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Comment by ilarum | Hacker News Reader

It is not a moratorium on rent payments. Just on evictions.

Speaking from Oakland CA here where the eviction moratorium is one of the most intense in the country. I think most renters who opt not to pay during eviction moratoriums suspect that being brought to court for rent arrears is akin to squeezing blood from a stone.

My lawyer advised me to negotiate rent to an amount my tenant can pay stating, "the only way you'll be able to collect is by a future collection action, and many times those types of judgments are worth about as much as the paper they're printed on."

I say this all to try and drive the point home, a moratorium on evictions is akin to an implicit rent reduction or rent elimination.

To be fair, in many places (including the SFBA) you could get a rent reduction just by asking these last few months. My rent was knocked down significantly because we asked (and circumstances were reasonable), and I know of people on month to month leases who got reductions by threatening to move out.

Anecdote time: My tenant said they were denied unemployment. They never tried to negotiate the rent. After 4 months of nonpayment when Oakland formalized my ability to offer them a "Covid19 rent reduction" which wouldn't affect their lease'd rent price on an ongoing basis I gave them a 20% reduction. 7 months later I still haven't received a dime.

I finally decided to look them up on LinkedIn—turns out they used to be a property manager, something I'd overlooked during my background check. I think they just know how long the rope is right now, and how my hands are tied, so they're using the system to their advantage ¯\_(ツ)_/

Or... They actually were denied unemployment and their prior employment has no bearing on their current situation except that maybe they understand the fine print a little better? And you going out of your way to make negative assumptions about your tennant is a great example of why people think landlords are jerks?

It's not like avoiding rent is a good deal for renters. They get out of paying for some number of months, yes, but they then face the likely prospect of both eviction and being unable to find new housing in the near future, which is an extremely harsh disincentive.

While there are always edge cases, I really doubt any significant number of people who can afford to pay would even consider taking advantage of this.

They might not have a choice wrt paying vs not paying: some parts of the United States have chosen to cure a headache by decapitation, and are still shut down.

serious question... what's the difference? If people can't pay, and can't get evicted, is it not equivalent?

When you get evicted on Jan 1st you'll owe even more than you do now!

how it affects your credit score?

Probably terribly - but in the US your credit score isn't federally managed so they'd need to nationalize Equifax or try and force business practices to do anything about credit scores.

I'm not sure why the fact someone can't pay rent, shouldn't factor into their credit score. Even with the moratorium, it means they are piling up debt in missed rent payments without income.

Credit scores are a really terrible system, my score was absolute trash when I went to buy a condo since most of my transactions use debt cards and paying with cash - I avoid debt like the plague and thus I am considered to have a really poor credit score. When it comes to loan "worthiness", or whatever the measure is, lenders want to know if you're likely going to be able to repay the loan - exceptions happen and right now Covid is (hopefully) a gigantic exception that we'll eventually move beyond.

You're still on the hook for your lease etc. That's why they could actually kick you out for other reasons (ex: not paying electric).

No, because if you don’t pay you can still be evicted the moment the moratorium is lifted. Landlords can still do everything in the process up to actually kicking somebody out.

The moratorium also notably doesn’t apply to people who can pay, but just choose not to.

Debts are still accruing. Landlords will still have the ability to pursue payments in the future. This does nothing but restrict landlords from kicking people out of their homes.

It might lower payment rate (if an eviction isn't coming those folks may put their money toward more immediate issues like healthcare/food). But it will also decrease overall revenue for landlords - someone who isn't able to pay their rent can't be evicted and theoretically replaced with someone who can... then again I'm not certain how many folks are moving apartments right now.

>It might lower payment rate (if an eviction isn't coming those folks may put their money toward more immediate issues like healthcare/food).

It is tough to feel bad that landlords might have to temporarily sacrifice their profitability so their tenants don't literally starve to death. Comments like this are just telling on themselves that they care more about the financial health of the home owner class than the literal health of the renter class. Once again, this doesn't change how much a tenant owes. It just removes the ability to kick a tenant out. Courts will work to resolve these financial disputes once we are over the pandemic.

