Most of the time, you're very lucky if you can find a Mom & Pop rental. They very often have souls, and ergo, consciences.
When you rent an apartment, even in a small building with just 4-10 units, and the landlord has you make out the check to 'such and such Realty' or '...LLC', then you know your landlord is not running a simply 'mom and pop' operation. ;-)
Glad that bailout came to the rescue of the job creators. They couldn't have wished for a more perfect crisis.
2
The Billions that went to the Investment Houses after the 2008 Collapse was spent gobbling up properties. They should have gone bankrupt, as did millions of individual homeowners, who lost their houses. Shame!
8
Talk about a rigged system--real estate is one of the biggest. We need laws to limit how many buildings a landloard can own, we need laws to make them live in the same city in which they own rentals, we need laws to limit rent increases, we need laws to stop nevictions for no reason such as we have here in California, and many more laws. IT is a growth industry at the expense of the working poor who pay through the nose for a place to live in sometimes conditions that mimic a prison. You can do this or do that but you can't do this or that. A home should be a home and of course, there should be recourse for landlords for bad tenants. Cities should also be building housing and rent can be used to stabalize income for current expenses.
And mom and pop can be crooks too so there needs to be at least a watchdog for all this business. Just reading about 40$ cases of water in Houston confirms that SOME people are pure scum when they take advantage of people in distress.
And mom and pop can be crooks too so there needs to be at least a watchdog for all this business. Just reading about 40$ cases of water in Houston confirms that SOME people are pure scum when they take advantage of people in distress.
2
What do you bet that rental corporations will swoop into Houston to buy up a lot of flooded homes for pennies on the dollar, fix them up and rent them out while home owners lose their nest eggs as they get stuck in this catch 22 to rebuild or take a deep breath and absorb the losses. This is just another example of corporations getting richer while the poor get poorer.
14
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. It's called 'disaster capitalism.'
8
It's beyond obvious. They started around 2011 or so, buying up the distressed foreclosures from the housing crisis. Now it is a BUSINESS MODEL.
In my own, very humble Midwestern suburb -- hit unusually hard by the foreclosure crisis -- we used to be an area of owner-occupied homes. No more. My street of 55 houses used to have ONE rental property -- a duplex, where the owner lived on one side and a tenant on the other. Today, about 1/3rd of the houses are rentals -- most are Section 8. It has utterly changed forever the character of the neighborhood.
In my own, very humble Midwestern suburb -- hit unusually hard by the foreclosure crisis -- we used to be an area of owner-occupied homes. No more. My street of 55 houses used to have ONE rental property -- a duplex, where the owner lived on one side and a tenant on the other. Today, about 1/3rd of the houses are rentals -- most are Section 8. It has utterly changed forever the character of the neighborhood.
7
That has always happened. Isn't that what happened with the dust bowl? That plus the rise of machines led to industrial farms.
1
We wanted to be Mom and Pop landlords but the business is tough is you only have a few units. Laws are set up to favor the renters (understand the public good in that, but we still have to pay the mortgage and taxes on the property) and it can be time consuming when you are holding down another full time job. We sold one rental property this past year and now we only have two rental units left. We would love to get out of the business altogether. Meanwhile, the AirBNB folks and the sober home folks are making bank by flouting all laws, zoning and preying on the addicted. I've been approached by the sober home folks to rent one property but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I'm creating a nuisance property in my own small city and that there is a high likelihood that there is drug dealing, drug doing and eventually drug overdosing and death on my property. Besides the risk exposure I just can't morally do that to my town.
15
but we still have to pay the mortgage and taxes on the property) and it can be time consuming"
NO , your renters were paying the mortgage and taxes that you collected every month and also boosted the value of your nest egg over time as the payment went more toward principal. You need to do due diligence and rent to people with no criminal record who have jobs etc. That is your half of the deal.
NO , your renters were paying the mortgage and taxes that you collected every month and also boosted the value of your nest egg over time as the payment went more toward principal. You need to do due diligence and rent to people with no criminal record who have jobs etc. That is your half of the deal.
2
My husband and I owned ONE rental property for about 14 years. What a headache! and while on paper we made a small profit -- enough to pay TAXES on it! -- in fact, if you subtracted OUR LABOR (which you cannot do for IRS purposes), we were making like 15 cents an hour.
