I disagree. Most landlords are not billionaires and this “don’t pay the rent” BS is asking for anarchy. But at least a one year rent freeze, no increase, would help. That is not much since rents will drop anyway, so maybe an immediate 10-20% rent reduction mandate with a one year rent freeze. This would be rational and practical.

As a land lord am I still required to pay exorbitant property taxes, and insurance while maintaining code requirements such as a proper refrigeration, landscaping, keep the roof from leaking, proper flooring, among other livable conditions all the while you live there for free?

Like most liberals – high on idealism, but short on details.

There probably isn’t another place in the US like New York City in regards to the percentage of people who rent their apartments. As far as throwing landlords under the bus, I have a mixed opinion about that. Yes, there are a lot of mom and pop landlords (mainly immigrants who have been her a while) who have scrimped and saved to buy a small building or two. These are the folks I feel sorry for. Then there are the mega landlords who own loads and loads of buildings. These guys I don’t naturally empathize with. I’m not saying that these big guys are slum lords, it’s just that I don’t empathize with them. If the government is going to help landlords, help the mom and pops first and foremost.

among other livable conditions

Plumbing fixtures, repairing toilets so your shit continues to run down hill, sink, and shower fixtures, and then repairing the water damage once you leave.

Don’t hold your breath awaiting any substantial response.

This column is an elaboration of one of the several three-beers-in-the-freshman-dorm suggestions — including conscription of Covid-19 survivors, which I questioned — in the preceding column. Another landlord asked questions, too, and was ignored.

Mr. Rall was apparently added to the roster to replace the comparably lightweight Tom Engelhardt. He brings nothing but cutout ideological balance to the website.

Let’s see if property tax is waived before talking about landlords. But that suggestion is naive, government would rather demolish a home than forgive the back taxes that would make its resale possible. Government holds on to what belongs to it to the death (of the taxpayer of course), meanwhile it whispers propaganda into taxpayers’ ears about how keeping the product of their labor is selfish

So you evict your non-rent paying tenant. Good for you.

If the worst case scenario occurs and you can’t get a new tenant to pay the rent are you still stuck with paying “… exorbitant property taxes, and insurance while maintaining code requirements such as a proper refrigeration, landscaping, keep the roof from leaking, proper flooring, among other livable conditions” all while your property is empty? Would you quietly acquiesce when the bank or government authority took possession of “your” property because you couldn’t pay the mortgage or the proerty taxes? Or would the idea of some kind of relief have appeal to you that would suspend your obligations until better times prevail? Or would you smile as they take your property from you and say: “It’s the right and proper thing to do. I tossed the die and lost. C’est la vie.” Then you lose your own residence because you no longer have the rental income to pay that mortgage.

Just curious.

Landlords are part of the mechanism to distributing capital to obtain and management to further capital expenditure toward maintaining viable housing stock. If you think people who can barely figure out how to find money to pay the rent in good times are going to maintain viable housing over the long haul, you are seriously misguided. By your prescription, Manhattan would start to look no better than the South Bronx or a Brasilian favela.

Yes Einstein, I have to pay the bills no matter what…… Next….

There is a germ of a good idea here. Everyone realizes that increasing home ownership works towards the social good. But eliminating rents is just a social engineering dream. There is no central authority who owns all the land to do so, no one can arbitrarily eliminate all rents.

The feds could offer to write checks to pay current rents. Perhaps if you could show your job was eliminated because of mandatory government closures, you would be eligible for government rent coverage. That would be justice, at least. Government eliminates your job, government pays your rent… Sounds fair to me.

The really good idea at the root of this proposal is eliminating financial parasites, landlords being high on that list. Rather than trying to eliminate all rents, the wise social policy would be high taxation of rental profits, removing the lion’s share of exploitative profits from the rental relationship. Legitimate socially beneficial rental arrangements would and should remain legal, but democratic social policy should discourage usurious exploitation, especially when it consentrates land and wealth (the root of oligarchy).

