**Should real estate owners face the brunt of a rent strike for 90 days?
**
Critics of the approach counter with…
There is a huge private rental development in San Francisco called Parkmerced. They are in my Nextdoor area, so I read things every day from residents there (some of them make me wonder why anyone would live in such an apparent hellhole). Anyway, the management company for this property is giving no quarter to renters who are late with rent payments, no matter what the reason. They can’t evict (yet) due to state and local edicts, but they can charge (and sue for) late fees, and that’s what they say they are planning to do. There is some desultory talk of a rent strike, but I don’t expect anything to come of it.
Their sole concession to the current situation is to post notices in the buildings about how they are making it easier to pay with new payment methods.
The problem for renters in SF is that it’s a landlord’s market with a huge shortage of housing. They could probably replace every renter practically overnight (and would probably like to, at least for those units that are under rent control).
I’m kinda curious about how all this will play out as well. In one of my facebook groups it was mentioned and someone asked how the landlords are supposed to pay all their bills without any rent coming in.
That turned into a small argument about how landlords should have 6 months worth of costs tucked away for just such an emergency.
By that same logic, however, if all the renters had 6 months worth of emergency funds they wouldn’t be asking landlords to waive their rent for the next few months.
I’m not sure why anyone would make the argument that their landlord should have an emergency fund and not expect it to be turned back around on them. IOW, why should your landlord be expected to cover your lack of a savings account?
^^^I’ve seen similar arguments, and it leaves me scratching my head as well.
Seems some folks think that everyone else should save money for emergencies except for themselves. Sorta like “do as I say and not as I do.”
Seeing as I am still very much employed (six days a week with mandatory overtime until yesterday) I am not only paying my rent, I’m paying it a couple days early because, with 16 of the 18 families in my building without a paycheck right now I imagine there will be lots of folks late with April’s rent. Maybe getting mine in on time will help the landlord and maybe there will be some mercy for other folks who might not have much savings. But who knows? No one can be evicted right now, but later…
I do have about 6 months worth of money in the bank, but that can go very fast in bad times. Even with that and a job I don’t feel very secure right now. I feel sorry for those with no income right now.
Well, between the rich landowners robbing tenants, lenders demanding that they repay the student loans they took out, and factory owners bribing legislators not to raise the minimum wage, how is a member of the proletariat supposed to amass a six month nestegg? At least the landowners are getting free money from the labor of their renters each month, shouldn’t they be putting some away for an emergency? Why do the landowners get to live a life of leisure while the prols break their backs?
And have you seen the price of beer lately? You go to a club and you have to pay $12 for just a beer. Don’t get me started about how much a shot on the side costs. How are you supposed to save any money with expenses like that?
I just returned from my evening walk. I saw a RICHMOND RENT STRIKE!! handbill stapled to a random telephone pole. Richmond, VA is at the top of the national list for evictions and merciless landlords. So I’ll be staying tuned.
As I said in another similar thread, a landlord really does need to be able to cover brief periods of time with no rent, as those rent-free periods are a normal part of the rental cycle. It can be something as simple as no rent for a week or two while painting and changing the carpet between tenants to as complicated as a vanishing tenant. Of course many landlords are affected by the same types of situations that can leave tenants without any emergency fund. But then, how will the landlord handle it when the current tenant’s lease is up at the end of July, but no new tenant wants to move in until September, when school starts?
In this post I’m not trying to make any value judgement as to whether tenants or landlords should be the one taking the loss, just saying that landlords need to maintain a cushion as a normal business practice.
That outfit has been in the news (and not in a nice way) from time-to-time since forever. IIRC back in the 1970’s (perhaps the 1972 election season) they were in the news for forbidding tenants from putting election campaign signs in their windows. They were taken to court over that and lost.
I’m very clear on this. My landlords are a local family who owns two other complexes and are opening a high-rent luxury apartment building downtown which, though not completed, is already fully booked by lobbyists. My landlords rake in millions every month. With tax breaks, it’s very easy for them to amass a six-months emergency fund. By contrast, my fellow tenants and I have a tough time trying to scrape up a one-month emergency fund.
Don’t assume all things are equal. They aren’t.
How do you even know this?
Never have been so happy I sold all my rentals last year. I couldn’t do it. With no $$ I couldn’t pay the water bills for very long, the mortgage on 1 property, the landscaper, the insurance and taxes. Not to mention things that broke. Don’t assume all landlords are robber barons living high on the hog, please.
You don’t pay rent and your landlord goes bankrupt, and now your landlord is the bank. Good luck.
