Comments by "Sean" (@sean2015) on "Local teacher says landlord wants to raise rent during COVID-19 pandemic | WSOC-TV" video.

M Detlef where in the video does it say the woman is unemployed? Because I strongly suspect she's not. She's a teacher isn't she? All of the teachers in Chicago (where I live) are getting their full salaries ($55K and up) to sit at home. So either she's getting her full salary while she's furloughed or some or all of her classes have migrated to an online format. In fact if she's willing to whine about her rent increase then chances are she would whine if she had no income.
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N Why you need to learn to withhold judgment unless you have all the facts. First of all, why didn't the media reach out to the landlord for their side of the story? That's pretty shady to me. Second, most teachers whom I know have either switched their courses to online format or they are being paid for sitting at home while their schools are closed. Notice how this news story does not even address this issue and the woman doesn't mention it during her interview.
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If she was paying $850 for that house then she was getting a gift. Anyway if she decided to move out then that's that. Let her find another place that's cheaper. I don't see her point in whining about it.
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Truthfears Guilty no actually you don't know what you're talking about. Many landlords are average schmucks like you and I who live month to month just to pay their bills. My mother was a landlord and tenants took advantage of her by moving in with boyfriends/girlfriends or other family members and causing her water bill to skyrocket. When tenants paid their rent late or missed payments altogether, she would miss her mortgage and the bank in turn would hit her with late penalties.
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@Wendy Campbell oh BALONEY Wendy. My landlord raised my rent 10% last year, and I'll bet you they're gonna raise it again this year (pandemic or not). And I make less money than this woman. Yet you didn't see ME calling up my local news station to whine about it.
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@wendycampbell6946 this woman has SOME NERVE complaining about a rent increase while she still has her full salary at a time when 39 million Americans have filed for unemployment and are uncertain about their futures.
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YaoMengLiew I totally agree, this woman is acting very entitled by calling up her local news station to complain about this
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@Durva360 did you read any of my other comments? Apparently not. This woman is a TEACHER, and virtually ALL teachers are getting their full salaries during the pandemic while their schools are closed (...some of them of course are continuing to teach their courses online, but otherwise they are being paid to sit at home and watch Netflix). This woman has SOME NERVE complaining about her rent increase while she still has her paycheck, at a time when 39 million other Americans are unemployed and uncertain about their futures.
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escape0007 my landlord just raised my rent on me by about 8 percent last September - you didn’t see me calling my local freaking news station!!!
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@ASmith-jn7kf funny how you consider landlords to be so "greedy" and yet you probably worship all of these self-entitled leeches who we see on the news taking advantage of this pandemic to go around demanding free rent. Many landlords work hard for a good part of their lives to save up enough money to put a decent down payment on a second piece of property and/or to build up enough equity on their existing property in order just to quality for a loan. And here you are telling them to "get a job". I suppose you think they're all the children of billionaires who inherited their properties. "People do not go out and rent out their cars for an amount higher than they are paying for their car note." --> I know plenty of people with $300-$400 in monthly car payments, and that's just payments on the car, not even including insurance, depreciation, maintenance, taxes etc., You can't go around accusing landlords of being "greedy" and living beyond their means while ignoring or refusing to accept that ordinary people are guilty of the same behavior. You can't have it both ways.
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@harrietjohnson9315 my landlord raised my rent last year and I suspect they'll do it this year too. I don't like it, I even got laid off from my job, but unlike this woman, I'm not gonna go crying to the media about it.
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Truthfears Guilty now you're talking in circles because first you said all landlords are greedy but now you're backpedaling and saying it's the banks. To answer your question, you do know (don't you? I hope you do!) that most people finance their homes rather than buying them. In fact most people (close to 90 percent) don't even pay cash for their CARS! So why would you expect someone to pay cash for a house, which is usually much more expensive than a car. As far as why people borrow money to buy a home (as opposed to renting, like I do) they do it for one of several main reasons: 1) they view it as an investment. Unlike most assets, real estate tends to appreciate rather than depreciate in value. In some cases it can grow in value quite substantially. 2) People like the idea of owning a home because it gives them a certain amount of "freedom" -- freedom to make additions or modifications as they see fit (e.g. a landlord won't allow his/her tenant to add a new bathtub or redo a kitchen, but if you own the house then you can do whatever you want with it and this can increase your home's value). 3) Buying a home can also qualify you for certain tax breaks.
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@wendycampbell6946 well you might live in an expensive area. I've lived in some fairly reasonably-priced areas and some not so reasonably priced areas. Prices of real estate (like any other commodity) are determined by demand and supply. This is basic Economics 101 stuff which too many consumers in our self-entitled society simply don't understand. When demand is high, prices tend to go up, especially when supply becomes scarce. Landlords and property managers don't raise rents because they're "bad, greedy" people or they're trying to make your life difficult. They raise it because that's the price that people are willing to pay. If the rent were $50/month for example (an extreme hypothetical), you would have people camped out on the front lawn fighting (possibly, literally physically fighting with one another) to talk to the landlord. Higher prices can in some ways actually benefit consumers because it ensures an availability of a scarce commodity or good (in this case, real estate). This isn't "first come first served", it's "the winner is the highest bidder". And that's the way it should be.