Interestingly, the Lord’s Jubilee Year included the freeing of slaves, the cancellation of debts, and the return of lands.

Why don’t you answer this question, which was really the point, Biff:

Or would the idea of some kind of relief have appeal to you that would suspend your obligations until better times prevail?

No

Landlords are parasites. They produce nothing. Let them get a job like the rest of us.

Rent is just upkeep cost. Apartment dwellers could pay for upkeep on their own for a fraction of the rent. Learn something about, not economics, a chumps’ game, but political economy.

I would rather you just butt out and, if I dwelt in one of your shitholes, I would pay my own share of the upkeep and taxes for a fraction of the price you charge me. Landlords are kind of like remora eels. Mosquitoes. Tapeworms eating up everything we eat. They produce nothing. Get a job like a real productive person

I say hang the goddam landlords. They are useless eaters. They do not earn their rent. Rent is non-productive parasitism.

Okay. Scorning a subsidy is against American business principles. If you’re sincere then you should be studied as a rarity, Biff.

Let me put it another way – I don’t like taxes, but I pay them if I have to, and I hate insurance monopolies – they’re a rip, and most of all, I hate paying property taxes on my primary dwelling – it’s anti-family. So far my properties have been full fore years, so I don’t need a subsidy, but a tenant is moving out May 15, and that place is going to need a 60 day remodel to get it back in shape(new floor and kitchen – expensive maneuver – maybe obwandiyag can pitch in), but I still don’t need a subsidy, and more to the point; I wouldn’t get one even if I asked(nicely) – they are for the already rich in a time of crisis, but that’s another story.

My question is:
People rent cars, boats, motorcycles, jet skis, hotel rooms, snowmobiles, airplanes, office buildings, women, men, men and women, lodges, gymnasiums, stadiums, arenas, class rooms, and the top floor of Trump tower – while most rentals go off without a hitch – why is it long term dwellings that have the most problems?, and most of those problems are from either from dead beats, or slumlords? Why? Why? Why?

And one more reminder for those who bitch about rent prices – little guys like me don’t set the rates; the banks do..

” the national lockdown necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Start the lying early.

There is no evidence, let alone proof, that the lockdown was necessary.

” If the government is going to help landlords, help the mom and pops first and foremost.”

It’s far too late for that.
The largest landlords, the Hedge Funds were first in line for help. They sold their shit junk bonds to the Fed at par, can borrow money at zero percent from the Fed and still get bailout money from the Congress.
They are now sniffing around Prime properties owned by the small guys who’ll go under.
Just one more wealth transfer to the cloud people.
And that’s just fine with assholes like Rall apparently.

” Everyone realizes that increasing home ownership works towards the social good”

What nonsense.

There are at least 40% of the population incapable of successfully owning a home.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-household-finances/index.html

It requires foresight, self discipline and a revenue stream/savings adequate to cope with unexpected and inevitable expenses on top of insurance and taxes. That’s before any mortgage.

The link toward the “social good” never defined- is never supported by any evidence. A thriving Realtor Sector is not necessarily a social good.

Personally I’d rather live in the bottom half of this table than the top.

https://qz.com/167887/germany-has-one-of-the-worlds-lowest-homeownership-rates/

“Landlords are useless eaters“

So where do you think rental housing come from? The housing fairy?

Let’s imagine everyone in the country was given their house tomorrow, free and clear, all rents and mortgages cancelled. It would be like almost doubling everyone’s income, since they would no longer have to waste almost half of their income on rent.

Oh, except for the property owners and banks. They would suddenly have to go do something productive to earn a living, rather than skimming off everyone else’s productivity.

