“I Can’t Pay the Rent.”
“I can’t pay the rent.”
“You must pay the rent.”
“I can’t pay the rent.”
“You must pay the rent.”
“Anything but the rent.”
“Anything?”
“I’ll pay the rent.”
“My hero.”
“Drat. Foiled again.”
My kids used to play this scenario between the fair maiden and the dastardly landlord and the unexpected entrance of Dudly Dooright. It always brought laughter with little understanding, I’m sure, as to what “anything” could mean. Now here we are for real as one in 10 Americans say they can’t pay their rent or mortgage this month — about the same as last month, according to a YouGov survey of more than 8,740 US adults.
“I Can’t Pay the Rent.”
As a result of the renters’ dilemma, we have the beginnings of a movement to absolve people of their obligations. Read what one magazine said: “In the past six weeks, over 30 million people have filed for unemployment, a figure that makes this the worst joblessness crisis in U.S. history. Keeping in mind that most Americans don’t have enough emergency savings to last three months, it feels cruel to force people to pay rent month after month amid a cataclysmic crisis, when there’s no income coming in. Here’s another: “…a burgeoning movement nationwide is calling for a more comprehensive measure: #CancelRent.
And hear this from Congress: “With tenants and housing rights advocates organizing across the country for state and local rent strikes, Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for state and federal rent cancellations during the pandemic. “People can’t pay. You cannot coerce someone into doing something that they cannot do. There is no money in the bank,” said the New York Congresswoman. “People need to feed their kids. We cannot be evicting. We need to be making sure that we are passing policy that allows people to stay in their homes.”
The proposed bill called the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act will include full forgiveness of missed payments with no impact on renters’ or homeowners’ credit scores, a relief fund for landlords and mortgage holders, and efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing options.
This is Bad News for Owners of Rental Property.
“At its core, any property’s price is capitalized annual rent. Rents will fall if unemployed workers cannot make the payments on their homes, or if commercial businesses go delinquent due to a lack of trade. The actual and expected fall in rents, thereby leads to a decline in property values.”
This is an elementary point and one not lost on a publication that sees itself as “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture,” and has the very catchy slogan, “Reason in Revolt.”
If we don’t get businesses open soon and American workers back to work, we can expect more agitation and lower property values. The middle class and the poor will be screwed once again as big investment funds with at least $300 Billion are waiting for real estate to crash so they can buy up the bargains vomited up by those who can no longer make their rental and mortgage payments.
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