Doing chores at the rental house took up all of our weekends. And every tenant that moved out, left behind a god awful mess -- just heartbreaking. We'd clean and repair and paint, and move in a tenant and 2-3 years later, they left (often in the dark of night with no notice). And by the time we regained entry to the house, we were in tears and shock at the destruction -- broken toilets, a new stove set on fire and thrown in the back hard, ruined flooring and filthy carpets, huge holes in walls, kitchen counters so crusted with food and dirt that it had to be chiseled off.
The aggravation alone was taking years off of our lives. We sold the house (with difficulty; it was in an inner city neighborhood) and just missed the foreclosure crisis -- thank god almighty. We made a tiny four-figure profit on the house at the end. After the foreclosure crisis, the house lost 90% of its value! We drove by a few months ago; our house and all the homes on that street have been bulldozed by the city.
Doing chores at the rental house took up all of our weekends. And every tenant that moved out, left behind a god awful mess -- just heartbreaking. We'd clean and repair and paint, and move in a tenant and 2-3 years later, they left (often in the dark of night with no notice). And by the time we regained entry to the house, we were in tears and shock at the destruction -- broken toilets, a new stove set on fire and thrown in the back hard, ruined flooring and filthy carpets, huge holes in walls, kitchen counters so crusted with food and dirt that it had to be chiseled off.
The aggravation alone was taking years off of our lives. We sold the house (with difficulty; it was in an inner city neighborhood) and just missed the foreclosure crisis -- thank god almighty. We made a tiny four-figure profit on the house at the end. After the foreclosure crisis, the house lost 90% of its value! We drove by a few months ago; our house and all the homes on that street have been bulldozed by the city.
1
Nope, if the tenant is not paying us then they are not paying the mortgage and taxes. That is the whole point. Most of the laws are renter friendly and it can take 3-6 months to get a tenant out after they stop paying.
4
Everything in the US is becoming 'corporatized'. Everything.
14
Jim--In Houston, the corporations are still expecting their renters to pay, even if their rental in inhabitable. Unbelievable.
Everything is becoming corporatized in America. Everything.
16
Rents in most big cities have started falling with too many luxury rentals chasing too few renters. This also coincides with the Fed raising interest rates, disappearance of foreign investors and a slowdown in IPOs.
http://nypost.com/2017/05/18/rents-in-sf-and-4-other-cities-are-plummeting/
The collapse of the rental bubble may trigger its own version of the great recession.
http://nypost.com/2017/05/18/rents-in-sf-and-4-other-cities-are-plummeting/
The collapse of the rental bubble may trigger its own version of the great recession.
4
Unfortunately, artificial factors like QE and ZIRP "ended" the recession and housing crisis prematurely -- before they genuinely bottomed out.
Therefore, things are completely back to the old, 2003-2007 levels of speculation and price gouging and inflation. It will not end well.
Therefore, things are completely back to the old, 2003-2007 levels of speculation and price gouging and inflation. It will not end well.
2
I've been a landlord since 1987 in the People's Republic of Massachusetts. I've seen it all in 30 years, but the principals of success remain the same; 1. treat the customer with respect; 2. Take care of your property; 3. keep your prices reasonable. Do this and you will be fine. 3-5% of your tenants, at most, will create all of your headaches and drama. The vast majority are just seeking a peaceful home. It's not rocket science and if you purchase your properties correctly, a realistic 10-14% on your cash is quite achievable.
15
MA is a commonwealth.
2
Interesting article. But a comparison after the 2007/2008 events might make a more startling result. I understand that investor groups swept up a lot of the foreclosed mortgages during that debacle.
11
our current treasury secretary was one one of them, 35000 people got the foreclosure notice , he got filthy rich, married some stuck up movie dame and so it goes. There are new American jobs growing all over the nation---making pitch forks.
4
Real Estate agent here in Portland told me 45% of the residential sales are to investors, causing housing prices to be artificially high.
12
I'd say that is a lowball estimate. It's over 50%. And investors can just be a regular person trying to make a profit by flipping houses -- as they see on HGTV. Or they can be Berkshire Hathaway, which does this a LOT. Many realtors are "investors" on the side, with an unfair advantage as they get "first crack" at underpriced fixer uppers.
I knew things were going to blow up, the first time in 2014 when I saw a house flipping TV infomercial -- those had been big in the early 00s, but after the 2008 crash, they disappeared. I thought they were gone forever, but here, after only about 5-6 years, they were BACK. And nobody seemed to see that was problematic! or how many were burned in just such "get rich quick" scams!