Sure, rent strike, mortgage strike, tax strike, credit card strike. Why not? Who needs a life or a planet anyway? Why not just fire up the printing press and pay people not to work? Oh, sorry, we already do that, just not everybody yet. We’ll all just stay home and let the government send us money. Great idea.
I say to hell with the virus. To hell with paying people not to work. To hell with bailing out hedge funds. Enough of this madness. Get back to work. But I’m too late. The bubble is popped, it’s just going to take a while for the air to whoosh out. Well then, the only answer left is buy more guns before they outlaw them so I can kill the home invaders, and if I can’t get any food, I can invade the neighbor’s house. I’ll save the last bullet for myself. Stay safe and be happy, y’all.

Time to walk away from the property then you won’t owe the tax.

Great idea. Better solution. Turn all rental property into public housing. Government can let tenants live rent free. Let landlord’s file claims for their “equity” in the property. Let landlords default on their mortgages. When the banks can’t eat the loss, take over the banks. Problem solved.

Well, guess what, Biff? When you make any kind of investment, you’re supposed to accept risk. You’re not entitled to an uninterrupted stream of unearned income.

Plenty of other people are expected to make do despite having their lives disrupted. You and other landlords are not special.

Poor people can’t afford to keep a residence functioning, I see it all the time. I would never be a landlord, I don’t see much profit in it, and a lot of trouble. I was poor most of my life, and poor people tear shit up. Jesus said, the poor ye will always have, and I say yeah you’re also always gonna have their noisy vicious dogs running loose too.

Second sentence of the article:

‘At this writing, 26.5 million Americans have lost their jobs to the national lockdown necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘

It was not necessitated at all. No need to read further.

This article is so childish it’s beyond words. I have a couple of rental properties which are rented at slightly below market. There’s an economy of management, maintenance, meeting regulations that all kinds of businesses profit from, not just me. I also assume the risk of ownership. If there is a fire, disaster, pandemic, war, regime change, etc. I’m the one that’s most liable. Renters assume none of these risks. Adding it all up, it’s a fair transaction. A contract (an exercise in the assumption that people can decide for themselves) is entered into freely. If you don’t want to rent, live in the country, live in a trailer, live with many friends and save up. There are options. Say no to nannyism.

I’m a landlord. I bought a rental property because I got fed up with deal with scumbag landlords and because I am not rich enough to afford a single family home in this very pricey college town. I have a modest number of rental units, two. The “market rate” for two bedroom apartments, which is the size of mine, is $2750/month.

Property tax, insurance, water, and paying off a renovation loan cost me $440/month/unit. I let the tenants pay their own heat, to discourage waste. Reserving the same amount monthly for capital expenses and maintenance/replacement costs still leaves me a monthly profit of nearly $1900 per apartment, a return of what, 250% or so.

If I rent at less than market rate, I am inundated with entitled, arrogant jerks who just see it as the chance to put extra spending money in their pockets. If I rent cheaply to lower income people I have trouble collecting even that amount or getting them not to wreck the place or getting stuck with deadbeat roommates after they leave.

You want to tell me again how this is a “free” market? I find I have to charge more, frankly, than my conscience would prefer; otherwise I am just enabling freeloaders at both ends of the economic spectrum.

I have no doubt that in the future, people will regard the idea of providing housing as a vehicle for individual profiteering being as morally repugnant as human slavery feels to most of us today. Meanwhile, as the philosopher supposedly said, one must be of one’s time. If I could change the world I would. I don’t have the option to ignore the rules of the game because they offend my sensibilities. I do what I can where I can, select my tenants carefully and treat them with respect. In that way I like to think I am one of the exceptions that prove the rule that landlords are indeed moneygrubbing parasites.

I say hang the goddam landlords. They are useless eaters.

As are cartoonists.

They do not earn their rent.

Prostitutes and “gestational surrogates” are also landlords of a sort. By this logic, they don’t either.

Sound and fair reasoning.

Perhaps a very high tax on rental profits by corporate landlords or major individual landlords, with an exemption for individuals who rent out only one or two units.

