I was delighted to see the misfortune of airbnb "hosts" in a Zerohedge article today, caused by the Coronavirus travel restrictions.
The damned airbnbs are one of the reasons why it costs so much to live in Chicago. There's many factors, but people running what amount to unregulated hotels that violate health and safety codes with an app that spies on people is one.
They take thousands of apartments off the market for people living in the city, and they use them to be overnight slumlords to people from away.
If the airbnb company failed, then at least 5,000 apartments would go back on the market as long term rentals and it would put downward pressure on rents. Many cities are having this problem and nobody really cares enough to do much about it.
I was also delighted to read about the misfortune of random zombie corps that had previously been held together with manipulated Fed interest rates and tax loopholes that should have failed years ago.
Sears wasn't still going because it was selling anything. It was going because Eddie Lampert had to keep it afloat long enough to declare bankruptcy and prevent Sears's creditors from clawing back the real estate transfers he made using a shell company.
This exposes the truth. The Trump economy was nothing but a rotten dried up husk that he was pretending was in the middle of a boom.
When major retailers that had a middle class audience can't make an interest only debt payment after a couple of weeks, guess what. The economy was fake to begin with.
Trump had every interest in propping up "luxury" shopping stores like Needless Markup and Saks who are now going belly up because it contributed to his illusion of widespread prosperity that the Collapse-o-Virus has shattered in a matter of days.
Then when my in-laws have to join us Hoi Polloi at the Walmart and picking over used furniture at the thrift shops, we can wave hello.
-----
One final word about landlords in Chicago. If you're unlucky enough to get the last one we had there when I was with my ex, who was raising our rent double digit percentages each year and moving in college students and other trash who were blasting the stereo, smoking marijuana, and falling down the stairs drunk while she let the building fall apart, she's not going to take kindly to your rent being late over the Collapse-o-Virus because she's a raving psychopath. She'll just tear off your head and s**t down your neck.
If the Rent Control passes, of course, people like her will be left wondering whatever for......
I'm told lots of Asian women are like that. My in-laws are like that. Different country, but same general attitude.
I love my husband, which is the only reason I put up with them. We all have our crosses to bear.