Ownership

[WNYresident]

By Trolls:
ESP,

I agree totally...

ownership is THE KEY

even with PROBLEM tenants, you don't see these people smashing out their own car windows or cutting up their leather seats in their own cars

You ALSO don;t see them destroying their tv sets, computers, or other valuables

same goes for if they OWN their residence... suddenly they give a crap and aren't so inclined to trash the place...

Is it me or do people notice that others do NOT respect other peoples properties?

[Trolls_r_us]

as a tenant myself, I can concur

I myself ALWAYS treat the placed I've lived in with respect... NOT ONLY is the place MY HOME (and thus worthy of care and effort) but it is also somebody else's INVESTMENT....

I'm big on treating others the way you want to be treated, and so I go the extra mile.... I shovel snow for my neighbors who live upstairs, I cut the grass in the summer, I'm the one who takes the blue garbage thing out and back in every week....

I basicaly act as if I DID own my apartment... Not only do I want it to stay nice for me, but I would like to think that if I owned the place, my tenants wouls return the same courtesty to me....

LMFAO (at that last sentence)

As sick as it is, SO MANY people in this world care ONLY about their narrow swath of existence, and nothing else.

Respect? Right and Wrong? Morals? Dignity?

ONLY when it is convenient, and furthers the cause in some way.

This is why I think ESP is right on with the home ownership idea for the East Side (and really, ANY neighborhood)....

When people OWN their property, they TEND not to destroy it...

On the contrary, they almost always tend to IMPROVE IT or at the VERY least, maintain it, which would be a victory in and of itself

[ESP]

Not only are homeowners less inclined to trash their own properties, but they are more inclined to help keep their community safe and strong. Of course, not every single homeowner has that type of mentality, but the majority do. Especially those who have no plans of moving any time soon.

A few problems with renters can exist. The first being that they don't care about their community. They do whatever they want to do, wait for a landlord to evict them, then continue to stay there until the landlord forces them out (if the landlord is paying attention, that is.) Also, if the neighborhood gets too bad for their standards, instead of doing anything about it they start looking for a new place to live. Landlords eventually get sick of this (again, if they're even paying attention) and dump the house, leaving another eyesore for the community as well as the city to deal with.

Did you ever come across someone asking "Where do you stay?" I have... my reply is always the standard "I don't stay anywhere, but I do live here..."

Abandoned buildings are contagious. It's a disease amongst housing. It'll start with one abandoned house... no one wants to live next to it, so now you have one on either side of the original structure. Wash, rinse, repeat and you have what we have now.

How do we fix it? Start leveling these buildings or transfer ownership to someone who deserves them and wants to build their lives in them.

[Trolls_r_us]

absolutely

level the abandoned places so at least they can't be used for crackhouses and prostitution, among other things...

[LaNdReW]

I have always thought about picking one area of the city, and in this area, only allow landlords that live in the home. All residents in the area either rent from the resident landlord, or own their own home.

If that works well, and the area goes from blight to right, then start expanding it.

If you say thats not fair to the non-resident landlords, too bad.

You say its not possible to restrict non-resident landlords, yes it is, increase the tax for non-resident landlords.

I have seen too many areas go to crap after the non-resident landlords move in. When people don't know their neighbors, that is the beginning of the end.

I always thought that if a home has 4 units, it shoud pay 4x the tax of a single. It consumes 4x the services!

What do you all think of my plan??

[WNYresident]

I always thought that if a home has 4 units, it shoud pay 4x the tax of a single. It consumes 4x the services!

What do you all think of my plan??

They do pay more taxes to start with while using less services. THere's still only one sewer pipe, one stop for police etc etc etc

[LaNdReW]

Originally posted by WNYresident
They do pay more taxes to start with while using less services. THere's still only one sewer pipe, one stop for police etc etc etc

You are right, one sewer pipe, but you sewer fee is usually based on water usage, so 4 units that are identical, use 4 x the water.
They should pay 4x sewer fee. Same with garbage.