You are incorrect - I care deeply about the well being of those renters and I don't give a hoot about the large rental managers - those corporations can absorb the temporary slow down in revenue. I care about those tighter margin managers of property that will be out of an income if renters can't continue to pay rent.

The economy is like a big giant circle of life, some parts are terrible, some parts can withstand a lot of business, but if momentum starts to die then we're all in trouble. I'm also not advocating for a full re-open I think that's more damaging in the long run, I'd support diverting money from some of the big government sinks (i.e. defense spending) to help social issues in the short term, Boeing and folks have enough of a war chest to withstand some short term losses.

You certainly aren't showing compassion to renters when your first response is to criticize a move that you admit allows people to prioritize buying food and healthcare over rent. Where are in the middle of an emergency. When in an emergency you respond with triage. The first step is to identify the most urgent and time sensitive issues and address them before moving on. Stopping evictions is the first step. We shouldn't make perfect the enemy of the good.

Honestly - the fact that people in America are commonly forced to choose between rent and food is the problem. You folks need to fix that first.

I think the moratorium is a good idea but I think a better idea is subsidizing rent needs with continued stimulus checks.

We are in agreement with the only slight quibble of "fix that first". Using that triage example again, we need to get the patient's heart beating again before we worry about changing the patients diet to address their heart disease. And sometimes a defibrillator is the "better idea" but you don't always have one available and CPR is better than nothing.

I disagree - I think the US has plenty available to subsidize the economy - rather than having mortgage payments be frozen why don't you just freeze the DoD budget and redirect that money toward economic subsidies - a hundredth of what the DoD eats in a year would float all the social services for like a decade.

Hiding behind the DoD being "politically untouchable" is cowardice when 200k folks are dead.

There are two different components to that. Would it be politically possible? And would it be effective ?

The answer to the political feasibility question is a straight no. There is not going to be political support to redirect DoD funds to direct stimulus payments to the population. We can't even agree to print new money to pay for more stimulus checks. This basically kills this conversation until at least November.

Whether it is practical is a more difficult question to answer. You were the one who brought up the whole economy is a circle of life idea. That DoD money doesn't just disappear. It goes to buy good and services and it goes to pay people. Abruptly stopping those payments would cause economic problems just like stopping people from paying mortgages. I would even bet that the multiplier is higher for DoD spending than mortgage spending based on the recipients of the money. Would this mean that DoD spending is better for the economy than mortgage spending? I honestly have no idea. Although I do agree that this country should reduce DoD spending and increase spending on social problems long term, it isn't as easy as making an immediate transition in the middle of a pandemic.

> Landlords will still have the ability to pursue payments in the future.

I see you have never tried to collect on a debt. The expected repayment rate for these rent debts is probably going to be single-digit cents on the dollar.

For people who truly cannot pay, yes. But a person who could pay, and chooses not to so they can take advantage of the moratorium, would be recoverable.

This does nothing but restrict landlords from kicking people out of their homes.

Good. Do you know how many more people died in the 1918 flu pandemic and the Irish famine due to not having housing?

All that death could've been avoided.

> the Irish famine due to not having housing?

An often overlooked, but important, aspect of the Irish famine is how landlords and the ever increasing subdivisions of their property[1] brought about the conditions for the famine, and how evictions afterward[2] hastened the deaths of already starving people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Tenants...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Evictio...

Yep. This is why history is important to learn.

People arguing this is authoritarianism clearly don't have to worry about going homeless during all of this.

There is a reason Vietnam is doing so much better than the US while being far more dense...

I'm sure folks are going to pay their rents on time... Just sure of it /sic

When people are able to do the right thing they tend to - there isn't a need to be pessimistic about humanity in general.

Why would I evict someone if they are paying their rent? I mean I suppose there are a few cases when that happens, but by and large non-payment is the primary reason for eviction. I'm glad I don't own any rental properties right now. I figure the bank would not be happy if I told them I'm not going to pay until I get paid, even if "debt is still accruing".

Yea a family member of mine manages properties and they don't have great margins to begin with - this moratorium might end up forcing a lot of small businesses to be folded into the large property management companies and those guys are pretty terrible.

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