JW

@inababi @moseskagan @missmayn Hello there. I’ve been in real estate, commercial and residential, for 25 years. You are absolutely, 100% incorrect. A gain beats a loss. A small loss beats a large loss. Even after taxes.

@moseskagan @missmayn Paper losses. plenty in OC commercial RE run this play. don’t act like you don’t know this either.

i'm only about 25% done mapping all the commercial vacancies in downtown LA. it would be so cool if we had anyone in leadership who gave a shit about this.

@SinaiLawFirm Does Matthew Desmond realize his Evicted book ended up hurting renters all across the United States? Bad ideas, bad policy, and bad outcomes.

Bad eviction and tenant protection laws are a bigger impediment to housing construction in Los Angeles than zoning reform

@moseskagan This is why data on homelessness is so awful in academic studies. The researchers find the one sober person out of 1,000 to tell their life story (evicted). The drugged and insane are ignored and not data points.

"Now sir, I've compiled this list of six reasons you should move out of the tent where you are currently smoking fent with your... Sir? Sir? Are you awake?"

Imagine trying to get crazy people off the streets *by reasoning with them* It's like something out of Kafka

@LAbutyeah @latimes The 751 other people on skid row were folded on fent or passed out and therefore unavailable for the photo shoot.

@latimes You managed to find the most wholesome homeless people for the cover image.

Under L.A. mayor's $300-million homeless program, 40% have returned to the street latimes.com/california/sto…

@CoachMarcusHill This might be true at some little leagues, but 100% false at others. We had five ex-D1 guys who coached in our little league, and one guy who coached D1. I was the low man with only DIII experience. Practices were fast paced and the kids did great.

If you think travel baseball is killing little league baseball I encourage you to attend a local little league practice and you’ll see little league baseball is killing little league baseball.

@goatpurple1 @SinaiLawFirm Three months behind on rent, then discovers mold in the shower.

@SinaiLawFirm Aren't 95% renter fails to pay, gets irrational n sees self as victim ?

Every news story about an eviction leaves out crucial details and it’s always just half a truth When you look into case files the real story comes out and it’s never that special or exciting

@OffThePress1 Abolishing eviction means you are calling for the abolishment of rental housing.

🚨WATCH: Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) claims "eviction is an act of violence."

@pjtrivisonno @MattSeedorff The 75 other people in this encampment who were strung out on meth or in a fentanyl fold were unavailable for comment.

LAFD Station 11 firefighters say they’re the busiest in Los Angeles… possibly the nation. Across from a USPS site overrun by trash and homelessness, and just two blocks from MacArthur Park, crews estimate nearly 80% of calls are tied to homelessness. During our live shot with @MarlaTellez, the nonstop calls were impossible to miss.

@jaymart222 The idea that some of these bedrooms are not being sublet illegally for profit is incredibly naive.

There are literally thousands of 3,4,5.6 old bedroom apartments in the rent stabilization system renting for as low as $200 per month per bed currently occupied by renters who inherited them who are single renters. Let me know when we actually care about righting housing size for families. Until then it will take the rest of our natural lives to build enough multi bedroom units to scale of need based on current building costs.

@jaymart222 Debt service and capital expenditures are outside the conceptual universe of politicians and the media. Anything more complicated than “income” and their eyes glaze over. It’s sad that so few understand what it takes to properly maintain an asset for the long run.