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Packfan69 READ my other comments you idiot
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Cheri Merchant lemme guess, you're one of those people who goes into supermarkets and demands to speak with the manager about everything amirite? Every single item in the store is always priced too high for you. How dare those greedy pigs sell a gallon of milk for $4. Why I bet you think you should be entitled to have it for a dollar.
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Cheri Merchant wow, imagine, raising the rent. Evil bastards. All those landlords should be in jail right?
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Cheri Merchant no I'm not rich. Would you like to see my TAX RETURNS? Don't make assumptions that everyone who disagrees with you is rich. Not all business owners are rich either. Many businesses go through something called "bankruptcy" (look it up). Also I've been self-employed before (yes, I've actually OWNED my own business) and I barely broke even with it. You have no clue the kinds of expenses that go into owning and managing a business. People like you would see someone like me (if I ever owned my own electronics store for example) as an evil greedy scumbag and would think it's acceptable for someone to walk in and shoplift a $900 iPhone from me.
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Cheri Merchant ”I never said it was acceptable to steal” —> you said a business shouldn’t be able to decide what prices to sell. You said the customer (not the business) should decide the prices of each item. Well if a customer was legally entitled to choose the price of each item in a store (under what you propose) then guess what would happen? Duhhh, almost every customer would come into the store and ask to get things for free. And I’m sure you’d be okay with that because (in your view) all business owners and landlords are greedy rich capitalists and if they can’t afford to be providing stuff for free, well then they shouldn’t even be in business. Don’t try to walk back what you’ve been saying.
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Evelyn Chapel real estate is just like any other commodity, its value and price are determined by supply and demand. Don’t you think landlords are well aware that by raising the prices they are less likely to find a buyer/renter? They raise the price slowly and incrementally to a level that people are willing and able to pay. This is something called “free markets”. A landlord can raise the price to whatever they want - it’s their property not yours. You (as the buyer/renter) have the right to make them an offer and see if they accept. If not then too bad. If it comes to that point then you either have to offer more money or find a different place to live. If you owned property and one person was willing to offer you $800/month for your apartment and another person was willing to offer you $1200/month, I think I know which one you would choose to rent to.
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@wendycampbell6946 what are you sorry for? I'm not. I may not like the rent increase but I'm a big boy. I might fume about it in private but I'm certainly not gonna call my local news station to gripe about it like this lady did. Everybody has expenses. Mine are no less significant than this woman's. Also, real estate values are highly volatile. Any number of things can cause property values to decrease or increase, which could entail a rent increase as was the case here. Yeah you're right - we don't know anything about this woman's life. Perhaps she and her kids like taking 30-minute showers, which drive up the water bill and force the landlord to raise the rent. As I said before, if she was getting that house for $875/month then she was getting a very good deal.
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angela merkel yep that’s another reason...prices and inflation are about to go through the roof
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Catherine NELSON evictions are time consuming and costly, so landlords who wish to be rid of a particular tenant (rather than going through the formal eviction process) will simply not renew the lease
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escape0007 yeah that’s what I thought, you get very quiet when someone defeats your logic...now take your seat back at the kiddies’ table 🪑
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@Grigsy do you not understand how free markets work? Prices are determined by demand and supply. If the landlord raised the price by 30% to $1100, then $1100 is the price that he/she felt the house can be rented for. The landlord isn't stupid; he/she doesn't want a vacant house because every month that passes that the house sits empty, means lost profit. If there are no takers at $1100, the landlord will lower the price slowly, gradually, incrementally until there is a taker. Mind you, $1100 was the price offered to the woman living there. The price offered to a new tenant will be slightly lower (you always need to offer a lower price to attract new tenants than to keep existing ones), but at the end of a yearly lease it will be raised back up to at least $1100 if not more so. Finding and keeping tenants is the landlord's problem, not yours. If Walmart wants to charge $6 for a gallon of milk, that's their prerogative. You don't get to say to them "Well at that price you're never gonna sell the milk! It's gonna sit in your cooler and spoil!" They know what prices to set to generate maximum profit while minimizing products that go unsold.
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Cheri Merchant have you ever sold anything online? (eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, etc.,) Ever sell a car or a TV set? I'll bet if some government bureaucrat came along and tried to set a limit on your selling price, I have no doubt you'd be singing a whole different tune than the crap you've written here. You'd be squealing like a stuck pig.
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Cheri Merchant "he tryed to raise her rent too high, that speaks for itself,don't need to talk to him while he crys like a little girl claiming to be the victim" ....first of all, it's TRIED not "tryed". It's CRIES not "crys" you illiterate bupkis. Second, there is not a question in my mind that this teacher is still being paid her salary whether or not her school closed or went to online format. She's not unemployed and she's not destitute. The real crybaby is her.
