Prickly City by Scott Stantis for January 19, 2024

tRump’s strike again, did the new furnice get removed because it was not working (no one turned it on) Mr. Trump made his opponents out to be millionaire plutocrats, “people of great wealth.”

And also whiners.

“Let me tell you something about the rich,” he said in one interview in the midst of the battle. “They have a very low threshold for pain.”

Could it be you don’t have a job?

During the past decade, private equity-backed firms such as Greystar have stormed into the multifamily apartment market, snapping up rentals by the thousands and becoming major landlords in American cities, according to ProPublica’s analysis of National Multifamily Housing Council data on the nation’s biggest owners of apartment buildings with five or more units.

Private equity is now the dominant form of financial backing among the 35 largest owners of multifamily buildings, the analysis showed.

In 2011, about a third of the apartment units held by the top owners were backed by private equity. A decade later, half of them were.

Private equity-backed firms in the top 35 cumulatively held roughly a million apartments last year, the analysis showed. That is likely an undercount, because private equity giants like Blackstone, Lone Star Funds and others don’t participate in the National Multifamily Housing Council’s annual survey.

Private equity firms often act like a corporate version of a house flipper: They seek deals on apartment buildings, slash costs or hike rents to boost income, then unload the buildings at a higher price.

The influx of private equity comes during a national affordable housing crisis and has dire consequences, tenants and their advocates say. Such firms use economies of scale to more aggressively squeeze profits from their buildings than traditional landlords usually do, tenant advocates say.

The firms’ tactics can include sharply increasing rent or fees and neglecting upkeep. Sometimes landlords force out existing tenants and replace them with those who can pay more.

The companies’ size allows them to influence market rates and lobby against reforms that could dilute their power.

And their goals — quickly hiking a building’s profits so they can sell it at a premium — are often at odds with those of the tenants who need to live in them.

~

Propublica

When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord

Is this a rerun? New rents are falling fast.

Bidenomics!

The rich guy bought it with his republican tax breaks for rich republicans.

Door Dash for coyotes!

How did they break your lease?

Bunnies prefer indoor beds. They’re pets

The rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed.

Hugh Hefner tried that with the Playboy mansion.

On today’s DMZ Stanti doubles down on his ignorance of the Middle East and especially Iran and declares that Biden’s imminent loss in the New Hampshire primary as a result of not applying for it will be a “catastrophe” for his re-election bid……………………I’m submitting that the N.H. news will only be news in Op-Eds across the nation’s dwindling newspapers and for political talking heads, 80% of Americans not being able to identify that state on a map vs Vermont…………………………..or Estonia.

For a coyote that would be an all-you-can-eat buffet

“Well heeled bunnies” Guess who will make an appearance!