In Florida, enacting rent control isn’t easy. Landlords in Florida can’t raise rent during the term of the lease. My tenants sign a lease for a year, and the rent is laid out in the lease. That is the amount they pay for that year. When the lease is up, we can negotiate for another year, but that deal is separate from the year before.
To restrict the new lease, Florida statute 125.0103 is pretty explicit. There are a number of steps that have to be followed.
The city has to declare a housing emergency. Such governing body makes and recites in such measure its findings establishing the existence in fact of a housing emergency so grave as to constitute a serious menace to the general public and that such controls are necessary and proper to eliminate such grave housing emergency.
The city puts rent control on the ballot.
The measure must be approved by a majority of the voters in that city.
The rent control doesn’t apply to seasonal rentals or to “luxury rentals.” A luxury rental is defined as a rental that would have cost more than $250 in 1977. There is nothing in there about adjusting that amount for inflation, but even if a court does so, according to the US inflation calculator, that would today be a rent of $1,222. There are virtually no rentals for that amount.
The rent control is only in effect for one year.
To go for another year, the entire process has to be repeated.
I imagine that it will pass. There are a lot more grifters than there are landlords, especially in blue Orange county. I couldn’t find the wording of the proposed rent control ordnance. I imagine that there will be court cases to decide the amounts, which rentals it will apply to, and more. This case will be an important one to watch, as it will have a HUGE effect on not just the Florida rental market, but the Florida residential real estate market as a whole.
Meanwhile, all of the residents of Martha’s Vineyard are like:
The best part of it was the liberal who said that: “Martha’s Vineyard is just a bunch of rich people. It’s weird that you all think you’re sticking it to the libs. Millionaires ranting about illegal immigrants aren’t liberals.”
My reply? “Don’t the Obamas own a house in Martha’s Vineyard?”
It’s easy to be a “sanctuary city” when there is no one there who needs sanctuary. When you are one of the states being overrun by illegals, it’s no longer academic. 50 illegals? There are millions of them in New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, and Texas.
Liberals:
Florida is nazi place and evil.
Sending people away from Florida and into the cities of people who say Florida is nazi, is literally fascism. pic.twitter.com/7VLLGFYgGP
A few days ago, I promised that I would post more about crime and race to support my contention that blacks are largely unsuited to following the law in a civilized society.
As I said yesterday, science is about following the evidence, wherever it leads. Sometimes the place that the evidence takes us to is inconvenient or flies in the face of our beliefs. The three most reliable evidence of race and crime to my knowledge are the National Crime Victimization Survey, the U.S. Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that are based on that survey, and somewhat less reliably, the FBI’s Universal Crime Report (UCR). The NCVS surveys a large group of people about their experiences with crime victimization, so it is not based on what is reported to the police and what the police do with it. The Uniform Crime Reports is based on data from police departments, and is thus generally a less reliable measure of actual crime.
Let’s take a look at these sources and see where that evidence leads us:
We will begin by taking a look at the data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Race and Ethnicity of Violent Crime Offenders and Arrestees, 2018, with regard to rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault, crimes that are referred to as “Nonfatal Violent Crime.”
When you look at this, you would think that Whites account for more violent crime than other races, until you account for the fact that whites are 60% of the US population, and blacks are only 13% of the population. I have posted numerous times about the statistical likelihood of blacks committing murder and homicide. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming and pervasive to the point that I could not find a single reputable source making a claim otherwise.
This poses the question if people of color live in more violent communities or if the local brand of justice is inherently selective. Experts have long been debating this matter.
Around 2.5% of the US black male population was in prison by the end of 2016.
2,417 per 100,000 US black male residents were incarcerated by the end of 2016.
There were 467,000 sentenced black male prisoners and 20,400 black female prisoners in the US in 2016. These figures exclude blacks with Hispanic origins and those with sentences that are one year or less.
In 2015, 59% of black prisoners sentenced to more than a year in prison were detained for a violent crime.
18-19-year-old black males are 11.8 times more likely to be incarcerated than white males belonging to the same age group.
Black males 65 years and above are 4.4 times more likely to be incarcerated than white males belonging to the same age group.
In 2016, 34% of black inmates were doing time for public order offenses.
While blacks and Hispanics comprise about 32% of the US population, they accounted for 56% of the US prison population in 2015.
Blacks are five times more likely to be incarcerated than whites.
If blacks and Hispanics share the same incarceration rate of whites, the prison population will decrease by 40%.
As of 2001, one in three black males born in the said year would likely face a prison sentence in his lifetime.
As of 2016, 48.3% of prisoners serving life and virtual life sentences are black.
In order for this claim to be true, cities that have higher white populations and are otherwise of similar in population density would have similar crime rates to those with higher black populations. That isn’t the case. In fact, the 6 largest cities in the US with the highest murders per capita so far in 2022 are New Orleans, Baltimore, Birmingham, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. All cities with a high percentage of their population being black.
In short, it’s been reliable data in this nation for decades: majority black neighborhoods are crime ridden enclaves. If blacks and whites were committing crimes at the same rate, then black and white cities would have similar crime rates. That is demonstrably not the case, therefore black and white crime rates are NOT the same.
Anyone with evidence to the contrary, please provide it. I am however, going to ask that you provide more than “Nuh, uh. You are wrong you racist.” I have shown my work. You show yours.
If a person cares about this country and the people in it, you must care about ALL of the people in it, even the minority groups like blacks. If you want to improve the nation and its people, then you have to first admit where the problems are. If you are going to do something to fix the black crime problem (and there IS one) then you have to do more than simply say that blacks aren’t committing crimes at a higher rate than all other demographics and claim that it’s just whites are being racist. That isn’t going to fly.
