What do you think about Tenant Unions?

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Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes

Here's an article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...

With rent rates increasing dramatically, a housing shortage around the country, and new generations that feel entitled, I suspect we'll see more of these.

I find it interesting that the go on "rent strikes" and stop paying rent. How is that successful? In my state, a tenant can only withhold rent if the Landlord fails to maintain the rental. Even then, the tenant has to follow strict guidelines. If my tenants just stopped paying rent because they disagree with the market rates, I would evict them. Unless you're investing in a liberal area like NY or LA or Portland, I just don't see how this would be effective.

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Sean McKee

Rental Property Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2017 · 266 posts · 188 votes

I'm all for tenants having reasonable protections against bad landlords. However a lot of the tenant unions have a very different interpretation of "reasonable" than most property owners. Because of this I don't think there will be much middle ground in the fight over housing.

In my opinion tenant unions often have misplaced objectives. Most of their efforts don't actually focus on the actual problem of a lack of affordable housing. Rather, many of their objectives are aimed at creating restrictive and punitive laws on current property owners. The sad thing is many of these new laws make it much harder for smaller landlords to do business. They are less inclined to give second chances. Since smaller landlords provide a lot of the affordable housing units, this makes even harder for the tenants the laws seek to protect to find housing.

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Eric Bilderback
Real Estate Agent · Sisters, OR · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
4y
@Mary M.

Thanks for engaging,

Do you think that if every schmuck who owned real estate was a great landlord, but was getting rich from owning real estate NPR would tone it down their landlord hating? I don't believe that for second. The wealth that has been created for owners of assets like myself is a consequence of "easy money", and if I was a tenet I would be pissed because it isn't fair. They get stimy checks and I get to buy real estate with fixed debt at less then 3%. NPR hating on landlords is hating the players not the game. The financial engineers/central planners are to blame for this wealth disparity is responsible for forcing working class people to get on a hamster wheel they will never be able to exist, in my humble opinion.

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Cody L.
Rental Property Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes
4y
Originally posted by @Kenny Dahill:
I'm confused, how would a union help them negotiate with larger landlords? (I don't have WSJ access). The only way I see that being accomplished is if the union guarantees a high occupancy rate and backs the tenants rent in case they fail. If it's simply to protest rent rates, they're already at a weakened position once they've signed a lease.
I empathize with tenants having their rents increased 20-30% in the last 2 years. That's a massive pill to swallow. Not to mention the demographic hit the hardest are typically lower income. And it's only going to get tougher.

I empathize with tenants that have seen rents increased 20+% too. Except when I see that my property tax bill is 25% higher. My insurance has doubled. My utilities are up 20%. My labor and supplies are up 20%. When all those rents go up across the board, it's going to be reflected in rent rates.

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Kenny Dahill
Investor · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 731 votes
4y
Originally posted by @Cody L.:
Originally posted by @Kenny Dahill:
I'm confused, how would a union help them negotiate with larger landlords? (I don't have WSJ access). The only way I see that being accomplished is if the union guarantees a high occupancy rate and backs the tenants rent in case they fail. If it's simply to protest rent rates, they're already at a weakened position once they've signed a lease.
I empathize with tenants having their rents increased 20-30% in the last 2 years. That's a massive pill to swallow. Not to mention the demographic hit the hardest are typically lower income. And it's only going to get tougher.

I empathize with tenants that have seen rents increased 20+% too. Except when I see that my property tax bill is 25% higher. My insurance has doubled. My utilities are up 20%. My labor and supplies are up 20%. When all those rents go up across the board, it's going to be reflected in rent rates.

I agree that it'll reflect in rent rates. I don't pay utilities for properties. Typically, I only raise rents when my property taxes go up significantly, which they have been as you indicated.
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