Forum Post: The wonderful silver lining to the housing crisis!
Posted 12 years ago on April 23, 2012, 10:17 p.m. EST by Pequod
(17)
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Several longtime renters I know have made moves into the housing markets. These are people who are prudent, save their money and have been able to buy homes for between $100-150 per square foot. Homes that sold for $175-250 a square foot before the crunch.
Its also putting downward pressure on rents. A smart, organized frugal tenant can now leverage his good credit into rent abatements or very tiny rent increases. Its very difficult to raise rents on a solid credit worthy tenant when their replacement is likely to have a foreclosure or bad credit history.
There are consequehces to all activities. Propping up homeowners who are in foreclosure denies a new buyer the chance to pick up a home in his honest price range.
The only reason there is downward pressure on rents currently is because the average landlord lives in your community and personally owns the property.
When these banks engage in widespread (and frequently illegal) foreclosures, they are centralizing property ownership.
You know how you can rent two similar houses in the same neighborhood for vastly different amounts of money? Maybe one has a pool or a garage. Maybe one has a fenced in backyard. Maybe one landlord absolutely won't rent to people with pets, but the other one thinks that pets encourage stability.
You know how you can get basically the same quality of insurance for vastly different rates? No? The rates just go up and up and the quality of care keeps declining? Hmmm.
I don't think that you understand that the temporary benefits you speak of will change when banks and private equity firms organize as the worlds largest, most pervasive landlords. Right now renters have rights because the courts have ruled time and time again that your home is your castle, and even if somebody else holds the title to the property, they can't evict you without notice or enter your home without permission or any number of other things that landlords used to do when they would specifically prey on weakened members of the working class, like Irish and Italian immigrants.
Do you really want the same people who engineered the foreclosure crisis to be your landlord? How would you like monthly inspections of your property, inside and out? How about punitive cutoffs of your utilities if your rent is late? What about the right to do as you wish with your own home? 'I'm sorry sir, your 200 gallon fish tank is a clear flooding hazard and I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to remove it within 24 hours.' 'I'm sorry ma'am, this property is slated for no more than 2 occupants. Since you have recently given birth, we're going to require you to upgrade to a 3-5 person occupancy unit.'
You still seem to think the tension lies between the haves and have-nots at street level. Unless your new buyer is paying for the house up front in cash, they will have to deal with these same banks. The vast majority of the people who are losing their homes aren't irresponsible with their money. They are victims of predatory banks doing all kinds of financial shenanigans to accumulate property.
The whole housing pricing scheme is 'what the market will bear'. The reason banks aren't trying to control cars and electronics markets is because we all CHOOSE those things. If they can control heat, food, housing and information, they control the people.
You are arguing that there is a wonderful silver lining to them controlling the housing.