Small Landlords are choosing to sell

[Nathan Gesner]

More Landlords are choosing to sell, and I can't blame them.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/2...

[Joe Splitrock]

Originally posted by @Nathan Gesner:

Originally posted by @Aj Parikh:

“So if you happen to be in a jurisdiction that allows you as the property owner to work on behalf of your resident, to be an advocate, to get those funds into their hands as quickly as possible, then you’re going to be much more successful,” said Robert Pinnegar, president and CEO of the National Apartment Association. “If you’re in jurisdictions that have taken an approach that is not so customer service friendly, then it’s going to take longer.” 

I am in Fairfax County, VA and we have a landlord assistance program but the requirement is that the tenant has to sign a form and submit pay stubs. I don't know how any tenant who has not been paying rent would help out a landlord to get funds. For example, my tenant has not paid rent in the past 3 months and has refused to answer calls, texts or emails and has not followed any of the notices we have posted on her front door.

That's exactly it. The current system requires the Tenant to participate. Since a large percentage of them are capable of paying rent but simply refusing to do so, this doesn't help the Landlord.

Simple fix: Create a government affidavit that must be filled out by the Tenant to show they are suffering a hardship due to COVID. They attach any supporting documentation and authorize the Landlord to use the information to apply for assistance. Landlord uses the form to apply for assistance. Any renter failing to pay rent and failing to fill out an affidavit is still subject to eviction.

Problem solved.

 Slow down, we can't actually solve problems. We sure can't solve a problem with one paragraph. Here is the better approach:

1. Have politicians debate it for months.

2. Pay people to study the issue.

3. Have politicians debate the issue more.

4. Draft a gigantic bill to address the issue and include a thousand unrelated things in the bill. (Mostly payoff for political supporters).

5. Allocate billions to the solve the problem.

6. Repeat steps 3-5.

7. Have the media write articles about how the problem is evil business owners. Make people argue with each other, so they don't see the real problem. This prevents the naïve masses from realizing the politicians are the problem.

8. Politicians run for re-election and offer to solve the problem. They blame the other party for not solving it and offer to fix all your problems.

9. Go to step 1 and repeat the cycle.