Perhaps no special tax on rental profits, just a MUCH higher tax on all very high incomes, e.g. annual household income in the USA of $1,000,000 per year. That’s the top one half of one percent of households. People with income above that level will much, much more often own rental property — especially multiple rentals — than the rest of us.

But whichever tax we choose, it won’t help if the money goes to more military bloat, bailing out banks and big corporations, the drug war, or all the other things our rulers waste our taxes on instead of things that might actually protect our lives, health, freedom, or legitimate property.

Any tax aimed at rental profits or just unduly high incomes should be funneled back to all citizens as a universal basic income. That will include the great majority of renters (unless they’re noncitizens, who should not get a UBI, or convicted felons, who arguably should not get it).

or convicted felons

A general question for all: Has the idea that once one has served a prison sentence that one has paid one’s debt to society been discarded?

It seems getting charged with a felony is quite easy these days ( see: https://www.mic.com/articles/86797/8-ways-we-regularly-commit-felonies-without-realizing-it ). Is being a “convicted felon” to remain a permanent stigma and liability? What is the incentive to “reform”?

Just asking.

Don’t you have a big But there?

But whichever tax we choose, it won’t help if the money goes to more military bloat, bailing out banks and big corporations, the drug war, or all the other things our rulers waste our taxes on instead of things that might actually protect our lives, health, freedom, or legitimate property.

This is the bigger danger posed by self-identifying Leftist lightweights like Mr. Rall. They never want to help administer or even look at the results, too busy diagnosing the next reality as illness and writing more authoritarian prescriptions.

For that matter, Mr. Rall won’t even defend his proposals as he makes them. Look at my comment (#3) to his April 25 column crying for the conscription of healthy people to perform unspecified service in the current dempanic — no response, not even from another commenter, as the notion is indefensible. When he went ClimApocalyptic a while back, he likewise ignored a request for what had informed his hysteria, confirming that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

I repeat: this columnist was added to the roster because Mr. Engelhardt Left. He brings nothing but cutout ideological balance to the website.

I am a Landlord. Around the time I paid off my primary home, my son was looking to move out. A small home became available in our neighborhood and we purchased it that night for more than the asking price. (There were 7 showings scheduled for the next day, and prices were rapidly increasing)
We put down 20% and our son chose the paint colors, countertop and provided some sweat equity to make it livable. In less than a year, I have sunk an additional 5% of the purchase price into repairs and upgrades. Our son gets a below market rent, well below what he could rent an apartment for, and we get a great renter.
Real estate is a store of equity that generally keeps place with or exceeds inflation. We pulled eggs from one basket and put them in another. If property rights and contract law cannot be enforced, America and personal freedom are dead. Author is way off base.

To the landlords:
Does your pocket have a bottom end?
How much can you swallow?
Where and how can average people have own home?… because of your never-ending thirst of money?
Your business helps the society to go suicidal – the stress of being kind of nomad is not helping to make a family and helps to destroy the couples’ relationship: money, money, money…
Your taxes are the bribe to the politicians, legalized.
Don’t tell me about your hard work, risk, … you do not need these, is kind of tax to have an hourly income much, much higher than non-owners, hard workers, too.
Does your hourly life worth different than a poor, beggar’s life? NO.
Is yes for the people with only target – make own comfort like a earthly Paradise, nobody knows what and if is something afterlife.
This is the Semite attitude, is Judaic ideology, Marxian economy.
Bottom line: the apartments must be sold for a FAIR price to the occupants, not… :market price”.
There is no “market” to have conscience and be above the human conscience, is a conventional term to hide behind- “this is the market”, … bullshit, is your avid love for money..
But, you – the landlords have no human conscience, but money conscience, in fact lack of conscience because of your love of the money and fear of real responsibility; you passed the risk to the insurance companies using the renters money.
It helps the insurer to make big profits FOR NOTHING.
Even for 10% payments for losses, damages… is nothing as a social or personal loss.
They charge FOR FEAR and you are their accomplices.
That makes you unfair, parasites, using the brain in a evil way.
If you sincerely believe you are fair, listen: you are not.
You may point to the “science” of being landlord and think you did nothing wrong.
You did: you became a landlord.
Not to have ONLY your home and land and work to survive, but to take more and “market”-ly force people to be unable to have JUST a home and some land to survive for themselves.
The resources are limited and you are never satisfied, take more than you need, … meaning more than deserve. Is not a “family owned” business – pretended in most cases…
Is a way of thinking!
Coming from materialistic desire and own arrogance to be smarter than other people.
In a Christian made country you changed the people’s life by Judaic = anti-Christian mentality.
You do not need to conspire, to make association… like sharks: they kill together.
And there are other predators: the Real Estate brokers… connected to the politicians and together with you just to stop people to have a decent live.
As a landlord said: “rent to an idiot to pay and not damage anything.”
This is your real face – a scammer, not a family guy, a performer in business.
No.

