[HN Gopher] Shadow credit score could decide whether you get an ... ___________________________________________________________________ Shadow credit score could decide whether you get an apartment Author : danso Score : 74 points Date : 2022-03-29 15:22 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.propublica.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.propublica.org) | ouid wrote: | I realize this isn't a terribly constructive comment, but... | | AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA | AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA | morpheuskafka wrote: | Is anyone else concerned that the screening report just has | yes/no for existence of landlord-tenant court records? Regardless | of whether the tenant won (or even started, it could be the | landlord getting sued for security deposit for example) the case. | lookalike74 wrote: | The yes/no in some cases could allow fixed-income people to be | approved when they are short of the required income or credit | history because they've never had a rental problem. A lot of | fixed-income seniors pay a large portion of their income to | rent but have done so reliably for decades, for example. | function_seven wrote: | So now that I know about these records, I better think twice | before asserting my rights as a tenant. If my landlord | decides to steal my deposit, ignore the leaky roof, and | refuse to fix the furnace, I'll just roll over and take it. | Can't have a "Yes" on my permanent record; won't be able to | rent in the future! | phil21 wrote: | This has been the advice for quite some time. Just having | court cases on your record can be seen as a black mark for | both housing and some employers regardless of you winning | them or their merit. | | It's not a majority yet, but it's been slowly eating it's | way into these sectors for the past couple decades. | | Similar "scores" are being silently enacted for such | trivial things like returning merchandise to retail stores. | Stores now share information and will outright reject | returns if you are deemed to have done too many returns in | the past at a totally unrelated business. | | Leave town with a $2 bank balance and forget to close the | account out? Good luck getting a new bank account for the | next 7 years with the "minimum account balance" fees | drawing it into the negative regardless of fixing the | oversight when notified. | | Same for chargebacks on your credit card - chargeback more | than then the calculated long-term EV of your account and | you will find the process all of a sudden becomes very | difficult and your account is likely closed shortly | thereafter. | | Same goes with Amazon - have a high value account that does | $50k/yr in purchases? Returns are always granted no | questions asked. Low value? You will start seeing pushback | from customer service very quickly and account closure | regardless of the validity or reasons for return. | | The above are all examples I've personally experienced or | witnessed. | | Airline mileage programs that turned into revenue programs | are likely where most of this ends up. Companies simply | will stop servicing low EV customers altogether on an | individual vs. the group basis as it's done now. | taylortrusty wrote: | Honest question: what's wrong with any of these examples? | CogitoCogito wrote: | Just to take the bank example: the bank should block any | attempts to remove money from the account once it goes | negative and then put a hold on it until the owner | contacts them. Charging negative and continuously | charging fees should just be illegal. | glogla wrote: | > So now that I know about these records, I better think | twice before asserting my rights as a tenant. | | Yes, I'm sure that is the point. | kazinator wrote: | The point is that this yes/no datum is going to be | interpreted as a black stain, regardless of what it means. | | A landlord reviewing 50 applications for a place isn't going | to go into the particulars. Depending on the landlord's | approach, anything with a yes won't make the short list. | | Credit reports should not have suspicious stains whose | meaning could be that there is in fact nothing wrong (there | was a dispute which was caused by someone else, and resolved | in the applicant's favor). | jeffbee wrote: | The obvious solution is the one I've long advocated in this | forum and elsewhere: a housing market where landlords can | pick and choose tenants should not be permitted to exist. | Build housing until the median number of applicants for a | vacant home becomes 1 or 0. Make landlords desperate again. | reedjosh wrote: | > Build housing until the median number of applicants for | a vacant home becomes 1 or 0. Make landlords desperate | again | | This is so silly. | | Who's going to build these hypothetical housing units? So | many that there are more houses than applicants. | trashcan01 wrote: | If landlords aren't allowed to pick tenants, then: | | 1. Bad tenants will have no incentive not to harm the | property and the neighborhood. | | 2. Landlords will be forced to pay for insurance to cover | all the bad things that tenants are now free to do. | | 3. Rents will rise to cover the costs of the insurance. | Conscientious tenants will be penalized. | | 4. Even otherwise conscientious tenants will start to cut | corners since they are having to pay for the insurance | anyway and it's clearly unfair. | | What a nasty situation for conscientious tenants | landlords and neighbors you are advocating. | | Only the least conscientious people win. | gpderetta wrote: | You can make the exact symmetrical argument if tenants | are not allowed to pick landlords (which is what happen | in practice). Well, except about rent increase that | happens anyways. | dont__panic wrote: | That would also be addressed by a more detailed explanation | of court records, or a binary yes/no of whether the tenant | was ultimately found guilty of a transgression against | previous landlords, no? | | The previous comment is pointing out that this could be a | problem if you've been sued by an unscrupulous landlord in | the past. That problem exists for fixed income people as | well. | dantillberg wrote: | Indeed, though is there any protected status in the US for | "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such | discrimination? As a landlord, legal costs will eat into your | margins real fast. The landlord uses this service to gauge | their own risk taking this person on as a tenant, and the | presumption (accurate, I'd imagine) is that past landlord- | tenant court records predicts a higher chance that this | landlord will incur legal costs (and possibly also negative | judgments) with this tenant as well. | | Personally, I certainly don't like this practice as a | prospective tenant, but it would nonetheless be tempting to | consider using it were I a landlord. | HWR_14 wrote: | > it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were | I a landlord. | | Of course it would. I still don't like this practice. | | > is there any protected status in the US for "people that | make use of the court system" that would bar such | discrimination? | | There are certain laws that protect people who use the court | system in some ways, but there is not (to my knowledge) a | general protection. But whistleblowers, litigants in | harassment claims, etc. have anti-retaliatory protections. | j_walter wrote: | Would it be considered retaliation to not hire a candidate | who was a whistleblower at their previous company though? | HWR_14 wrote: | I do not think the whistleblower has any right to legal | protection outside their previous company. Which means | they may have to work their for life. | mrfusion wrote: | The FCRA was designed to prevent this kind of thing. I wonder how | they get around it? | g051051 wrote: | The FCRA defines how a credit report can be used, and rental | decisions are considered a "permissible purpose". | mrfusion wrote: | It does a whole lot more than that, brother. Consumers are | allowed to correct inaccuracies for one. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act | g051051 wrote: | I'm not sure what it has to do with your question, which | was "The FCRA was designed to prevent this kind of thing. I | wonder how they get around it?". Landlords have permissible | purpose to check your credit report, so they aren't | "getting around it". | LorenPechtel wrote: | The problem is that these guys aren't covered by the FCRA. | | That's what we really need to do--extend the FCRA to cover all | companies that gather external data to make decisions that are | important to the person. Apply the same standards to all forms | of background check--it waddles and quacks, the FCRA applies. | | I would also change the once-a-year check to say once-a-day. | | The fundamental problem is that the economics of all | background-check companies are skewed towards false denials. | The companies are happy to have dodged a bullet (bad renter, | bad job applicant etc), nothing tells them that the bullet | wasn't real. (And what of those of us whose backgrounds aren't | exactly verifiable? I have more than 20 years of employment at | companies that no longer exist.) | atlgator wrote: | What I don't like about this type of journalism is how they use | one instance to set up a boogeyman that they want to scare all of | society with. The woman had a 632 credit score in 2021. The | average American FICO score was 714 at the same time. She was | well below average at a time when housing demands are at all time | highs. | | https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/what-is-the-aver... | asdff wrote: | Fresh out of college it probably took me several years to reach | 700. You have no credit history. I applied for a card in | college and coupled with no income, all I qualified for was a | secured card. Got denied from the usual suspects of cash back | cards for a while. Then once I got cards my limit would only be | like $500 per card so you would max it frequently if you used | it as a normal person would unless you remembered to pay it off | every week. It probably took four or five years for a credit | card company to give me a reasonable limit in the thousands, | and that came from the bank that I had an account with for 15 | years prior. | mistrial9 wrote: | coincidentally, as far as I know, US Court precedent works | exactly the same way, in that a single, real world case is the | setting for deciding the applicability, reasonableness and | effectiveness of laws on the books, not the "spirit and | principle in general" .. IANL | gizmo686 wrote: | Kind of. | | Most court cases do not set any precedent. If you think the | judge made a legal mistake in your case, you can appeal | regarding that specific legal question. | | The appalete court can then issue a ruling on that specific | question of law. If they find the lower court was in error, | they would typically send it back to the lower court to redo | under the new guidance. | | Sometimes the specifics of the case do interfere with the | appelet court's judgement, but the entire system is set up to | minimize that. | atlgator wrote: | Even a single court case is a complex evaluation of current | law and precedent to that point. This on the other hand is a | straw man fallacy. | jimmaswell wrote: | I've never missed a payment, have over 6 years of on time | payments, never even carried a balance on a card, and never | been denied an application, yet my score has dipped as low as | 640 just because of a "high" amount of credit checks, because I | like to take advantage of "spend $1000 on our card and get | $200" promotions that come in the mail. 630 doesn't necessarily | mean anything bad at all. | atlgator wrote: | I didn't use the word bad. I said below average. It's a | quantitative observation. When housing demand is at all time | highs apartments can be as selective as they want. If they | have 20 applications for a single open unit who are they | picking? | asdff wrote: | And that's why I think average kinda sucks here. Who is the | average person renting? Maybe they are low income, maybe | they are fresh out of college with no credit history at | all, but in either case its probably a different makeup of | financial backgrounds than what you see in homeowners and | therefore the population on aggregate. Lumping these groups | into the general population which includes homeowners who | have been paying off credit cards for decades makes no | sense. Consider the context when determining what these | numbers should be, otherwise you are misrepresenting the | shape of your data. | [deleted] | 999900000999 wrote: | I don't really see the point of this article, it's well known | bankruptcies stay on your credit report for 10 years. | | With the recent rent moratoriums, I expect landlords to get even | harsher. A tenant can easily pay rent two or three times, and | then stretch out the eviction proceedings for 6 to 18 months | depending on the state . | | If this person went and filed for a second bankruptcy, they could | then delay the eviction by years. | | The bigger issue of course is we haven't built up enough new | housing over the last 40 years, you want there to be so much | available housing landlords can't be selective. They have to take | the risk of losing a bit of money, because they're going to lose | an absolute ton if they let their units remain vacant. | causality0 wrote: | _A tenant can easily pay rent two or three times, and then | stretch out the eviction proceedings for 6 to 18 months | depending on the state ._ | | Wow that's insane. If I was renting out a property I owned I'd | expect to be able to throw someone out within a day after an | active refusal to pay rent. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | There are 1.5 million housing units under construction, which | is an all-time record. It'll be interesting to see how quickly | that get absorbed in a market with rising interest rates and | questionable valuations. There appears to be lots of demand but | what I'm seeing in my corner of the world is most of the demand | is at the lower end of the market, which I'm guessing isn't | what is primarily being developed. People moving up does free | up properties at lower ends of the market, so in effect, a | trickledown effect, but that takes a while to happen. Maybe | we're going to see more and more house sharing and renting of | individual rooms (legal or not). | Kye wrote: | How many of these will be snatched up by scalpers looking to | rent them out? It doesn't matter if they build 1.5 million | houses if they all end up as rentals anyway. | gizmo686 wrote: | Housing bought by landlords looking to rent is the most | relevent, as it increases competition among landlords | putting pressure on them to be less selective. | Isthatablackgsd wrote: | How many of them are starter homes? Majority of the home | constructions I came across is always above 3.5k sqft homes, | some are McManison. It is great about 1.5 million housing | units, we need starter houses than 4k sqft homes. | brimble wrote: | Few new starter homes in my (non-trendy) city. However, | once builders started working again around '12, they | started putting up both McMansions and spectacularly ugly | apartment buildings (partially fills the role of the | starter home, I guess, in that at least it's a place to | live, if not a stepping stone to financial stability, so | should take pressure off the market) at a crazy-fast pace. | Construction everywhere, constantly. Downtown? New several | new or converted high-rise apartment buildings. Just off | downtown? Tons of new ugly-ass mid-rise apartment buildings | in that new style everyone's using. 'Burbs? New and | developing McMansion-filled neighborhoods everywhere, and a | ton more of those same ugly apartment buildings. | | Doesn't seem to have done much to keep housing prices under | control, and houses still sell so fast that you blink and a | new listing will be gone. We can't possibly be a major | location for internal migration--not like cities in | California or Texas or anything of that sort--so IDK what's | up with that. My 20ish year old McMansion has increased in | value about 30% over the last two years, and was already | way up from just a few years earlier. WTF. | lyaa wrote: | The ugly apartment buildings you are seeing are probably | one-plus-five buildings (one concrete + five wood floors) | that are actually optimized for balancing | zoning+codes+affordability for single-family apartments. | At least theoretically, they should offer cheaper rent | due to their much lower construction costs. | | I think of the ugliness of the facades as a bonus that | would drive wealthier people to other buildings once | options open up a bit. | brimble wrote: | Yeah, it's those, I just couldn't recall the term for it. | Much of the ugliness seems to be a choice, though--lots | of weird, haphazard nooks and crannies and bump-outs, and | bizarre color schemes that seem designed to dazzle you | into not noticing how ugly the unevenly-bumpy exterior | is. If they just flattened out the exterior walls a | little and cooled it a bit with the crayon-box color | scheme, they'd look much better. | letouj wrote: | In many cases, the superfluous nooks and crannies on | 5-over-1's are mandated by local zoning rules that call | for "facade articulation" on buildings occupying larger | amounts of street frontage (I suppose to conceal the | unthinkable horror of a big building existing in a city). | | See e.g. Portland, Oregon's facade articulation | guidelines: https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/ | 2020/lu_buildin... | Gigachad wrote: | The people buying the McMansions likely move out of their | existing home, freeing it up for people looking for a | starter place | kylehotchkiss wrote: | Moving McRichPeople out of normal housing and into | McMansions can open up housing availability downstream | though. The homes they are moving out of are an upgrade for | those in starter homes and then those starter homes become | available. | notch656a wrote: | Agreed, although it may be the case that many McRich are | buying additional housing rather than trading one house | for another. | mikem170 wrote: | Or replacing small houses with bigger ones... | x86_64Ubuntu wrote: | At least in the upstate of SC, I see lots of starter homes, | some would say too many. Of course, the average price in | the state has risen above $300K and I don't know where | people are getting this money from. The starter | homes/condos seem to have a sqft of between 1200->2000 | (best guess unresearched). | incahoots wrote: | I'm in the upper midwest, from what I've seen when | traveling in my state it's few and far between. New | construction is all MDUs and custom homes in the 5k sqft | range. | | Fed/State government can issues credits/tax relief for | "investors" who build MDUs but somehow starter homes are | off the table? | | It's not all doom and gloom, Habitat For Humanity appears | to be the only outfit that's building affordable | houses/starter homes, helps when you get a nice influx of | money going into that program (thanks MacKenzie Scott). | notch656a wrote: | I think a lot of the supply at the low end is irreplaceable, | because building codes