because that's better than the alternative.<p>For another, people still have to live somewhere. If anything you'll see the effect of this as a lowering of rents, which have otherwise soared. Residential landlords are generally less willing than commercial property owners to keep property vacant for extended periods to maintain the illusion of "market rate".<p>Lastly, unemployment is low and there's a lot of upward pressure on wages. This is not the environment where lots of people suddenly go homeless. This isn't the Great Depression. This isn't even 2008.<p>There are a lot of people who missed out on the spike in housing prices who are now rationalizing that result as this being a bubble about to burst.<p>Also, people who haven't been through this before have unrealistic views of the likelihood of actual doom and gloom scenarios. It happens less often than you think. If nothing else, governments have shown themselves more willing to intervene (for better or for worse) to stave off negative outcomes.<p>This just isn't a big deal.
It still seems crazy to me that the CDC has the authority to interfere with contracts between citizens regarding tenancy.<p>The right way to deal with this issue is via the lawmaking process. If they want to extend the moratorium, they can do it at anytime, they just have to go through the process.
The US always seems to make simple things far FAR more complicated than needed.<p>They've created this giant eviction logjam that's making a mess of a lot of things.<p>Don't want folks evicted? Give poor folks money so they can pay their rent or move to a cheaper place and pay rent etc etc. As it is, folks are trapped in their one location, can't look for work elsewhere etc. Landlords are screwed etc. Courts are going to be jammed up. And now there is going to be a huge and complicated bureaucracy, filled with fraud to try to get money to landlords etc.
In times like these you can see that some things are just fundamentally wrong with our economic system. On the one hand upper incomes have done extremely well during COVID with stock market and housing going up like crazy. And on the other hand you have a lot of lower income people lose jobs and now also places to live through no fault of their own. 2008 with it a bailouts has already taught me that the upper class will twist the rules to their advantage and COVID repeats the same thing.<p>Reminds me a little of 2003. The big defense companies had posters in the metro touting their patriotism while taking in record profits, paying 30 million dollar CEO paychecks and receiving big tax cuts. And that while in Iraq low paid soldiers were injured and dying for an ill conceived war.<p>I guess the old saying to never let a good crisis go to waste is very true.
If you have tenants that are not paying: approach them. Explain to them (not in writing) that you can no longer make payments due to lack of rent - and the bank could foreclose and seize the home. Offer to pay them 2X monthly rent cash to sign a contract to leave the place clean in 30 days plus free rent. Have a lawyer draw up paperwork (~$500/2hrs) and explain you and the tenant agreed to the terms.<p>Once the place is vacant sell the property or re-rent with short term rentals.
I wonder how this plays out.<p>Say I'm renting out some units and folks are many months behind... but they can pay for this month, and they are working and so on? Is it worth my time to evict them and get 0? or work something out?<p>I'm sure plenty of places would go for eviction but we'll see.