All Forum Posts by: Shawn L.

Amen. the new mobile layout looks terrible when using BP on a desktop. example: 

Trending Real Estate Forum Discussions | BiggerPockets

Not intuitive. How do i jump to the last post instead of clicking the thread, then scrolling all the way down to select the page number i want? (especially in the discussions I've already posted in/been in before) It also doesn't show the next trending posts page, unless you manually modify the link address and add "popular?page=0" to 1,2,3, etc. The whole thing looks like an alpha version release at best.

At least there was a button to switch back to the old view. No mas. 

Yeah, I get that. But you're imagining that expensive markets have a rigidity they don't really always have. The smaller the geographical area we're discussing, the more likely potential renters will be willing to go out of the area and drive further to find lower rent in the event of a major market disruption.

Let's say you're a grad student, and your regular rental is in downtown Pittsburgh within walking distance from Dusquesne University. It's going to cost $1600/month to rent a two-bedroom there, more for two one-bedrooms, the apartments are tiny, there is coin-operated laundry in the basement, the apartment buildings are run by professional management that care deeply about cutting corners and maximizing the take per unit.

A pandemic comes along. Your mom is going to want you to be living in a less populated location, in an apartment or house less exposed to COVID, yet with services in place if things go wrong. So, since she's in real estate and knows the area rather well, she looks six miles out along the main travel arteries and finds this spacious 2-bedroom apartment in a duplex run by an on-site landlord. Snaps it up for her daughter and her friend, at a price that would be a steal if the apartment was next to the university.

COVID threw a wrench into the walking-to-campus-every-day plan. The market changed suddenly and drastically.

Now the 1-bedroom sky-high student rentals downtown with the grudging service are hurting while the students six miles out are discovering it's much nicer living over a handyman on call who obligingly wires their apartment for ethernet. By January of that academic year the two students are locking down occupancy for next year.

Yes, this is exactly what happened to me. What were thought to be normal market conditions downtown next to a small, private school died a quick death last year, and I suspect I'm going to be renting my upstairs out to Duquesne grad students who spread the word to their friends for the rest of the time I own this duplex.

Shawn, I'm not calling Greg out. I am pointing out that there's a ceiling on what high-priced residential rentals can bring in and still be viable over the long haul in a variety of economic conditions. You invest in more modest properties, you have a higher chance of riding out the unstable fluctuations of the economy. You invest in expensive residential properties, you have a higher chance of the economy riding you during those unstable fluctuations.

Riding you hard and putting you away wet.

Only trying to point out that S8 isn't a viable business option in every area. FYI, the $3200 unit isn't that nice. It's just in an extremely desirable area. 

I've checked S8 rents over the years and they always seem to be behind. I don't know if it is because LA is so big that they average it out from awful areas to the nice areas or they are just clueless, but it always seems to be 10%-30% below the current rents in the decent (not great) areas. Probably why there are so few units that S8 people can rent. 

At the same time, I see people from other states that say that S8 pays more than average rent. 

Viable business model for some, but not others...

I have a couple problems. First, the pandemic was never as bad as they made it out to be and shutting down the entire country was the unnecessary cause of this entire problem. Second, whether you agree with my first point or not, some people were hurt through no fault of their own and someone should step in to help.

My main problem is with the latter. The government is terrible at determining need and they screwed up by giving the money directly to the renter instead of the Landlord. A recent study in Washington showed that over 12% of the renters that stopped paying rent did not experience any reduction in income and were making over $100,000 a year. Those are the numbers based on a voluntary survey! I suspect over half the non-paying renters are fully capable of paying rent but refuse to do so because they see it as free money. This leaves the Landlord to suffer.

In the end, more mom-and-pop Landlords will sell off. Corporations will buy up the properties. Renters will have fewer choices and will be less likely to qualify because of their non-payment history and the fact that larger corporations actually know how to screen risky renters.

Any time government fixes something, it's guaranteed to cost far more than it should and is unlikely to succeed.

We already have the infrastructure in place to have been able to handle direct-to-landlord payments (Section 8). It would have been relatively simple to take 100 or 200 or 500 billion of that money, send it to HUD and allow tenants/landlords to certify loss of income and pay the tenants that way until the pandemic was over.

@Greg M.since you recall numerous accounts of seeing such news, would you mind sharing just a couple? I would disagree, and hence my wish to warn others.