and regulations have changed | significantly over the years. It's effectively illegal to | build some of the more affordable buildings in certain | jurisdictions. | KevinGlass wrote: | This is true. I'd estimate at least 70% of all rental unit | currently under construction will not be "affordable" for | two people working full time for minimum wage. In northern | New England it's easily 100% of units. | | That said all rental projects that I know of in Maine and | New Hampshire are all rented before they even finish | construction. | | EDIT: I'd also like to make a point about current | regulation and zoning. It's not unusual for a developer to | pay around $500,000 or more in state fees, environmental | review, and layer time to get a new apartment complex | approved. This requires insider connections and specialized | knowledge of the municipality if you want it completed in a | reasonable time frame. Partially this is because national | building codes are more complicated then ever but more | often building anything at all requires a zoning exception | or amendment. | | If you pull of the zoning maps for your town or city you'll | likely find it riddled with parcels that have been cut out | or otherwise exempted from the rest of the zone. This | process can be expensive and take years to complete. | [deleted] | otterley wrote: | According to architects who know, it's the price of | mandatory parking, especially in MDUs, that drives up the | cost of housing much more than the additional cost of | adhering to more stringent building codes. | | See, e.g., https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp- | content/uploads/sites/7/20... | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Around these parts, these new housing units are _insanely_ | expensive. They are building a lot of them, but there 's no | altruism involved. Not even one tiny bit. They are building | these gigantic highrises, that are destined to be packed with | yuppies. There are cranes everywhere in NYC. | | Brooklyn and Queens; formerly "affordable" places to live in | New York, are now getting $4,000 (or more)/mo for 1-bedroom | cribs. I've seen it with my own eyes, in Manhattan. Areas | like Alphabet City, that used to be considered "dangerous," | are now primo real estate, and well-dressed young couples | walk their toy poodles around these neighborhoods. | | It's only a matter of time, before NYC becomes an East Coast | San Francisco. Manhattan is pretty much there. | | I am not personally familiar with the way France is | structured, but I have been told that the cities are where | the wealthy live, and the suburbs are where the not-wealthy | live. | | From what I have seen, Seattle is becoming that way. I was | pretty surprised, when I visited some friends, down in the | suburbs south of Seattle, and saw that it was actually a | rather scruffy area. I had gotten used to Bellevue and | Redmond. | couchand wrote: | > They are building these gigantic highrises, that are | destined to be packed with yuppies. | | Unless there have been major changes in the last few years, | many of those buildings will not, in fact, be filled with | yuppies. They'll sit vacant, parking the money of the | world's ultrarich in a low-tax investment. | mynameishere wrote: | _Areas like Alphabet City, that used to be considered | "dangerous," are now primo real estate, and well-dressed | young couples walk their toy poodles around these | neighborhoods._ | | How awful. The government should do something about this | kind of degradation. | [deleted] | 52-6F-62 wrote: | I lived in exactly that in Liberty Village in Toronto for a | period. "Lulu's and Shitzu's" it was often called. How | right they were. | | New rental-only builds were even going up in the area, not | just condos. But they were more expensive to rent than the | bloody condos, and about 3/4 the size. | throwawayboise wrote: | Supply is supply. Unless they are tearing down older units, | new expensive apartments should make the older, less trendy | units cheaper. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | You mean the ones they knock down, to make room for the | highrises? | | Supply is supply, and there's only so much real estate in | NYC. | Dylan16807 wrote: | If you knock down 300 units to make 800, that's still | going to improve things. | HarryHirsch wrote: | For investors from China, yes. For locals, not so much. | otterley wrote: | There are still a whole lot of brownstones waiting to be | bulldozed! | imbnwa wrote: | >I am not personally familiar with the way France is | structured, but I have been told that the cities are where | the wealthy live, and the suburbs are where the not-wealthy | live. | | I hear Italy is the same way. Source: Gomorrah | dylan604 wrote: | How many of these new construction numbers ignore the number | of existing units taken "offline" in order to make way for | this new construction? | EricE wrote: | Remind me - how many people are streaming across the boarder | each month? And those are just the ones we know about. | | Want to talk about trickle down effects! | jeffbee wrote: | The all-time record for housing under construction is far | from a positive indicator. It is caused by taking longer to | complete them. | notch656a wrote: | Yep, easy come easy go. The quickest way to get landlords to | become less selective would be to let them toss freeloaders on | their ass on day one of delinquency. | kylehotchkiss wrote: | That would very quickly escalate the already very bad | homelessness crisis in many parts of the country. Some levels | of tenant protection are a way society can help their | citizens get back on feet after a difficult time, which | almost every person will encounter. Freeloaders will | eventually get kicked out. | endisneigh wrote: | It's a complicated issue - my anecdote is that any risk | will ultimately be manifested in the form of more | selectivity on the landlords end. | notch656a wrote: | I'd argue the effect may be the opposite. Tenant | protections lead to homelessness by forcing landlords to be | selective against vulnerable peoples, making it harder to | get back on their feet after difficult times. Risk in | renting to these people is greatly reduced if you can toss | them out as soon as they stop paying. | otterley wrote: | Either way, you're making _someone_ homeless, which is an | intractable problem as long as the housing demand exceeds | supply. The only change