If you are like me and not a conspiracy theorist, hearing and seeing a government “board” put out data that both sides have called inaccurate can make you suspicious that any of these accusations are being honest. But here is the truth. The rent stabilization system has never been designed as an affordable housing program. Because of that, it carries deep structural flaws in how it views and collects the data on the health of the housing it regulates. 1. The data is two years stale. The RGB uses RPIE filings from the NYC Department of Finance, which means the “2024” study is actually built on 2023 expense data — and with the lag in how DOF trends values, some adjustments reflect conditions from 2022. 2. The 6.2% headline buries the geography. NOI rose 10% in core Manhattan but declined 0.1% in the Bronx; adjusted for inflation, it is a 4% loss. Hunt’s Point specifically saw NOI fall over 13% before inflation adjustment. The RGB is reporting a citywide average that is being driven by luxury Manhattan buildings with deep market-rate unit mixes. That number has no bearing on a 1960s walkup in Mott Haven. The data also conflates fundamentally different building types. Newer buildings that include affordable units in exchange for property tax abatements have higher revenues than, in part because the older buildings have fewer market-rate units to offset the regulated ones. When you average a 421a building in Long Island City with a majoriry stabilized pre-war building in the South Bronx, you get a number that accurately describes neither. 3. NOI, as the RGB measures it, excludes the two biggest threats to building survival: debt service and capital expenditures. NOI is an imperfect measure of profitability; it doesn’t include debt service and, at least as the RGB measures it, major capital expenses. A building showing positive NOI can simultaneously be unable to service its mortgage and deferring every capital repair. The DOF data also caps expenses arbitrarily they are measuring curated numbers not actual numbers. 4. In 2023, 28% of surveyed CPC loans had a debt service coverage ratio below 1.0, meaning NOI failed to cover debt payments, up from 11% the prior year. A DSCR below 1.0 means the building is technically insolvent on a cash flow basis. That’s more than one in four buildings in a single major lender’s portfolio. The RGB NOI figure tells you nothing about this. 5. Buildings that are majority rent-stabilized saw NOI increase only 2.5%. An increase. Great, right? Wrong. It’s already been wiped out by fuel costs from this winter's spike. These are the oldest, most vulnerable properties in the Bronx/Brooklyn that house the lowest-income tenants, and even before accounting for debt service or capex, their income will fall. 6. The average sales price of 100% stabilized buildings in 2024 was $175,225 per unit citywide and just $112,023 in the Bronx. Investors price these buildings on projected cash flows. When fully stabilized Bronx buildings are trading at $112k per unit, it isn’t because they are profitable, as the “Fiscal Policy Institute” suggests. 7. Expenses have structurally outpaced rent increases for years. From 2019 to 2023, expenses for rent-stabilized owners grew 12.3%, while RGB 1-year lease adjustments rose 8.56% and NOI grew just 3.72%. Insurance costs in pre-1974 buildings rose 145% per unit since 2019. To suggest otherwise is either out of ignorance or malice. The RGB NOI number is not a lie per se. It’s a selective truth being weaponized to justify a rent freeze in a city where the rent-stabilized housing, especially in legacy Pre-74 buildings, is in genuine structural distress. Using a citywide average that’s two years old, has averaged expenses from the DOF that are not reflective of reality, ignores debt service altogether, and is inflated by newer tax subsidy buildings all to set policy for Bronx and Brooklyn housing built a century ago... is mandating affordability without paying for it.

@CohenSite @odyth Except it is totally self contradictory. You can’t make it impossible to evict non-paying renters while simultaneously asking developers to build rental housing.

@odyth She literally released an entire housing plan today. Get with the times.

What's nice about working for Nithya is that she's as big of a housing nerd as I am