Humblebrag?

Congratulations on being rich.

Lucky your gets the advantage of a landlord who won’t evict him.

Perhaps a very high tax on rental profits

Due to the nature of human greed; your owners have decided that there is no such thing as “rental profits”; they are called “gains” and they are taxed differently as in – very little to none at all.

*Disclaimer:
I’m not an owner.

First of all, it isn’t the government’s right to take the money. Secondly, what would be the result? Many fewer places to rent OR higher rents to cover the taxes. Duh. Libs are always confused by the destructive results of their “thinking.”

The renters would be keeping up nothing — they would have to buy the asset in the first place, which they didn’t because they didn’t have the money!! Landlords take a risk with an expensive asset and let people live in it. You act as though the house just popped out of nowhere, then the landlord “grabbed it” and forced someone to pay rent to them.

Exactly. We’re overrun by economic ignoramuses.

In an ideal world. your tenants would get together, form a co-op, kill you and have you taxidermied and on display in a big glass case, and they’d work together to pay the taxes, upkeep, etc., and allocate rents based on square footage among themselves.

I hope to one day live in an age where it’s all co-ops and mummified landlords are a common lobby decoration.

“If I rent at less than market rate, I am inundated with entitled, arrogant jerks who just see it as the chance to put extra spending money in their pockets. If I rent cheaply to lower income people I have trouble collecting even that amount or getting them not to wreck the place or getting stuck with deadbeat roommates after they leave.”

Yes, it is true in all walks of self employment that one should never trade at substantially lower than the market rate – or at least you should know what you are getting into if you do – because you will attract the least responsible or those that can’t really afford whatever it is you’re offering and end up much worse off. Far better to deal with competent intelligent people who know that there is such a thing as “markets”, “the economy”, “supply and demand”, and that workers have to make a profit at the end of the day.

Considering “landlords” used the evil usury system to get “property” and any people who used the fake money created by the rothschilds .
Fact is the same fraud of the banking is fraud by those who used it to get over their fellow countrymen “tenants” .

Let me guess you used the same evil usury system that killed america right?And now your bitching about the poor people who serve you burgers and such ? to get over on your countrymen ?
You are part of the filth that helps destroy peoples lives

No “landlords” take advantage by usury , in essence helping lord rothschild kill america.

No, you need to stop making payments too and get out of the way. Like most conservatives, low on structure and even lower in attention span. Try reading harder next time.

It’s a recipe for law and order, called home ownership. You have nothing in it but a middleman.

You act as though the house just popped out of nowhere, then the landlord “grabbed it” and forced someone to pay rent to them

That’s exactly what happened. The house was forcibly made empty (usually by illegal foreclosure), the landlord ABSOLUTELY GRABBED IT, did not occupy it himself, and extracted a position where it is even possible to “force” anyone to pay rent. Explain why mortgages are 3% but rents are 10%? That “spread” is called USURY, and it only happens when there is something wrong.