being made is the criteria for | who gets to suffer. | erik_seaberg wrote: | Penalizing every innocent potential renter who's _more | likely_ to default on a lease is worse than only | penalizing renters who actually do. | LorenPechtel wrote: | Which would result in more improper evictions. As it is we | have already seen multiple examples of landlords losing | checks so they can evict and rent to someone else at a higher | rate. | | I've wondered about taking a different approach: The landlord | is free to evict on the day of delinquency, but must move the | possessions to a storage facility (paying a month's rent at | that time) and they must post a substantial bond. If the | tenant shows the eviction was improper they get the bond + | costs. (And I would apply the same thing to foreclosures.) | | Instead of a long process of showing that they are acting | properly they are putting up a substantial financial promise | that they are acting properly. Make improper actions a costly | mistake and there will be few of them. | oh_sigh wrote: | How would that process help in the "lost check" scenario | you mention? | jfk13 wrote: | Somewhat of an aside, but as a non-American, I find it | quite weird that it seems to be common to pay rent with a | monthly check. Every place I've rented, I've paid | automatically by standing order. (Oh, except in a couple | of third-world countries, where cash was the norm.) | MaysonL wrote: | The building I live in has an online payment option, but | the only payment option that the organization doing the | collection takes is PayPal. Fuck PayPal, I can go to the | bank and get a check (I haven't personally written a | check for decades). | HWR_14 wrote: | > The quickest way to get landlords to become less selective | would be to let them toss freeloaders on their ass on day one | of delinquency. | | The quickest way to get landlords to become less selective is | to say "any vacant apartment/home not occupied by at least | one fulltime resident can be claimed by someone homeless as | of [date]." You'd have landlords begging people to sign | leases (and people would because then they would get a sure | nice apartment as opposed to a lottery for one of the few | ones left). | | Now, that produces bad other results, but so does allowing | people's homes to be ripped away from them at a moments | notice. | notch656a wrote: | >Now, that produces bad other results, but so does allowing | people's homes to be ripped away from them at a moments | notice. | | What an entitled viewpoint. It's not their home; an | entirely different person owns it and they failed to hold | up to their end of the contract for the terms under which | the owner agreed to let them occupy it. The person having | their home ripped away at a moment's notice is the | landlord. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _quickest way to get landlords to become less selective | is to say "any vacant apartment/home not occupied by at | least one fulltime resident can be claimed by someone | homeless as of [date]."_ | | This is basically extreme squatter's rights. Places which | have those produce some combination of people paying | guards, those who can't afford guards taking matters into | their own hands, people demolishing perfectly-good housing | to avoid risking the land, _et cetera_. | HWR_14 wrote: | I actually meant via a lottery system, not armed | competition. Paying the guards when the city says someone | else gets the house is not a real thing. And demolishing | housing could be fixed by going off zoning. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _via a lottery system, not armed competition_ | | You're proposing to reassign millions of dollars of | property based on various levels of evidence for whether | someone was physically present? That's basically the 90s | in Russia. | | It's certainly a neat fictional universe. I imagine | everyone who can afford to would live in a hotel, leaving | the scramble of defending your property to those who | can't. Also, fraud. Lots of fraud. | rdtwo wrote: | This would just cause rental terms to require tenants to | find a replacement before moving out | HWR_14 wrote: | That would probably be one of the terms. Which meets the | stated goal of ensuring the housing is being used. | | Although I don't see how that clause would be | enforceable. A tenant almost certainly doesn't have | enough assets to go after to make up for a building. | Otherwise they could have bought the home for their own | use. | vkou wrote: | If you're looking to increase the number of temporarily | homeless people, this sounds like a great approach. | | Unfortunately, temporarily homeless people have a habit of | turning into chronic homeless people. And living in a city | that's full of chronic homeless people, I don't think we need | more. | | Your comfort and convenience as a landlord does not rank | higher than my desire to not step over human shit on my way | to work. | notch656a wrote: | Raising regulatory barriers increases cost of housing. | Increased cost of housing disproportionately effects those | who have less money. Eviction protections are incredibly | harmful to homeless as it makes it can make it risky | (costly) to rent to homeless, taking housing even further | out of reach. Homeless become even less competitive | renters. | | Your comfort and convenience to have the option not to pay | a landlord does not rank higher than the desire of homeless | to have better access to housing. Places with homeless | problems badly need to remove these protections from | renters. | danso wrote: | The article isn't just about bankruptcies. It's about a tenant | scoring system that has as much power over your life as the | credit scoring system, albeit with far less regulation and | consumer protections: | | > _Tenant screening companies compile information beyond what's | in renters' credit reports, including criminal and eviction | filings. They say this data helps give landlords a better idea | of who will pay on time and who will be a good tenant. The | firms typically assign applicants scores or provide landlords a | yes-or-no recommendation._ | | > _A ProPublica review found that such ratings have come to | serve as shadow credit scores for renters. But compared to | credit reporting, tenant screening is less regulated and offers | fewer consumer protections -- which can have dire consequences | for applicants trying to secure