"Urban Centers, Hotbed for AntiProperty Rights"

Back in 1983 I began my real estate investment career in Hampton, Virginia while employed as an engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding.  Back then, I learned all about the various subsidies that were available to low income tenants.  However, being a landlord was a respectable vocation as long as you managed your investments correctly, the landlord tenant laws worked well.  Tenants then knew to behave and take care of your property during their time of "possession."   They were completely liable for any damage other than "wear and tear."

Then I started investing in Youngstown, Ohio in 1995.  Of course I could see "white flight" and accepted it as a part of the evolution, all investors speculate that demand and productivity should happen in the future.  What I learned and witnessed in the seventeen years of Youngstown investing was a great lesson on what the future is in store for majority of the urban centers of America if the "entitlement movement" (entitled are those who give no production in return) isn't checked.  In Youngstown, old laws are distorted in a way to completely hold property owners liable and responsible for the actions of the entitled.  For instance, single parent mother's water will never be disconnected, the law is distorted wherein the property owner is responsible for the water, but the distortion is the City does not shut the water off for non payment.  Furthermore only the tenant is aware of their account.  And here is the big one why investors have fled the City and houses are left to be stripped; other than wear and tear, the tenants destroy the structure knowing the City will only go after the property owner with criminal charges.  I have seen good people go to jail because of this.  The side effect is that the entitled use this as a weapon against their rent collecting landlord.  This is the only reason why blight in housing exist in Youngstown.

twelve years ago, we shifted our focus out of rental housing and started investing in land.  As houses are being demolished the land returns to acreage.  The question was how do you make land productive and self sustaining?  This is the crossroads that the City finds itself at.  The evolution stated above is now happening on the fringes of suburbia, leaving expanse of acreage in the City.  Now how does the municipality govern themselves with outdated laws on property, it has no idea.  As we have done introducing agriculture/aquaculture on City lands, has the City coming armed with commercial and industrial code against the basic fundamental right to grow crops on ones land.  Rural landowners know and lived without any interference from local government.  Farming code is sacred and streamlined to allow productivity.  The City of Youngstown is hell bent on enforcing wanton control and commercial and industrial code on any agriculture in the City.

Now today, where does this leave us with the new high tech horizontal deep drilling?  The City knows it has no authority over energy policy, but they are looking for some.  And Cities such as Pittsburgh with all their entitled voters exercised power by outlawing drilling in the City, leaving their tax paying property owners the inability to sell their land's product.  This is what case law shows as a "taking."  In New York state, they did this taking on a larger scale, the whole bloody state has its landowners unable to sell what is rightfully theirs, with ZERO compensation.  When government needs to build a highway through your land, they have that right for the good of the public to take your land, BUT they must pay you for the taking, are landowners of New York paid for their minerals?

For a long time, I was in denial about this entitled movement to create their world of property only belonging to the State.  Now I can honestly say I am seeing it and living it.  Us, landowners big and small, are the silent majority.  We surround urban centers en masse, we are the most likely to vote, we are the "Makers" of the old America.  land is the beginning to everything to us, our homes are built on land, our farms and manufacturing base are planted on land, what does not come from land?  The silent majority must rise and unite to force our leadership to go backwards not forward and return to "LIFE LIBERTY AND PROPERTY."

 

  

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Permalink Reply by Jasper Johnson on May 26, 2012 at 2:46pm

don't fret too much.........in about 10-20 years the Chinese will be in complete control of this country, and mark my words, they won't let this sort of shenanigans occur!  They will come and clean house!

Then, all the non-productive ones will be ground up into Soylent Green or Red pills!

Permalink Reply by Ron Eiselstein on May 27, 2012 at 9:43am

We may have an edge on the Chinese if we harness our great energy source ASAP.

Energy is the lifeblood of capitalism, if we mobilize our subsidized masses to produce, we have the advantage with our cheap energy, HERE.

Permalink Reply by Kathleen on May 27, 2012 at 2:46pm
I agree whole heartily. When I hear or see the news it's like a time machine going back 25-30 years, same questions about foriegn investments being made and the deficit. I ask people, so my children were supposed to be paying off that deficit we were told over and over again back than but it's gone from that time/recession. Where did it go. We are in a cycle but this time around the hit was real hard but the interest rates did not go really high.
Ron. I do not know if you only rent to low income but I rent too and as an example the electric co. told me I can be notified if the tenant fails to pay. I can actually set how far behind the tenant gets before I'm sent an alert and the bill is in their name.
Permalink Reply by Ron Eiselstein on May 27, 2012 at 4:25pm

Kathleen, thank God we are significantly out of the rental business, we were lucky to sell majority twelve years ago.  During the rental days, the water bills of the tenents were allowed to run up for ten years.  Only this year did we finally settle with the City, of course paying money for water WE never used.