I knew things were going to blow up, the first time in 2014 when I saw a house flipping TV infomercial -- those had been big in the early 00s, but after the 2008 crash, they disappeared. I thought they were gone forever, but here, after only about 5-6 years, they were BACK. And nobody seemed to see that was problematic! or how many were burned in just such "get rich quick" scams!
Very difficult business today with people from all over the world with different languages, business practices, cultures etc. You need many rentals to cover legal issues,shortfalls,s damages and issues inconceivable in the USA 30 years ago. I made money as a young landlord 83-86(my 27 yr old peers called me Trump ironically) and then gave it back and six times as much from 87-97. My lawyer still can't figure out how I kept my own house. I was stiffed every way from sunday and they just laughed. I have to laugh when i watch a classic movie and the tenant says to a doorbell/phone "That's the landlord, what are we going to do".. These days that would be laughable. The sad thing is that even though my rent was rarely paid (5 units) when we cleaned the apartment we found dozens of bills with shutoffs etc and NOBODY was paid. Nobody with a job and family should even think about being a landlord
9
You don't spell it out, but the problem is that today, tenants have so many "rights" -- and landlords have NONE -- and it is next to impossible to evict tenants in a timely manner. Therefore, they have 3 to 6 months OR MORE in some areas, where they know you want them out -- so they do not pay ANY rent -- and often destroy the home to "get even" with you.
My tenants all thought my husband and I were "rich" because we owned ONE rental house (my husband's former home, which he had bought from his great aunt). They would say this to our face: "you don't really need the rent, because YOU ARE RICH!" which was hilarious -- we earned no more (and sometimes less!) than our tenants did!
Evictions are expensive and take forever, and usually in the process, your property gets trashed. Yet you have no choice; a lot of the time (especially in dodgy neighborhoods), tenants simply don't or can't pay the rent....they know they have a few months in which to live rent free. Some seem to even plan it this way.
My tenants all thought my husband and I were "rich" because we owned ONE rental house (my husband's former home, which he had bought from his great aunt). They would say this to our face: "you don't really need the rent, because YOU ARE RICH!" which was hilarious -- we earned no more (and sometimes less!) than our tenants did!
Evictions are expensive and take forever, and usually in the process, your property gets trashed. Yet you have no choice; a lot of the time (especially in dodgy neighborhoods), tenants simply don't or can't pay the rent....they know they have a few months in which to live rent free. Some seem to even plan it this way.
2
Looking forward to the entire United States economy eventually being controlled from soup to nuts by a great corporate American 'vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.'
It was a nice country.... before the rentier became incorporated.
It was a nice country.... before the rentier became incorporated.
30
Yet another industry now to be taken over by algorithms, always seeking the optimal market value, and this time we know how it will end. This isn't hamburgers, or shoe stores, where another place will always compete. Where can renters go? Growing up, we were always told that a responsible person spends 25% of their income on rent. Try that in San Francisco or Manhattan...it's more like 60% for a common working person.
Algorithms look only at the bottom line. They don't factor in any aspect of the human element. Just look at Houston today, where hard working Americans are being charged rent on ruined homes that are completely under water, and they're being charged late fees four days after a Hurricane!
Last year it was only their mortgage that was under water!
Algorithms look only at the bottom line. They don't factor in any aspect of the human element. Just look at Houston today, where hard working Americans are being charged rent on ruined homes that are completely under water, and they're being charged late fees four days after a Hurricane!
Last year it was only their mortgage that was under water!
20
Renters can just not buy the rent and then go through the eviction process. Texas courts are anti-renter, but this hurricane may change courts' attitudes.
Home owners can let the banks foreclose. That meas a mark on their credit, but it is better than buying money for a ruined house.
Walking away is the best option for Texans; that is why we allow bankruptcy.
Home owners can let the banks foreclose. That meas a mark on their credit, but it is better than buying money for a ruined house.
Walking away is the best option for Texans; that is why we allow bankruptcy.
5
San Francisco was considered cold and cheap a few decades ago. That is why the hippies camped out there. NYC was cheap back in the 70s when you would get robbed or shot over a pack of gum. Alphabet City anyone? I don't think their transformations were the work of evil geniuses. I think it was money trying to buy "cool". It never works but we wind up with gentrification.