housing._ | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Selecting tenants is a legal minefield. As a result, many | landlords find it safer to offload that decision to a third | party. It sounds like these third-party rating services, | including their "rent, don't rent" decisions, are filling a | need but are ahead of legislation to curb some of their | excesses. | throwawayboise wrote: | Most leases are written for 12 months. There is AFAIK no | evicition protection once the lease expires, or am I wrong? It | seems to me that 12 months is the limit of the landlord's risk. | gizmo686 wrote: | Landlord/tenet law is highly location dependent. | | Around here (Maryland), landlords are required to offer | leases up to 2 years (this might be a county law), although I | suspect 12 month leases are still common. | | At the end of a lease, MD law requires the lease to default | into a month-to-month lease. To kick a tenent out without | cause, a landlord need only provide 30 days notice. | | However, if the tenent refuses to vacate, the landlord still | needs to go through the eviction process. | xyst wrote: | one of these days, we are going to look back on the absurdity of | this current system. Just like we looked back on slavery. | | Very basic housing should be free. Single payer healthcare should | be the standard. Basic income should be provided. As we move | towards a more automated society, there are going to be a ton of | angry unemployed people with nothing to do but focus their anger | on something else. | lolsal wrote: | > Very basic housing should be free. | | Please publish where you have developed and built all this free | housing so that everyone that wants to live there can enjoy | this right. | tacLog wrote: | I mean your are assuming that with free housing you retain a | right to live where you want to live. | | I am NOT saying we should build this free housing in one area | and stick people there: (see the maybe failed public housing | attempts) But there are more options available than everyone | getting free housing in the bay area, CA. | trasz wrote: | It's called social housing and is available in many | countries, such as UK. It's often not literally free, but | several times cheaper than market prices. | Not_John wrote: | The Headline is in Germany with the "Schufa" literally already | the case. What makes it worse, is that you cant even open a | Bankaccount with a bad Score. | dgellow wrote: | Yeah, the Schufa is really a horrible system. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schufa | | It's proprietary, cost money, is almost impossible to avoid if | you want to rent an apartment in Germany. And they have been | found to have A LOT of incomplete, outdated, or wrong data. | diebeforei485 wrote: | Is there some CCPA-style remedy where you can get every piece of | information that went into your score? | legitster wrote: | > experts warn that algorithms could introduce racial or other | illegal biases | | There was literally no expert quoted in the article who asserted | such a thing. | | > "It's kind of chaos," said Ariel Nelson, a staff attorney at | the National Consumer Law Center. "It's really hard to figure out | if you were rejected, why was it rejected. If it's something you | can fix or if it's an error." | | The rightful criticism is that these systems are opaque and | Kafkaesque. One of the _few benefits_ of them is that they are | going to be less biased than human review. But I guess it 's too | boring to assert that something is just generally unfair when you | can lazily shoehorn in that it must be racist. | LorenPechtel wrote: | When you put machine learning into the picture sometimes the | computer learns things you didn't intend it to. (For example, | the presence of a ruler is a sign of skin cancer.) Much | evidence of "racism" in this country is actually socioeconomic, | but the computer is even more vulnerable than a human to | drawing the false conclusion that race is relevant. | omegalulw wrote: | >> experts warn that algorithms could introduce racial or other | illegal biases | | > There was literally no expert quoted in the article who | asserted such a thing. | | This is exceedingly harsh. Look at regulation on the credit | card industry on what data you can and cannot use to make | credit decisions. Algorithms can certainly have bias - that's | not a disputed fact - and without careful screening of the data | and the models you will quite likely have biases. So the | article isn't unfair in making that statement. | UnpossibleJim wrote: | Algorithms have bias', sure. | | (1) Do they have more or less bias than the humans performing | the current review process? | | (2) Is there a way to make their decision making process less | opaque than it is now, to reduce the level of bias in their | decision making process? - I know there has been some work | done in this area (a) though it isn't as fast as many would | like to see. | | (a) | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-020-00276-4 | erehweb wrote: | There's well-known problems with algorithms introducing racial | biases, and renting notably has a number of problems with these | already. Calling this out is not a stretch. | notch656a wrote: | The racist angle was introduced because it's the only plausible | nexus by which this practice could be illegal. | matwood wrote: | > One of the few benefits of them is that they are going to be | less biased than human review. | | This isn't necessarily true. The factors used to drive the | algorithms are selected by humans. And from those factors it's | not always clear if they end up discriminatory. This is exactly | why the systems remain opaque. | BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote: | The ideal tenant candidate already owns a house and doesn't need | to rent. | | Having been both landlord and tenant at various stages of my | life, my first law of landlording is that trouble from tenants | varies inversely with the square of the rent. | paulsutter wrote: | Higher-end properties will have fewer problems. However a too- | high rent for a given property also means more trouble. | | This is similar to the observation that larger species live | longer, but larger individuals of a given species live shorter | lives. | drBonkers wrote: | tenant_trouble [?] 