The beginning of what is wrong is the crony capitalist artificial “landlord statute” that subsidises special courts and law enforcement to support a blight on public morals, welfare, health, safety and the environment. Try “evicting” anyone when you have to pay $50,000 and wait 3 years like in normal court, instead of $237 filing fee and 6 weeks to eviction.

Nobody “paid” anything to acquire rental property, they just figured out how to game the system and get the mortgage subsidy, which most people don’t have the time or inclination to discover. Yes, you might be smarter or faster than the exploited tenants , but its short term profit against the loss for us all in public policy and it always leads to collapse or revolution.

It is absolutely a public “right” (power) to tax the rental license at any rate they see fit. You are not required to “rent” properties and collecting rent is nothing like a property right, it is an artificial statutory privilege. Typical bogus “conservative”, has no idea how the world works or any clue about his own subsidy at the public expense. Just entitlement and ideology made to fit narrow ambitions.

Wrong and couldn’t be more wrong. You have nothing in the property but a chance to use it or lose it, that it is the sum of all “rights”. A lease is an ESTATE IN THE LAND, it is NOT A CONTRACT and you are NOT ENTITLED TO COLLECT RENT. It only takes one signature to grant a leasehold estate, just like any other title. It doesn’t even take a signature, just letting anyone into possession makes a tenant. Nobody “owes” you anything, if you are meant to recover possession that’s on your own claim to priority, not somebody else’s debt or performance you have any right to expect. All you can do is make the place empty again, and go back to square one.

There is no profit or joy in real estate at all, this is completely backwards. Equity is only supported by inflation itself and the so-called “property” is nearly worthless, it just happens to have some latent building structure. We could all live in teepees with solar panels and be much happier. And the dumbest part is that all you really need to do is sell the place for what you can get to the tenants, instead of “renting” it. The only motivation is the spread between the discounted mortgage rate and the rental collection rate. It’s an unnatural, artificial investment about to wither forever.

You do not have any inherent right to let places out for profit. It’s “recovery of possession” or nothing. Welcome to your empty house, always a bad investment. Whatever you heard before, it’s wrong. All those nattering voices yarping about “real estate deals” and “investment property”

You have it all backwards: everything you just wrote is completely Judaic, Marxist and Semitic.

“That every man will rest under his own vine…” this is Biblical truth.

You think Marxists are trying enforce rents and landlords?? They are about abolishing capitalist property altogether, and putting the worker in possession of his field, the commoner into his house, the keeper into his shop, the laborer into his factory.

The problem with Marxism is State worship, instead of God worship. It is the Mosaic Law inverted out of fields and streams into a City. The more Jewish you are, the more Christian you will become.

I am in the UK. I’m just making the sober and sensible point that trading at below the market rate is bad for your business whatever that business might be since it draws in the wrong crowd. Your intemperance means that you run the risk of not being taken seriously by anyone.

A fair point, which is why I hedged by writing that felons “arguably” shouldn’t get the UBI.

You are absolutely right that there are too any criminal “laws” and too many felonies in the USA these days.

A fairer approach might be to disqualify only people convicted of repeat violent felonies (I.e. not drug “felonies” or technical regulatory “felonies”). You’d still have a decent rejoinder, though: if the person is so bad or dangerous that he shouldn’t get the minimum social support payment, he should still be in prison. If he CAN be released from prison consistent with justice and public safety, then he should receive the UBI with the rest of us, as his punishment is done.

I don’t see anything wrong in what this man did, nor do I begrudge him if he has accumulated some wealth over the years renting to his son and to others.

What would be wrong with a rent-control law that allowed him to make a modest profit and raise rent just enough to cover the increase in his own costs? The largest costs for most landlords, a mortgage loan and property taxes, are easily ascertained each year.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Biff, that “capital gains” should be taxed at the same rate as our salaries and wages, not given preferential treatment.

