Moving in 2 weeks-- zero luck finding an apartment that allows a three year old child and a small dog! (Boston: how much, buy)

[GeePee]

To the point I was trying to make:
Lying to a landlord and then in turn trying to get the upper hand by throwing the book at them is a scum move.
Not all landlords are millionaires trying to screw people. Some are just trying to make a buck like you and I.
Be upfront about your situation. Just as they should to you.

[bigfatdude]

Originally Posted by Dm84

You're being ridiculous but whatever.

How am I being ridiculous? That's exactly what's being advocated here, hiding the fact there will be kids living in the apartment to get the lease signed, then forcing the landlord to delead. That is one of the big reasons rents are so damn high here, MA laws are pro-tenant to the point of being absolutely ridiculous and landlords are pricing in all the potential bull**** they'll have to deal with.

[Cantabridgienne]

Originally Posted by Hollytree

Renters do not understand things from the perspective of a landlord.

Perhaps all those who would force landlords to rent against their own ideas of who they wish to chose as tenants in their properties should become landlords for a year. I predict a quick change of outlook.

Landlords who want to skirt housing laws shouldn't become landlords in the first place.

[Dm84]

Originally Posted by Cantabridgienne

Landlords who want to skirt housing laws shouldn't become landlords in the first place.

Exactly. All this sympathy for the plight of the poor beleaguered landlord is ridiculous. If you haven't done your homework on your obligations as a landlord, you shouldn't become one.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by Dm84

Exactly. All this sympathy for the plight of the poor beleaguered landlord is ridiculous. If you haven't done your homework on your obligations as a landlord, you shouldn't become one.

Hmm not sure you have really thought much about a city where nobody wants to ever buy or rent out a house. Providing housing is a service at the end of the day. In an actually competitive market, bad landlords would be punished by nobody wanting to rent from them. In this current distorted market (impossibility of building anything due to red tape, high costs and corruption, in general) there is no incentive to be good. Using the law to force them to raise prices is also a bad idea. Or at least it doesn't solve the root cause.

It's not a mystery or unexplainable phenomenon how prices work.

[bigfatdude]

Originally Posted by Dm84

Exactly. All this sympathy for the plight of the poor beleaguered landlord is ridiculous. If you haven't done your homework on your obligations as a landlord, you shouldn't become one.

Landlords are not obligated to accommodate fraudsters. You do not get go to a dealership, pay for a Corolla and drive off in a Lexus. And similarly, even if you want a Lexus dealer isn't obligated to sell it to you if someone else offered him more or made the sale more profitable in some other way. Same goes for all other goods and services, including housing.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by bigfatdude

Yes, people who try to scam themselves a Mercedes at Yugo price are scumbags. Telling the landlord you have kids and need the apartment deleaded in advance then signing the lease once it has been priced accordingly is perfectly fine, but anyone who lies, signs the lease on an apartment priced according to its current dilapidated state then spring precious little Brayden on the landlord and demands full deleading and hotel accommodations is definitely a scumbag. And that is exactly what some of you clowns have been advocating.

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

Hmm not sure you have really thought much about a city where nobody wants to ever buy or rent out a house. Providing housing is a service at the end of the day. In an actually competitive market, bad landlords would be punished by nobody wanting to rent from them. In this current distorted market (impossibility of building anything due to red tape, high costs and corruption, in general) there is no incentive to be good. Using the law to force them to raise prices is also a bad idea. Or at least it doesn't solve the root cause.

It's not a mystery or unexplainable phenomenon how prices work.

The law doesn't say anything about granite or stainless steel. It says that landlords are responsible for lead abatement for tenants with children under six. Some landlords get around this requirement by illegally refusing to rent to tenants with children under six. As long as they aren't stupid about it, there isn't really any good way to prove discrimination, so they can continue to get away with what is an illegal practice.

Since there is de facto discrimination against people with children, the supply of apartments for parents with children is reduced. This pushes up the price. These landlords are able to charge a premium, even beyond the additional premiums expected from things like granite and stainless steel.

Let's say the AG decided to prioritize prosecution of this type of discrimination. Aggressively enough that landlords no longer risked the sort of back door discrimination you've advocated (i.e. denying tenants with families, but citing other reasons), then the market would change. Landlords could keep renting unabated apartment for until a child moved in and then they'd be forced to abate. There would be no premium abated apartments could charge because all apartments would effectively (either before or after the costly abatement) be safe for children.

Now you like to talk about supply and demand, but then you use arguments based on cost. Cost only comes into where the supply and demand curves meet in that it reduces supply. You've already pointed out that supply is pretty much pegged. It is currently almost completely insensitive to price. This is great for landlords, because as demand has gone up, so have prices. Quite a bit. Forcing landlords to abate when necessary would only have a minimal effect on supply (unless you think they'd rather just keep their apartments empty or sell to an owner/occupier). Hence the prices wouldn't really go up much, at least not for abatement (if there's still increased demand, prices will continue to go up).

As an aside, the advice to discriminate but find other, acceptable reasons to deny someone in a protected class only works if there isn't evidence to suggest that this is what you are doing. If I were a landlord engaged in this sort of behavior, the last thing I'd do is to advocate this strategy on the internet.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by bigfatdude

Landlords are not obligated to accommodate fraudsters. You do not get go to a dealership, pay for a Corolla and drive off in a Lexus. And similarly, even if you want a Lexus dealer isn't obligated to sell it to you if someone else offered him more or made the sale more profitable in some other way. Same goes for all other goods and services, including housing.

They are obligated to accommodate families with children. You seem to think they aren't and that discrimination is acceptable. Discrimination is just hard to prove. It still isn't legal. There's a big difference.

[bigfatdude]

So you're saying they're obligated to rent to a family with children even though there's 30 other more profitable and trouble-free renters without children competing for the same apartment? That's very interesting to say the least.

[CaseyB]

If you don't want to rent to families with kids you'll have to advertise the apartment by word of mouth not to the general public.