1/rent2 | Spooky23 wrote: | But... you want those trouble free tenants, you need to do your | job. Which is a problem for many landlords. | | The guy who rents the house next door to mine decided that lawn | care was too much work, so he spread and wet leaves for the | express purpose of killing the lawn. Winter is over and he is | now surprised that his surgeon tenant doesn't want to live in a | house that appears derlict. | bloodyplonker22 wrote: | Yes, but if you're a landlord and you really want to make a | higher return on your rental property, you have to delve into | the depths of renting to "trouble tenants" because the property | price to rent ratio is much better. | sbierwagen wrote: | Annoying "well actually" counterexample: my rent hasn't kept up | with inflation, and I'm doing everything possible to avoid | coming to the notice of my landlord. A call about a leaky | faucet could cost me an additional six thousand dollars a year. | KeepFlying wrote: | You've described my situation too, though it's not a rent | increase I'm worried about, it's the installation of a | mandatory smart lock that I've somehow avoided for a few | months now. | KennyBlanken wrote: | This isn't healthy in any relationship. | | Eventually you're going to want or need to move, and the | landlord is going to be pissed to discover on move-out | inspection that you haven't been keeping them apprised of the | condition of the property. | | A simple "hey, this happened; I'm not worried about it if | you're not" email suffices. | asdff wrote: | This is why I'm thankful for my rent controlled apartment. No | surprises down the road at all with rent increases being | capped to something reasonable; as long as I continue holding | a job I can pretty much always afford this apartment. | Otherwise, rents could surge past what I could afford any | day, as wages rarely keep pace with rents. | lostgame wrote: | It should obviously be illegal - preferably criminal - to check a | credit score for a place to live, anyway - because a credit | score, probably at least half the time - has little to no impact | on how reliable of an individual you are financially. | | I live in Canada, where health care is covered, but dental isn't. | I had an injury several years ago which effectively destroyed | many of my teeth, and ended up more than $15,000 into debt over | it. I couldn't make my payments on time for probably a couple | years, and even though I finally managed to pay it off, it's a | black spot on my credit history for years to come - through | absolutely no fault of my own. | | This is _infinitely_ worse in the USA, where the pathetic | government that promises 'freedom' somehow doesn't get that | universal health care is a huge part of that. | | I have family in the USA who got cancer. | | Due to the absolutely bullshit health care system there, they are | completely, utterly, financially devastated. | | This family member had to be stopped from _committing suicide_ | when they found out just how much it would cost to save their | life. That they would have to declare bankruptcy. That their | credit score, and anything they 'd ever need to do with money in | the rest of their life - was completely gone. | | It's literally why I don't live in the USA anymore. Scared me | shitless. | | You know what's way - _way_ worse than getting cancer? | | Having to pay more than you could ever possibly afford for | getting cancer. | | Good luck getting a house after that, thanks to this bullshit. | | According to credit scores - you should be held _personally | responsible_ for the fact that you got that disease. | | Literally - how _dare_ you get cancer. Enjoy having a shit credit | score for the rest of however long you have to live. | | The fact is - people need places to live, and if people have poor | credit - especially if it's of no fault of their own, but due to | the bullshit system we live in that has no room for genuine | accidents - how the hell are these people ever supposed to find a | place to live? | | I had to go out of my way - and pretty much pay extra - to find a | landlady here in Toronto even willing to give me enough | understanding to rent a place - and I make about $100k CDN a | year. | | I had to explain the whole situation, come up with _documents to | prove_ that's what actually happened, and even then I was lucky | to get a place to rent. I can't _imagine_ what it's like for | people who might have half or less of my income and poor credit | through no fault of their own but are looking for a place to | live. | | _Fuck_ the credit score system. It is an abhorrent human rights | issue - is simply disgusting and disturbing - and only serves the | rich. | | A credit score does not take into account for humanness. | | It's the nuke of weaponized capitalism, yet another tool to keep | the rich more rich and the poor more poor. | | May the greedy miscreants who developed and enforce this wicked | system rot in a special kind of hell. | [deleted] | otterley wrote: | Contrary to your initial assertion, credit scores are built | using real-world models based on historical data that indicate | a debtor's likelihood of repaying debts. Fair, Isaac, and Co. | (aka FICO) pioneered this technique in the 1960s; one founder | was a mathematician and the other an engineer. This score | helped creditors make more accurate decisions based on real | data; before that, credit decisions were usually made by | individual loan officers whose decisions were often based on | how well they knew you personally and your standing in the | community (and were frequently racist, often overly so). | | Is the credit score system imperfect? Yes. Is it based on a | mountain of bullshit? No. | | (That said, I'm really sorry to hear about the tragedies that | have impacted you and your family. I don't think it's fair that | we don't collectively insure one another for accidents, | either.) | parkingrift wrote: | >Dunn said some of the scoring models he's seen while litigating | cases on behalf of tenants are crude, giving so much weight to | factors like eviction, criminal history or debt that a person | whose record includes even one of those things would get a | negative recommendation. | | I agree with the issues of transparency, but not with the models | themselves. I absolutely would not rent property to someone who | has a recent criminal record, a recent eviction, or a risky | credit profile. | | Tough eviction laws make it too risky to select the wrong tenant. | It could take months to remove a non-paying tenant in some | cities. | Consultant32452 wrote: | Don't forget we now have to "price in" occasional years long | eviction moratoriums. | tacLog wrote: | Do you think this tool will be used again for less urgent | issues than Covid was? | Consultant32452 wrote: | I'm not sure how to answer your question because it seems | obvious to me that Covid was not the cause of the | moratoriums. | incahoots wrote: | >I absolutely would not rent property to someone who has a | recent criminal record | | This include ANY record, or just the violent ones? Curious how | you would interpret a "disorderly conduct" charge/conviction, | considering it's an umbrella term used by police to slap on any | individual they deem difficult. | | For example, I had a conviction of disorderly conduct which | resulted in a fine. All because I refused to ID myself to a LEO | that demanded I comply even though I was under no suspicion of | a crime or that I was about to commit one. Additionally I do | not reside in a stop & identify state. | | How would you interpret that if I were to submit a rental | application and my other prerequisites were in line (mid tier | job, mid 700 credit score)? | parkingrift wrote: | I don't have any property to rent so it's purely | hypothetical, but I would only be concerned with violent | crimes, vandalism, or theft. | prirun wrote: | My auto+homeowner insurance recently increased because they said | my _credit_ score was lower this renewal. I pay my auto insurance | for the whole year in advance, so why do they give a shit what my | credit score is? | | It's just another gimmick excuse to charge more money. I'm | guessing the excuse is necessary to bypass insurance regulations | or something. | HideousKojima wrote: | Given the risk-taking activities of the poor vs. the rich, I | don't doubt that some actuarial table shows that lower credit | scores correlate with high risk profiles for liability | insurance. Whether or not that's moral is another matter. | jvdvegt wrote: | TIL credit score is a real thing in a Western country - I always | figured it was some thing hypothetical. Looks scarily too | familiar to the Social score from some Black Mirror episode, or | the alleged Chinese system if you ask me. | tacLog wrote: | As someone from a Western country, what replaces it? | | How do you buy a car on a loan for example? | | It's not perfect but unlike both your examples it isn't based | on things that could be consider political. You can't lower | your credit score by attending a protest for example. Or | posting things for or against causes on the internet. | | I am just honestly wondering what else is our there? It has | always seemed like a tool that can be used by both individuals | and lenders. | asdff wrote: | It's basically your uber rider rating but in terms of debts and | shared with banks and other financial agencies. | mynameishere wrote: | In the old days, if you wanted a mortgage, you and the wife put | on your Sunday best and went down to talk to the banker in | person. If he didn't already know you, he'd grill you. You | better have a good job and a good reputation, mister. Should | have thought ahead and got yourself some good standing in the | Rotary Club or Elks. Have you been seen in church lately? Etc, | etc. Credit scores replaced all that crap. | jfk13 wrote: | We get regular HN threads about "company X auto-terminated my | account and there's no way to get a human involved". Is that | really a better way to run society? | | Maybe local bank managers having connections to the local | community, and actually knowing their customers, rather than | sitting behind opaque algorithms and data brokers, wasn't | entirely a bad thing after all. | asdff wrote: | No they haven't. Rent an apartment. You need paystubs to | prove your income. You need two references to vouch for your | moral character or whatever references are supposed to do for | a landlord. You have to throw down a security deposit equal | to x months rent. Then you also get that credit check hit. | The credit check is saving you from none of that crap, it is | just more crap on top of all that other crap that hasn't gone | anywhere. | josephcsible wrote: | Regular credit scores existing isn't dystopian at all (though | there are some issues with exactly how they're implemented). In | principle, they're just a formalization of the concept that if | you've broken promises to pay people in the past, they're less | likely to trust you to keep your promises going forward. | thrashh wrote: | If anything, we just need mandated personal finance classes | in high school since not everyone has parents/family to teach | them. | | It would go a long way. | trasz wrote: | It's pretty much exactly like the one in China, if you compare | facts and not just propaganda about both. | rootusrootus wrote: | Another problem that only exists due to lack of competition. | Landlords hold the upper hand and can afford to be picky. We | could collectively decide to solve this, but probably will not. | EricE wrote: | Want to know how to never have to deal with a landlord? Own | your own property! | | Also if you are concerned about affordable housing, I hope you | paid attention to the line in the article that talked about big | business moving into the rental scene buying up properties and | charging more for rent than mom and pop landlords. Want to know | what caused the largest shift of property ownership from small | landlords to big conglomerates? All the COVID evection | restrictions. We will be dealing with the fallout of the mass | wealth theft/consolidation from COVID restrictions for decades | to come. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Want to know how to never have to deal with a landlord? Own | your own property! | | I feel sympathetic with the folks who are trying to buy into | the housing market now. I could not reasonably afford my own | house if I were buying it today, and I make pretty good | money. There will be a reckoning at some point, this | obviously cannot continue indefinitely. | | > We will be dealing with the fallout of the mass wealth | theft/consolidation from COVID restrictions for decades to | come. | | Yet another example of the road to hell being paved with good | intentions. "Seemed like a good idea at the time!" | vlunkr wrote: | Fortunately "Landlords" is not a single entity, so there | absolutely is competition. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-29 23:00 UTC)