You getting down voted for this comment is a perfect encapsulation of what happened: the elites used the pandemic it concentrate wealth and destroy the small and independent business and capital owners, and then turned the lower and non-owner middle classes against these same people.
Gotta give it to the elites: they know how to manipulate things.
It blows my mind how people cannot see this is what has happened. No conspiracy theory needed - the rich and powerful just got a whole lot more rich and powerful by continuing to act like they do while everyone else was placed under effective house arrest.
Your mortgage includes a principal component that is your money. So you’re making money, just not liquid cash. House prices have gone up in the meanwhile. So you might even be ahead, no rents not withstanding.
All prices went up. Imagine a hypothetical where the op sells his property for an increased price, but the purchasing power is the same. Did he really gain? Also consider capital gains taxes in this scenario.
False, there's a certain cost just for a house existing.
Property taxes and insurance.
It's literally thousands of dollars yearly yet adds zero dollars to a properties worth and increases as fast as property values go up as they're indexed to property values.
It would be a really bad business if their rent could only cover interest, taxes, insurance, and maintenance i.e. expected change in equity is 0. If it covers principal as well, then it's merely a risky business as expected change in equity is positive (since the mortgage amortizes), but downside (foreclosure) is huge and likely.
In either case, it might still be a good _investment_ if the value of their equity appreciates - but as the other commenter notes, that's a very risky and inefficient way to get exposure to real estate prices!
I don't think you know what the heck you're talking about.
It's not a bad investment to cover the thousands of dollars that are required annually to maintain a house including property tax and insurance for the house simply existing.
And now the government is telling me I can't collect the income they require me to give them.
Then I don't understand. You said you don't make any money from your investment. So it's a bad investment, regardless of COVID, right? What am I missing?
The government is telling you that as a provider of homes to people, you cannot make them homeless during a global pandemic. This seems entirely reasonable and recalibrates the idea that properties are primarily homes, where people live, and not investments.
How was it fair before that someone else paid your mortgage?
Of course, investing in real estate can be considered thrifty, but the gap between those owning and those not is growing bigger every year. It's not sustainable.
It's called risk. You want the outsized returns of being a landlord? Then you take the risk that your tenants won't pay and you will be on the hook. You don't get a free lunch sorry.
The issue with your argument is the government chanced the eviction rules ex post facto.
Yes, the poster is taking the risk that they tenants cannot pay, but they also took that risk with the assumption they could evict them and replace them with a paying tenant.
Risk that you know you're getting in to is fair. Risk created by a sudden, unpredictable and unevenly applied (why are landlords the only investors getting the short end of the stick?) act of the government isn't fair.
Outsized returns...any idea what returns are for landlords? It only takes a single bad tenant to wipe out years of profit (speaking from experience). There is a difference between having tenants not pay and evicting them in 90 days (actual law)...and having tenants you can't evict and are told they don't need to pay for over a year (government changing law on the fly).
I'm not saying risk is not present but when the government can destroy a small businesses ability to make money with the snap of a finger like that but the big mortgage companies are still allowed to operate as business as usual and the government is allowed to continue to collect property tax as usual...
You're literally supporting the transfer of wealth to the big corporations from small businesses.
If you don't see something wrong with that then there's not really hope in talking to you.
But the big mortgage companies were allowed to continue to collect mortgages!
And the governments are still allowed to collect property taxes!
I don't make any money from my rental unit it just helps cover property tax insurance and my mortgage.
But I've been shouldering all of that and my tenant has been living for free for over eight months.
How is that remotely fair?