Big discussion on (website that shall not be named)/r/landlord about landlords massively increasing credit requirements, massively increasing deposits, and even leaving units vacant if a perfect tenant cannot be found. All in response to the draconian eviction moratoriums that have outsourced welfare without consent and hammered landlords with the unfunded mandate of supporting freeloaders.
This year of "free rent" is going to cost the poor a lot more than an 2020 eviction would have.
There are people that aren't worth renting to and I don't blame landlords for not being careful. Let's lower rents and get better tenants, win/win for both parties, instead of trying to get the most and getting someone that defaults.
That's what I did and so far so good.
I can tell you've never owned a rental. Lower rents get lower quality tenants. Even a $100 difference can put you in a whole other tenant class. Quality tenants know what a good rental costs. They're not even going to consider looking at a place that's below market because they assume from the price it's not up to their standards. There's always a reason cheap rentals are cheap.
The big problem is that there are good, decent people who are low income, but there are also extremely shitty people who are also low income. This is a direct result of "multiculturalism."
If only 1 in 10 out of that tenant class is a piece of garbage human, it ruins the whole pot. In reality, it's closer to 1 in 5, or even 1 in 3.
What this means is that we now live in a country where cheap rent means living in a dangerous, drug-infested shithole - and you have to pay top dollar to even live someplace safe and clean.
Selling "garden court" style apartment complexes (10 to 30 unit) in a lower middle class part of town really opened my eyes. Almost all sympathy I had for the poor evaporated. The ratio is more like 9 out of 10. I want to be clear that these areas were not "the hood," and none of these complexes were section 8.
These people weren't poor because of some external factor. They were poor because they were shitty people - as someone euphemistically put it, "poor lifestyle management choices."
In a typical 20 unit complex there were two brand new cars, no doubt financed at 23% interest with monthly payments close to their rent. At least half the rest of the cars were 5-10 years old, also, no doubt, financed at 23%. Most units had a HUGE TV (this was when a 55 inch TV would run you $2000-30000), no doubt also financed. Most of the units were filthy - not just cluttered, but several days of dishes in the sink, despite the fact that almost every unit had a dishwasher - and kitchens and bathrooms that had clearly not been cleaned since they moved in. These people were pigs. At least 1 out every 10 units was a literal toxic waste hazard of filth and animal waste everywhere (despite the "no pets" clauses in the rental agreements). One memorable tenant had 14 ferrets in her one bedroom apartment, and another had four large dogs - all acquired AFTER he moved into the apartment a few months earlier. You had to repaint almost EVERY unit after a tenant moved out, and, about a third of the time, replace the carpets. There were also at least a dozen minor repairs that the landlords would have been happy to repair any time, if the tenants had only let them know. In every unit there was at least one unit that had to be pretty much completely gutted because the tenants - in only one year - managed to completely destroy it. Replacing a kitchen or bath subfloor and floor because of a minor leak that had been allowed to persist for a year or more was not uncommon. The landlord would find about the leak only because the tenant below would complain about a stain or water dripping from their ceiling.
A lot of these units wound up being sold by the family that had owned and managed it for years with pride of ownership (they did their best to keep the places clean and in good repair) to literal slumlords whose mottos were all "fuck the tenants."
Wow, that's crazy. Based on my interactions with people in the lower classes over the decades, their behavior is very consistent with what you describe. This is why we can't have nice things.
I think I my political compass just ticked a bit further to the right.
I've rented from quite a few people and one of the first who went from lower middle class to multi-millionaire's policy was to lower the rent and have his pick on who he wanted to rent to. I rent extensively, much, much more than most people (apartment, corporate rentals, vactions and then some) and I could save money and haggle over shit, but working with a good landlord is phenomenal and there's nothing better than a good tenant/landlord relationship and positive word of mouth.
One of my landlords I loved wasn't able to show her property, but I happily showed it to people for her as I was moving out and both the renter and landlord loved me for it. I had the opportunity to drink for free many nights from the new tenant when he was bartending, but he was such a great guy that even if he wasn't charging me I was going to tip it and then some.
Keep pretending you know shit and counting every fucking penny. As the saying penny wise/pound foolish.