I agree with that in general, but you have to admit there’s a big difference between having some of your units not generating any income from time to time vs all of your units not generating any income at the same time, for several months. During that same time, your bills remain the same. You still have to insure everything, if utilities are included, you still have to pay electric/water, the bank is still going to expect a payment from you every month and the list goes on.
I guess the point I was thinking of was that if rent is waived for X months, then something similar has to be done for the landlords. For example, waive rent for 3 months, but also waive their mortgages/loans for 3 months. I’d even be happy with just a simple waiving of the interest being accrued during that time, but the principal would still be owed, effectively adding 3 months to the length of the loan. But that’s just getting into the minutia.
I’m not assuming anything is equal. I just don’t think it’s fair for the government to force landlords to give up their income for a few months, while not lowering their costs by a similar amount.
That doesn’t seem much different than the government telling all retail establishments that customers get everything for free for the next 90 days. Would you argue that’s fair simply because Walmart has so much money?
Yep. A friend and her husband own a number of rental properties in an area that’s fairly hard-hit right now. They’ve always had trouble with renters abusing the system even though they try to be as accommodating as possible. While it produces a decent income if all is going well, they’re quite worried right now about their ability to keep up with their mandatory expenses (mortgage, taxes, upkeep) since their tenants don’t have a lot of reserves.
I think an out-and-out rent strike is a foolish thing to do. It’s not the landlords’ fault we’re all in this situation (unless the landlords are running a secret bioweapons lab somewhere - a theory my friend flatly denies ;)). A decent landlord will surely work with the tenants as much as they can especially if the tenant otherwise has a decent track record and is upfront with the landlord.
I’m a landlord with exactly one rental unit. My current tenant moved in in November and has been at least two weeks late with the rent every month. In one case, a full month late. She works in a dentist’s office and has been told to stay home until the end of April. Somewhat reluctantly, I reduced the rent by $500 for April and she asked for another $200 off. I told her I couldn’t do it and knocked off another $100. I’m not asking for her to pay this back - its a grant of sorts. I also said that I can’t do this every month as it puts me in the red and what’s the point if the place is losing money? She seemed grateful but I also have the feeling she’s taking me for a bit of a ride, based on her past history of various excuses for the rent being late. Not all landlords have 100s of units raking in millions. Its a small business and losses are part of the game but regardless of the circumstances, tenants can’t expect discounted rent indefinitely.
That’s the problem. Landlords aren’t decent. They’re parasites who profit off the labor of the working class, and expect their revenue stream to remain constant regardless of whether there’s work to be had.
Good luck finding new tenants able to pay the fees you’re demanding once unemployment hits 20%.
My landlord is a nice guy who actually makes less money in a year than I do. He lived here, and then bought another place with his girlfriend and kept this place as an investment. He works security at the airport. I’m a consultant who makes six figures pushing paper around.
I am not sure how the world is worse off for this arrangement. I needed to move last December, didn’t want to buy, and this nice house was available. How am I getting screwed?
I think you’re missing the sarcastic tone of that argument. The “have 6 months worth of expenses saved up” plan is one that is often suggested to regular people, who complain about things like being laid off, or having their hours cut, impacting their monthly income.
They’re just turning this around on the people who usually tell them that.
I’ve also seen it applied to all the big corporations that are getting bailouts. “Oh, United Airlines is having trouble paying its bills? Well, maybe it should get a second job, and stop eating so much avocado toast!!”
I’m familiar with the meme, that wasn’t the case here. They were being 100% serious.
This is one of those facebook town halls that are absolutely horrendous. Nearly everything any one posts quickly devolves into a nasty argument. Most of them were saying they weren’t planning to pay rent until this is over and going on to suggest that it’s their landlord’s problem. Not seeming to understand that if their landlord has no income (or not reduction in their costs), their new landlord is going to be the bank.
Some of this is slightly biased, I didn’t grow up in this community, but I’ve lived here nearly half my life. Many of the people I know in this area are very ‘stick it to the man’ type people. My family owns a small business here, I’ve had to explain to many, many employees over the years (both young and old alike) that no, my dad doesn’t just dump the money from the registers into his wallet at night. No, the money that we get selling gift cards isn’t ‘free money’. Or, customers upon catching a glance of a bill…yes, it is fair that I paid $15 for this item and I’m selling it to you for $22.
A few years ago, one of our vendors mentioned that another business was refusing to pay their bill and added on 'that guy must have a million dollars in the bank, I don’t know why I have to beg him for a check for a few hundred bucks while he just bought a condo and a motorcycle".
What the vendor didn’t know is that he sold his motorcycle and sold his house just to help make ends meet at the business.
As my grandfather would always say one someone suggests that another business owner is rich, “have you been to the bank with him? If you haven’t you have no idea how much he has, he could be up to his eyeballs in debt”.