But I was a landlord for years, and my (meager) rental profits were always taxed by the feds and the State as ordinary income, not at the lower capital gains rate. And that was just fine, Do some US States tax rental profits as capital gains?

The wonderful writer Dmitry Orlov, in explaining how much worse it will be when the US collapses than when the USSR collapsed, pointed out that in the USSR people didn’t own their housing, the State did, which had no interest in making millions homeless, so they did not get kicked out of their homes. In the US, it’s happening now, that we not only have millions of new unemployed, but they’re losing their housing.

I hope we have enough old Communists still around to show us how to do things right. Old kibbutzniks too.

Yes, you evict the non paying tenant who is also probably hiding a 100 pound dog in the bathroom, letting 3 baby daddies, 4 cousins and her sister sleep in the living room, knocking holes in the drywall, and not paying the gas bill so the pipes freeze.

And, additionally, state provided medical care. As bad as it was for people in the post Soviet areas , by the population having security in housing and medical care, I think a lot of social chaos and worse was avoided. Would the US do as well under similar conditions?

Value is added via the production process; landlords add no value whatsoever. If a revolution were to turn renters into homeowners by transferring titles and abolishing bank liens and property taxes, no one would miss landlords.

My father worked blue collar his whole life, saved his money and when he retired bought a small 4-plex to have for rental income. He added plenty of value when he replaced the roof, painted every room, replaced the flooring, put in kitchen appliances and had new gravel put on the parking area.
He adds plenty of value when his renters leave in the middle of the night and he has to clean up the mess they left behind. He adds plenty of value when he has do deal with fixing the water damage when the tenant’s brats flush 10 rolls of toilet paper and stop up the pipes. He adds plenty of value when he gets the call at 1 AM and the tenant is drunk and can’t find their door key.

Most of the renters I have ever seen would be better off being spayed or neutered then placed in a home for the incompetent. I know society would be. Do away with landlords and these people are still going to be moving 4 times in one year (those utility deposits add up and if you don’t move the creditors catch up with you), have 6 jobs in 12 months (they run out of fast food joints and temp agencies after a couple of years), and use their EIC payment to pay off the loan they took to get their tattoo. (Yes, I have heard them say that. “You can pay your tattoo off with that free check!”)

No, you need to stop making payments too

Don’t know what this means, but it does fit right in with the rest of your delusions that don’t make sense.

It means stop making payments

what’s it like to be a retarded mental patient on the internet?

The point of my post, which apparently you missed, was that Biff objected to relief for renters in these days of Corona virus because he felt it would economically injure him. I suggested that if there was relief offered for landlords, I expected that he and other landlords would be agreeable to that, as that would economically benefit him. Thus, government assistance to others is more objectionable than government assistance to oneself.

Your own response is valueless expect to show your prejudices.

Which is worse for a society: an underclass without any sense of responsibility (the nightmare tenant you describe) or a propertied class that is terminally stupid (to which I’m inclined to assign you)? I suspect the latter.

Orlov’s point is that the USA will do horribly compared to the USSR. WWII was still in living memory, and yes, medical care etc., so many things were taken care of, that most people just kept at work, and muddled through. There was much more of a culture of teamwork, and “family” actually meant something.

In the USA right now we’re making millions of people homeless, and I’d really like to see a kill-the-landlord-set-up-a-co-op movement here. In the USA it’s everyone against everyone.

Orlov’s written a lot of books, runs an excellent blog, and has a lot of lectures on YouTube. I’ve got his Shrinking The Technosphere, and Five Stages Of Collapse, and intend to buy more of his books – they occasionally show up on sale on Amazon. His main point is that the US/Western culture is largely dysfunctional, that the Russian traditional culture and traditional cultures in general are superior, and that if you’re a decent person, he’d like to teach you about these things and let some Real American(tm) end up in the stew pot while you hopefully escape.