@SinaiLawFirm @adamcarolla rich man/poor man: pissed off about his eviction

Do you want to know why rent is so expensive in LA? Why the application process takes so long? Why landlords want so much info from you? Here is a recent story: A family was referred to me for their eviction case. They were heading to a jury trial in one month and didn't have a lawyer, yet. They did all the paperwork and filing themselves, in-house to save on legal fees. And surprisingly, they did a great job. They filed the paperwork with LAHD. Gave proper notice to the tenants. I reviewed their paperwork and it was better quality than 90% of other eviction lawyers. I didn't see any viable way to dismiss the case on a technicality. As long as they were properly represented in trial, the family was going to win the eviction. They did everything by the book. Followed all the local rules. Gave all the necessary notices. The family told me the judge ordered the parties to mediate at the first court appearance. The family attended the mediation in court without a lawyer. The tenant was provided a lawyer by the city, for free. At the mediation the lawyer for the tenants offered this settlement: 1. 4 months to vacate the property 2. Cash to leave, paid upfront 3. Waiver of all owed rent 4. Sealed record They rejected the offer, of course. Why would they accept this? The family then asked me a great question. "What is our best case scenario with you in trial?" Based on my review, I gave them my most realistic estimate of the best case scenario in trial: 1. Both parties announce ready at the next trial date (1 month away) and trial takes 3 days. We win the trial. 2. Sheriff locks out the tenant 75 days after the trial. 3. about 110 days to possession. 4. Gave them an estimate cost for fees/prep time. 5. No viable collection of back rent, tenants had no assets. Obviously, this was the best case scenario. It could be worse. Trial can be delayed. While I was confident we are going to win, juries are unpredictable. This is where we had a surreal moment of collective clarity. The settlement offer they rejected is basically their best case scenario if they win the trial. This was not a coincidence. The attorney for the tenants asked for pretty much the same amount I quoted them for my fees. The lawyer for the tenants knew the family had to hire a lawyer for a jury trial. The lawyer knows it takes the sheriff 2-3 months to lockout after a judgment. The lawyer knows it's hard (and expensive) to collect against tenants with no assets. State and local government created a system in which cases take forever to litigate, eviction laws are extremely complex and technical, easy to dismiss cases, only one side has to pay a lawyer, and worst of all, possession enforcement takes 60-90 days instead of 5. And it's all getting worse. The leverage for the tenants is systemic. It's by design. Why would the tenants make any other offer? The landlords are left with no real options but a shitty settlement. There are no real choice. Even when you do everything right, you still lose. Tenants don't pay rent during evictions. They had no viable way to win the trial. There were no habitability issues. The landlords posted all the notices. Never raised the rent. Didn't retaliate. The landlords did everything right. And the tenants still win. The mother looked at me and asked "our base case in trial is the same as the shitty settlement offer? Are you telling me we should have taken the offer we rejected?" I didn't know how to respond.

@conor64 Conor- if you have access to the LA Times, search their archives for Covid and “ocean mist”. Once u find the article you’ll laugh then cry.

A question for everyone: survey data suggests that by the end of the Covid-19 emergency trust in public health institutions had decreased significantly. If you are among the people who reacted that way, why specifically? I'm hoping for long, diverse, individualized answers.

@conor64 The moment that public health asked us to mask up between bites, I was completely done listening to those imposing the lockdown. But it was a slow drip of senseless, arbitrary and unscientific gov mandates that ruined all public health credibility.

@goatpurple1 @realitybasedlaw Hey @evictionlab any comment?

@realitybasedlaw yup and over all it just drives rent higher - honest renters end up paying for deadbeats in the end a given trial can cost 100,000s dollars (2 sets of lawyers, court costs, etc)

The purpose of providing eviction defendants free attorneys isn't to win trials. They rarely do. The purpose is to make it so expensive and time-consuming for the landlord to win that they back down. They'll give up all the back rent, pay the defendant to leave, seal their record, and sometimes even sign a false reference so the defendant can scam a new landlord. Your tax dollars at work.

@realitybasedlaw Thank you Matthew Desmond and @evictionlab. They’ve done untold damage to renters and the providers of rental housing by making things more expensive for responsible renters. Hurting those they intended to help. Terrible.

@ENPancotti @MikeFellman @Groundwork The solution: expand density and allowable building heights on existing multifamily. End affordability requirements. Done.

.@MikeFellman and JW Mason are out with a new report for @Groundwork today. The upshot: Yes (and) in my backyard. The rent is too damn high, and zoning reform just isn’t enough to make investments pencil out.

@archibaldcrane @moseskagan @mattyglesias @nithyavraman Every city but you’ll need a Time Machine to get back to the years between 1960 and 1990.

@moseskagan @mattyglesias @nithyavraman What cities in California have housing owner/operator policies that could be emulated?

@PeterMallouk @dillonliam

Rents dropping across the country…

@SahilBloom Coincidentally, perhaps the negative health consequences of the over-use of high alcohol hand sanitizers?

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis said a lack of handwashing was the source of high mortality in a Vienna maternity clinic. He was ridiculed, dismissed, and died in an asylum. It makes me wonder: Who is the Semmelweis of today? What ideas are ridiculed today but consensus in the future?