If you were a tenant......

IMHO many folks who have been working for some period of time and have zero to very minimal savings has likely acted financially irresponsible. Now that's their choice and it's fine as long as it doesn't affect others.

It all comes back to living within your means. Can you afford 1 kid? 2? 3? The place your living? Can you afford the gym membership, pet critter and take away coffee? The holidays? New car on credit? Maybe yes maybe no.

People need to be responsible for their actions. Sure government will help. But the whole reliance on government is just nonsense imo.


So many folks make selfish financial decisions it's just ridiculous.

 

But how long will that last for? 6 months? 9 months?

 

I'm renting and have investment properties. If my tenants stop paying rent then so will I. I'd apply for jobseeker and deal with it once life gets back to normal.
Work is already suffering and i do have some emergency funds. But you just do what you have to do. If you dont have an income, rent wont be top of the list especially when you have kids. If there was a choice to make between food and rent, that's an easy choice to make.

 

Its 1100p/p is it not?

 

By far the best answer.

 

Agree.. I think some chickens may be coming home to roost

 

Shaking my head at this scenario....

As others have mentioned I would
1. negotiate something with my LL and pay what I can
2. Cut back on all discretionary spending
3. Reflect on how never to get in this situation again
4. Buy a copy of Barefoot investor (as a start) and set up some savings buckets
5. Set myself a budget of spending a minimum of 30% of my income on rent in the future

 

Plenty! But it would be a much cheaper property.

Even with the normal payments, it's affordable, so long as you move west, or south west.

 

Haha, yeah, I wanted to encompass a person (family) with expensive tastes, but no real substance as far as assets were concerned. There's plenty living in upmarket units in Sydney/Melbourne that could easily fit this scenario.

 

I agree with the sentiment and struggle to see how people get themselves into these avoidable situations but the question relates to what would you do now, in this scenario.

Maybe the family breadwinner had a reasonable paycheck and matched thier lifestyle to it. They foolishly had no contingency but that is academic now because it's too late.

They are stuck in a place they cant afford, with no paid employment and no landlords here have so far said they would take them on with nothing to rely on but a stretched centrelink budget and probable debt to the last landlord.

If that highish paying job looks set to resume as soon as things start again, suggesting they move city suggests you may not be entirely engaged with the reality of the situation beyond your own world.

 

1) Nobody has said they wouldn't take them on. I've got plenty of centrelink tenants, and while you do have to be careful, some make very, very good tenants.

2) No need to move city either. Just further out of the City & then do the commute once they get established again. Plenty do it.

 

Obviously the scenario requires a few reasonable assumptions but broadly...

If they are still in arrears to a previous landlord would you take them on?

They are in a financial pile of crap, can they afford to move and pay a new bond before receiving the old one - if they even do.

If they think they will be back working business as usual in the next couple of months do you really think they will shift the kids out of school and re start life in a new area for the sake of saving a bit on rent for a couple of months? Infact, the moving costs might even exceed the rent savings anyway (remeber this is being viewed from the tenants perspective)

It would be easy to say yes of course they should! Unless you have been in that situation yourself, you might not appreciate that falling short on rent is not thier highest priority right now.



The solution would be too have lived within thier means, but it's too late for that now.

 

If that highish paying job looks set to resume as soon as things start again, suggesting they move city suggests you may not be entirely engaged with the reality of the situation beyond your own world.[/QUOTE]
The assumption you made with this comment suggests your not in reality. Instead of changing your life style, lowering your standards to what you can afford, getting another job or moving to a cheaper location Your only solution you see is to move somewhere where you can maintain your lifestyle.

 

The assumption you made with this comment suggests your not in reality. Instead of changing your life style, lowering your standards to what you can afford, getting another job or moving to a cheaper location Your only solution you see is to move somewhere where you can maintain your lifestyle.[/QUOTE]


Moving to a cheaper location is not without expense, if there is a family involved that expense may not be insignificant.

Furthermore if a family is involved there are non financial considerations too.

If the lost income is only expected to be tempory anyway, is it reasonable to expect them to further upend thier lives when the rest of it has already fallen apart?

If you genuinely think the rent shortfall is thier greatest concern right now, you are out of touch.

It might be your greatest concern as the landlord, but the thread title is 'if you were a tenannt.......'

I am a Tennant in similar situation, only I dont need my income to get by unlike the scenario above.

 

The question was " What would YOU do?" if you were put in this situation. We are not talking about a fictional family. We are talking about your family & what you would do in this situation.

Me? I'd move. The rent at $800pw is way to high for someone to pay on my new (fictional) reality. To make it affordable I'd only be able to pay half of that, and that is way too much of a reduction to expect my LL to be able to cover.

The hurt would be so deep, that I'd make a concerted effort to make sure that I was never placed in such a scenario again.

Think I'm out of touch with reality? Step over to Somersoft & read my interview.

In tough times, tough decisions have to be made. Sometimes those tough decisions are the best decisions you will ever make.

 

I would be open about my negative situation with the LL (that tens of thousands of people are likely in) and negotiate a lower rent. There is wave of rental stock coming on the market from converted AirBnB's so I am likely paying an elevated price based on yesterday's market.

Moving is basically a last resort for families as it upends kids schooling and relationships (let alone yours as a parent). So I would seek all options before it.

The Government wants to minimise people being outside to reduce the risk of outbreak. So they are trying to get everyone on board with, in their words, "hibernation". If you are an employer "don't fire your employees", if you are a bank "don't call in your loans", if you are a landlord (retail or residential) "negotiate", if you are anyone "minimise your presence in public". We should all expect to take a hit in one way or another.

Being a fiscally responsible person who has an ample war chest for days like these I don't like that some people live to the edge and then receive assistance on my taxpayer dime. I have friends that have lost their jobs and know families whose businesses are defunct for the foreseeable future. But hey they are likely super stressed right now and if we don't support these people struggling we will all be in a world of hurt.

 

If there was no expectation of me returning to a position where I could pay for that life in the foreseable future then only then would I try to move.

As mentioned, assumptions to the scenario have to be made. I know I'll be returning to a reasonably well paying job once the travel restrictions lift, hence my bias to staying put in answering the question.

I wouldnt get myself into such a mess in the first place is the short answer, however that's overly simplistic and not reflective of alot of people.

In tough times, tough decisions have to be made - and for some it will be to renege on thier rent obligations as they have bigger problems. It's a bitter reality I dont think many landlords have come to grips with.

 

Spot on. Not supporting people in need is an awful option for the entire society. We're paying for the mistakes of the last 20+ years where we as a country stopped encouraging responsibility in household finances and instead encouraged people to lever into expensive assets, buy expensive cars on finance and just generally live way beyond their means. We've had government members continually taking about living within their means and then claiming a $200k+ salary isn't enough for them to live on. The chickens are coming home to roost.

 

I completely agree Woodja. It's a culture that is embedded in our society across the generations.

To get ahead a life one must take calculated risks, however there is a large cohort who leverage themselves to the hilt while failing to recognize the difference between investing and speculation.

If some good of this virus is going to come, it will be that people are served a reality check of what living within our mean is.