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Cheri Merchant "then she was too poor to be in the business" ...I'll bet you shoplift from stores and then when you get caught you say "if your store can't afford to lose merchandise, you shouldn't even be in business"
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Cheri Merchant "don't need to talk to him while he crys like a little girl claiming to be the victim" ...I went back and watched this clip a second time. NOWHERE in this video did I see the landlord crying or self-victimizing. The only one complaining is this weak and self-entitled woman. She's free to move out if she doesn't like her landlord. Instead, she called the TV station, awww the poor widdle baby.
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Cheri Merchant where did I misspell the word "little"? You have the internet at your disposal so if you've never heard of a word you can use something called "Google". It takes only 3 seconds. Also, it's "what THE f**k" not "what TO f**k"...and... "God damn spelling cop's out" adding an apostrophe at the end of a word DOESN'T make it plural! An apostrophe is used with the letter 's to show possession (e.g. in the sentence "Cheri's grammar sucks" ). Did they not teach grammar in your high school? Jeez.
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Cheri Merchant I did already, and I have no desire to waste my time debating grammar with someone who writes as if they had Cardi B as their 9th grade English teacher
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@nwflipping8424 very true...and what she doesn't mention is that (unlike a lot of Americans right now) she is still receiving her full salary whether or not her school has re-opened or transitioned to online format
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Cheri Merchant "maybe 2.50" .... guess what Cheri? You don't get to dictate a store's prices - because it's not your store. If you don't like the price of something, tell the manager "thanks but no thanks" then leave and go shop somewhere else. Or learn to live without the item in question. Simple as that.
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Cheri Merchant "allowing stores to starve poor people with high profit is genocide,, people have to eat, and eat healthy," ...stores also have to generate a profit Cheri so they can pay their suppliers, pay their employees' wages, their property taxes and electric bills. Which brings me to my next point: when a store fails to sell an item, it represents lost profit for them. Stores don't raise prices because they're "greedy" or to make your life miserable. Every cent that a store raises the price of a particular item further decreases the probability that a customer will buy it -- whether it's a new iPhone or a gallon of milk. If a store decides to raise the price of a gallon of milk to (let's say for argument's sake) $20 ...what happens? Nobody buys it, right? Too damned expensive. The milk sits in the cooler and perishes, the store has to throw it away, which means lost profit for them. So what happens then? The store lowers the price...to $10. STILL too expensive...it perishes and has to be thrown away. The store loses money on this because it had to pay the supplier. The price gets lowered further, to $5. Still a bit too expensive. The price gets lowered again, to $3.99. BOOM - sold! This is a basic example of something called "free markets" which liberals like you don't understand.
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Cheri Merchant "most prices everywhere are the same, maybe a few cents differant" - WRONG! Stores have to compete for customers with other stores. So how do you think they attract customers? They LOWER their prices! Stores are constantly watching prices from their competitors and adjusting them accordingly in order to attract customers and increase sales.
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Cheri Merchant I earn minimum wage, okay? So I don't need any lectures from you. At one point last year (Oct - Dec) I worked three jobs/seven days a week and did not have a single day off for three months. I made barely over $30,000 last year. In September my landlord raised my rent by about 8%, Yes it hurt me and I didn't like it, but you don't see me calling up the local news station to whine about it like the woman in this video did. I also don't go into stores whining about the price of items with this self-entitled attitude that I deserve everything for whatever price I feel is appropriate.
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Cheri Merchant listen to yourself: ”I didn’t say businesses have no right to set whatever prices they want, I just said the prices shouldn’t be too high” ...what ridiculous logic. Contradicting yourself. Before when I asked you if a business had the right to price a gallon of milk at $4 you said ”no maybe $2.50” ...sounds to me like you (the customer) choosing the price not the business. I’d love for you to open your own business or be a landlord yourself some day. You’d be signing a completely different tune than what you are now. And if you had the choice to rent to someone willing to pay $800 or $1000 I think I know who you’d choose and don’t try to pretend to be Mother Theresa looking out for the poor. Because at the end of the day you are just like any other person motivated by money.
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wnc817 thank you
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@paulkenny5052 no arguments from me, I’ve been saying that exact same thing…I think you meant to direct that to another commenter
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@gozer825 I live in Chicago; I also attend college here and I can tell you that all of the public school teachers have been receiving full pay even though all of the schools remain closed. As for my college, all classes transitioned to online format shortly after the quarantine went into effect. So, I find it doubtful that this woman isn't getting her salary, whether her classes are all canceled or if she's teaching online. The media are not above omitting, exaggerating or even outright falsifying information to sell a good story.
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@harrietjohnson9315 I got my unemployment claim filed and approved very quickly, and I collected UI benefits for three weeks however I found a (quasi) full-time job in a retail store a few weeks ago and have not collected UI benefits in the time since.
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@harrietjohnson9315 mine was increased 8%. I've never had a landlord NOT increase my rent after the first year, however my previous landlord only increased it after the first year and did not increase it again until after my fifth year of living there, by which point I had already decided to move out (and even then, it was a tiny increase).
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@gozer825 the media are very sleazy and unethical the way they leave important details out of a story like this
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