I was talking to my family's property manager yesterday. He said that this is the worst time for landlords he's seen in his life. Renters are living for free in houses they don't own, and are being backed up by far-left city governments who have put "freezes" on evictions and rent due to the virus. Sorry, but do you put a "freeze" on arresting burglars just because a lot of people are stealing flat screen TVs all of a sudden? No? Then why stop evicting people who are (quite literally) stealing other people's houses from them? Landlords-- who, by the way, are not generally very wealthy-- are suffering more from this virus than any other demographic group. They're being forced to live off of rents that are reduced up to 80%, and if they put even minimal pressure on rentoids to pay a reasonable amount, their renties can just say they won't pay at all. After all, there's no risk for them if they miss rent one or ten times. It's practically impossible to evict people in California these days, because the state has made it clear that it sides with criminal squatters over property owners.
Leftists destroyed this country's housing market with habitability warranties, zoning laws, rent control, and high taxes. Now they're acting as though the free market caused the housing shortage that came about as a direct result of their inept mismanagement. We're currently fixing up a house in San Francisco that we own, but at this point it might be worth more to us if we keep it off the market (as we've done for the past five years). If we try to rent it, we'll either end up with section 8 getting forced on us or we'll spend years trying to find trustworthy people to live there who won't immediately stiff us on rent and force us through a years-long eviction process. At least by keeping the unit empty, we'll be able to maintain it at its current market value rather than have sixteen poor people move in and immediately turn it into a dump.
r/LoveForLandlords is leaking