It means stop making payments

Whom am I supposed to stop making payments too?

Landlords don’t produce anything, but neither do massage therapists or college professors. They do provide a service, however.

Many people, for a number of reasons, do not want to purchase a home. Others cannot purchase a home. Some people were born to rent. If you know you are going to live in an area for only a couple of years, renting is probably a better solution than buying. If you just suck at saving money, renting may be preferable to buying because you know you are incapable of saving enough to make the necessary down payment. So you rent instead.

Some people really want to buy a home, but aren’t financially ready, so they rent until they are. Almost all home owners did this.

Some people prefer to rent so they don’t have to worry about repairs and maintenance. Let the landlord deal with it.

I’ve been a landlord for a while and it has been a huge pain. Collectively, I don’t think it was profitable at all. I’m slowly ridding myself of my properties. My tenants have definitely gotten the better end of the deal.

When you start out the rent you recieve is less than the mortgage, taxes and insurance you have to pay. But rents go up over time so eventually you are making more than the mortgage payment. However, you still have to deal with repairs, maintenance, and the occasional bad tenant. With one property, when I finally reached the point where the rent I was receiving was about $150 more than the mortgage, I had a bad tenant who lost his job but absolutely refused to move out. Of course he trashed the place. Cost me $9K to in court costs, missed rent, and repairs before I could put another tenant in the place.

What I’m getting at is that a big part of the service landlords provide is they take all of the risk, in the hope that the property will go up in value and they can sell it some day to fund their retirement. This is risk that the tenant doesn’t have, and often don’t want.

Right now I have a tenant who owns a restaurant. So he can’t pay the full rent. Not his fault at all. I am allowing him to pay less than 25% of what we agreed upon for now. The bank, however, isn’t giving me an real relief (They have a fake relief program. You complete a bunch of paperwork that is as hard as doing your taxes, and they give you one month of relief, which you have to pay back the nest month. It is really no help at all.). So being the landlord means the buck stops with you. Tenants can kick their problems up to you, but you cannot kick your problems up to the bank.

So can we stop picking on landlords? We are just trying to survive like everyone else.

Hey what about car rental companies. They don’t produce anything either. Can we throw them under the bus too?

Can we have gulags too? We can put the landlords in them, as well as their families. Oh the look on the landlords face when his daughter is raped by common criminals! (Actually happened in USSR.)

Many people, for a number of reasons, do not want to purchase a home.

True. It’s the AOCs of the world that believe they know what’s best not only for them, but for everybody- down to the fine details of any contract.

Three tenants together rent out one of my properties. And they are college students from out of state. Renting is clearly a better financial option for them than purchasing a property, which they couldn’t do anyway. Without the option to rent, they would probably not even have the ability to attend the college they currently attend.

Another property is rented to a family who want their kid to attend a highly ranked middle school the property is districted in. They may move out when their kid moves on to high school. Again, renting is better option. It also happens to be a super nice SFH, far better than apartment rental. They are getting a terrific deal; they may stay just for the place they have.

No regrets being a landlord. When housing prices increase I get to laugh at these clowns. When housing loses, these same clowns will say I got what I deserved (shrug). And if any of them could predict the market and had the capital to rent out a property knowing they get +++ returns over any other investment, none of these internet SJWs would have moral qualms. None.

Small-time landlords like you are, like i was, yes.

Big corporate landlords like mine, that is another story entirely. This corporation owns thousands of units and treats families like cogs in a machine, never satisfied with a reliable long-term tenant who makes them a good profit when there’s even more to be made — they are no damn good and should be brought to heel.

Perhaps landlords who own a large number of units should be subject to strict rent control and much higher taxes on their profits. These people are nothing like us, DLAM.

Actually your post was so devoid of reality that it was comical.

Notice, I did not mention a race or ethnic group, so any prejudice is yours and yours alone.

The tenants I described come in all races. Now run along and pretend you are an intellectual someplace else.