every mom and pop landlord I ever had - and I mostly was lucky enough to have this kind of landlord - could actually afford to not evict a tenant

mostly they aren't underwater because their property was a plan for retirement, they didn't count on being able to fleece people https://twitter.com/AndrewDLewis/status/1359241673553833984

the whole point of a property management firm is that you're going to leverage the money you invest into properties, you're going to get more in rent than you're paying in mortgage

it's a calculated risk and you count on being able to have a certain number of vacancies etc.

if you own one (1) property in addition to the one you live in, you wouldn't be able to afford it if a tenant moved out and you couldn't find another one for a bit

so mostly mom and pops actually own that building outright, or can afford to float it for a while

one of mine had a property in Germany where she lived and one in Colorado, which she rented out

that was income, for her, she owned the house outright and my rent was what she lived off of in Germany

property managers don't operate like that

she absolutely was prepared to keep herself afloat if I moved out of the property and she couldn't find a new renter for a while

so was the next landlady I had, and the landlord after that

it wasn't until I hit property managers that I started dealing with assholes

I've also heard a LOT of stories about mom and pop landlords who have a single property being SUPER NICE to their tenants during the pandemic, often letting them stay for free for months and months because they know we're all fucked out here and they can afford to do that.

If you only have one property, you're pretty prepared to do without that income for a while.

It's the ones who own 20 properties that are going to be fucked because they over-leveraged themselves. And WE SHOULD NOT BAIL THEM OUT.

They fucked up. They made a bad investment.

You have to be prepared for any investment to not give you any returns in a given year.

People who own tons of properties generally just believe they won't ever have to deal with that and they're fucking wrong.

Let them be wrong, they fucked up.

Mom and pops generally bought an extra property as a retirement vehicle and they were prepared for their retirement investments - ALL of their investments - to occasionally have a shit year. Including the rental property.

Property managers who over-leveraged should fail.

oh and just saying if those property managers fail? rent would get a lot cheaper because those guys are big enough to affect the supply and demand for an entire city

mom and pops aren't big enough to do that

every single large city is having a housing crisis right now and property managers failing would be great for that problem I'm just saying