US soldiers are being told to apply for food stamps so they can feed their families by the administration that won’t stop blathering on about how companies won’t pay a “living wage.”
The left keeps telling us to “follow the science” without actually knowing what science is, other than the subject that they received Cs in while in school. Science is a way of learning how things work. We observe a phenomenon, collect data on that phenomenon, then formulate ideas and rules on how that phenomenon works. We continuously test our ideas against data to see if our ideas are correct. So in a nutshell, science is a way of using data to prove how the world works.
For example, we know that the Y chromosome in humans has 30 genes contained in it. One of those 30 genes is called the SRY gene. It only works once in a lifetime, about 42 days after conception. That gene causes cells in a developing fetus to produce the SRY protein. This protein contains a string of of 79 amino acids that binds to specific regions of DNA, causing the DNA molecule to bend. This bending in turn causes the production in certain cells of some organs that produces other proteins, including one called SOX9 (sex-determining region-box 9) an autosomal gene regulated by the SRY protein. The presence of this protein (among others) causes a fetus to develop testes and a penis. Bam, the fetus is male. Science. You can’t wish your way into being male or female, you can’t change this because you feel like it. It just is.
The evidence and the data led science to that point. The facts don’t change. What can change is the scientists themselves. People who claim to be scientists allow their biases and preformed opinions to change or reinterpret the data to be what they wish it to be, thus placing their thumbs squarely on the scales.
This is squarely related to something I was talking about with regards to crime, sociology, and criminology. Science is what it is, even when some people want to wish away the facts as they are.
Sometimes people are wrong. Perhaps this is done because of personal bias or opinion, sometimes it is done for profit. Sometimes it is simple human error.
This lays the groundwork for a future post. Keep an eye out for it in the future.
It’s that time of year again. Time to begin looking at market adjustments for our rentals. We have decided that we are not going to rent out one of our rental properties any longer. We are going to sell it in a few months when the current lease runs out.
The second property is more profitable, and we are looking at adjustments. The market isn’t as tight as it was last year, with inventory of available rentals being a bit more than it was. Prices even stabilized a bit. The market can’t keep rising at 25% per year forever, I guess. Still, we held last year’s increase a bit because we didn’t want to get too pushy.
Because of Florida’s insurance issues, our insurance costs went up. Our taxes went up. Our other expenses are also rising.
That means the house we are currently renting out at $1,825 is far below market and is going to see a rent increase. Zillow rentals claims that the house can rent for $2,550, but that seems too high. The current market is running between $1.15 and $1.28 a square foot for comparable rentals, meaning that I could likely rent it out for $2,175 to $2,425.
Now I am not the kind of landlord who will screw over a good tenant. In three years, he has only been late on rent once. Still, fiscal and market conditions are what they are, so I think we are looking at setting rent at about $2,000 per month. I do need to eventually put new countertops into the place, and if the tenants insist upon that, then the rent will have to be increased closer to market, perhaps to $2,100.
In the meantime, everything you buy will continue to get more expensive.
A van full of men were pulled over on the Florida Turnpike because a trooper discovered that the van they were riding in had over $1,100 in unpaid tolls. The driver and one of his passengers (who is also the owner) didn’t speak English or have a driver’s license, nor have they ever had a driver’s license. The driver and the owner were arrested and taken to the Lake county jail. They each posted their $1,000 bond (meaning that they paid $100 each to secure a bail bond) and are due in court on September 27.
No English
Don’t pay tolls
No license
I’m sure that they don’t have valid insurance, either. You can’t get insurance without a license. The scam here is that an illegal buys a van with a valid plate from someone who is legal. They leave the tags on the vehicle, because they can’t get new tags or insurance without a valid license. They use the vehicle until it either gets impounded or in an accident. The driver they hit is left holding the bag, unless they have uninsured motorist coverage.
I wonder what the odds of them being illegal aliens are. I also wonder what the odds are that the two actually show up.
This exact scam happened to me on July 4, 2002.
I was on my way home from work when my pickup truck was rear ended. The car was incapable of driving away, there was transmission fluid on the ground. The man who was driving the car did not have a driver’s license, nor any other form of I.D.. He was cited for no license and no proof of insurance. He never showed up to court, because he was an illegal immigrant. I never saw or heard from him again.
The damage to my vehicle was over $1,200. I have a $1,000 deductible and uninsured motorist coverage, so the ordeal cost me $1,000. This same story plays out all over the state every day. You can add this to the true cost of illegal immigration.
Like the famed color changing lizard, Biden changed his pitch when in the Mid West. He can’t keep the gun and Bible clinging rubes in the dark if he is ranting at them like some old man who’s pissed at the kids on his lawn.
In yet another case of liberals thinking that they are smarter and more caring than anyone else, teachers in an Ohio school district are being told that they don’t have to inform parents that their children are requesting changed names, pronouns, or sexual identity.
Then they tell you that sex and gender are not the same thing. This is gaslighting, pure and simple. They are telling you that things don’t mean what they have meant for thousands of years. The left is deliberately and systematically feeding people false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. The targets of this behavior wind up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. Over time, their manipulations are growing more complex, more potent, more out of touch with reality, which is making it increasingly difficult for the victims to see the truth.
We are seeing the left targeting our most vulnerable people- our children- at the core of their being: their sense of identity and self-worth. It isn’t just children, almost anyone is susceptible to these tactics, which have been deployed throughout history by domestic abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders.