As for the police, lets say most people call the police 1x a year...well, if all units are the same, thats 4 calls for the police.

How about school tax, 4 sets of kids.... should cost 4x in taxes.

[Trolls_r_us]

I like your plan but I don't think its even legal, unfortunately

[WNYresident]

THey do pay more in taxes. Are not multiple dwellings valued higher so they end up paying more in taxes?

[Curmudgeon]

THey do pay more in taxes. Are not multiple dwellings valued higher so they end up paying more in taxes?

Yep. That's pretty ironic in a region that prides itself on being so "progressive", the taxman taxes multi-unit residential rental property at a much higer rate then homes. Of course, the landlord passes that cost onto the tenants in the form of higher rents. So, the poor people pay more than the richerhomeowners....

Just goes to show that WNY govt will tax anything it can get away with, and any pretense at political/social-justice philosophies (IE WNY Democratic delegation) has been forgotten a long. long time ago.

With prolonged rule comes rot and corruption.

Let's TAX the poor stupid renters! they won't figure it out!

Silly.

[granpabob]

the resident landlord idea sounds good until you try to sell your house and there is no one with the funds to buy it because they have to live in it. this plan would only cause more homes to be empty. 2000 abandoned houses are enough a resident landlord rule would triple that amount. many of these homes were bought for back taxes because the resident landlord could not pay for the house. the only people who had enough money already had a nice house.
your plan restricts investment in a city that needs any investment it cant get. all you need to kill the city are more rules restricting investment

[LaNdReW]

Originally posted by granpabob
the resident landlord idea sounds good until you try to sell your house and there is no one with the funds to buy it because they have to live in it. this plan would only cause more homes to be empty. 2000 abandoned houses are enough a resident landlord rule would triple that amount. many of these homes were bought for back taxes because the resident landlord could not pay for the house. the only people who had enough money already had a nice house.
your plan restricts investment in a city that needs any investment it cant get. all you need to kill the city are more rules restricting investment

We need Resident Homeowner investment...

All I know is that I have seen many neighborhoods fall apart. It appears once the absentee landlords come in great numbers, the end is approaching.

I guess I am not sure if they are the cause, or just opportunists there to pick the last of the meat off the bones of the neighborhood.

[biker]

I think you are confusing symptons with cause and effect.

With the many ills you ascribe to absentee landlords and restrictions you propose to curb this insidious behavior, you believe they cause the deterioration of neighborhoods.

They may be coincident. That is, in a declining area with too few buyers (as Granpabob alludes to), the absentee landlord buys when no one else will. Coincident with the deterioration of the other houses around him/her, he/she concludes there is little return from making their house the best in the neighborhood.

The absentee landlord, on the other hand, has been a convenient bogeyman for the past forty years. Neighborhoods begin to decline before they appear and continue to do so long after they decide not to participate.

And not one word, so far, about quick "flipper" real estate investors, like the sainted Frank Parlato.

[moonshine]

Right on Biker.

The academic world is quick to flick a middle finger at the guy providing living space to someone who would otherwise be living in a van down by the river. "Absentee Landlord" has become slang for "scum of the urban earth". It couldn't be farther from the truth.

[Boost Buffalo]

eliminating non-resident landlords? Lol thats some really shallow thinking. You want to eliminate the rental residential real estate industry? No more apartment houses unless the owner lives there? Good luck folks...get real.

That would put an awful lot of people out on the streets and an awful lot of buildings would become vacant, dont you think? How simple minded can you get? Lol

Its the liberal's approach trying to blame the businessman for the derelict tenants and the destruction these tenants cause.

I cant imagine how many well intentioned businessmen and women have invested their hard earned money into the east side over the years, only to find themselves facing impossible situations with unruly destructive tenants.

And the legal services provided by the ACLU and the like, defend these slugs for free and the courts go along with it. The result is the existing conditions of the east side.

Thats why intelligent developers will have nothing to do with it.