Permalink Reply by Kathleen on May 27, 2012 at 5:22pm
Renting sounds much easier and fun than it is, as you know :0). Sounds like someone just gives you money each money with a smile. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. :0)
Is commercial different? My old boss up on market on the south side couldn't get heat anymore for failure to pay but to think about it he never lost water.
I know that heating bill still follows him to this day and never went to the landlord. I guess each utility must be different. Could you imagine the bill if the landlord was responsible for a flower shops water usage. Wow!
I believe you but to me if the bill is in their name it follows them and their credit not the landlord. What was their arugement that you had to pay them? The utility co. usually runs credit checks so they should never have allowed a turn on or switch, if that renter or renters ever showed failure to pay.
Ron thanks for not taking offense to my post since none was intended. I know the written word can sound stronger than it is and I regretted posting that since so many people just get mad to fast. Enjoy the holiday weekend. Waiting on the young one to come home to put out our flag. He is a cub scout and knows the proper way :0)
Permalink Reply by Frank Walker on May 28, 2012 at 1:00pm

Fang

The Tenth Commandment, which you referenced (it's one of my favorites), is today being violated by one of the major Presidential candidates as a principal underpinning of his campaign for office.  He is out there, almost daily, calling openly on people, encouraging voters, to violate this Commandment.  And he makes his plea with full-voiced pride!

Explain this?  You want me to explain this?  My best guess is that our Tenth Commandment has no counterpart in the Quran. 

Permalink Reply by Carl Krebsbach on May 31, 2012 at 9:35pm

Fang, you have THAT right!

And the thing is, the man the establishment GOP wants to push on us is not much different, certainly not different enough to represent an honest choice.  Any informed voter knows Romney's awful record, from his handling of the Big Dig in Boston to his awful record on jobs as MA governor (47th in the nation, trailed by only Ohio, Michigan, and Louisiana) to his model for Obamacare to his pathetic waffling on everything from abortion to Second Amendment rights to his anti-property rights position on the hydroelectric transmission line project in New Hampshire (Northern Pass)

The media has been trying their best to convince the American public that the candidate offering a record of integrity, policies of sound money, Constitutionally limited government, and a strong national DEFENSE is a mere kook.  I hope no one here has been suckered into believing them.

Permalink Reply by Carl Krebsbach on May 31, 2012 at 10:04pm

Fang, I refuse to settle for the lesser of two evils.  The lesser is still evil and as we can see, it hasn't been working out too well.

I'm going to write in Ron Paul if he doesn't get the nomination.  Romney can't beat Obama anyway:  he is the McCain of this election.

You are absolutely right about replacing Congress!

Permalink Reply by Jack Straw on May 31, 2012 at 10:09pm

As much as I like a large percentage of what Ron Paul says, a write in vote for Ron Paul is the next best thing as a vote for Barak Obama.

Are you sure that you really want to do that?

 

JS

Permalink Reply by Ron Eiselstein on May 31, 2012 at 7:57pm

I just hope the community organizers don't flood the elections with bussed in entitled.

Permalink Reply by Ron Eiselstein on June 1, 2012 at 8:18am

Jeff D,

I respect what you are saying and disagreement is and has always been part of our greatness in society.  But, please answer this question, what do you do when dialoque is no longer accepted by the entitled and if in power they soon throw out the 8th amendment?.  I have lived this and have seen the cruel results of it.

Permalink Reply by Dan on June 2, 2012 at 12:56am

Discussion,

For decades our personal rights have lost ground with a landslide since 2001, all in the name of Freedom and Patriot “Act”.  We give our freedoms up in trade for false safety.  To preserve freedom we give up freedom and everybody is scratching their head wondering what's wrong.   A bushel of privacy notices arrive each month and we are in a thousand databases, with many search-able.  Our enemies hate freedom and attacked ours. It appears they may have won that battle and I think they were trying to frack with the economy too?  Not that I haven’t thrown a few stones here but it appears our enemies have us polarized and name calling more than ever.

As many ole timers have said “ther's only so much land and they ain't makin no more”.   Land Grab. Whether a township with an old narrow road ROW widens the road and allows utilities taking land from the landowner, unwarranted use restrictions, a mud puddle is declared a protected wetland, real estate taxes increase unjustly, a county condemns or declares eminent domain  or the state takes your property to build subsidized apartments, too many want a piece of the land that don't own it.  Not to degrade subsidized housing or drug addicts any more than they are, do you really think they are a voting class of any proportion. That's like being afraid of the boogie man.  If we need to worry about their vote tipping the vote,  there is a enormously bigger problem at hand?  All landowners and subsurface owners need to stand together and insure our rights are protected and not redistributed whatever party, church etc. they are period. 

Taxes aren’t coming down.  A can of beans is over a buck.  Folks have been losing the farm to real estate taxes and poor economy.  The only thing that has come down in price is TVs and computers so you can watch something to convince you taxes and prices are or could come down.  Even if Romney is elected and he has the same Congress, the debt ceiling will rise and things will get better or they will print more money.  The important thing is how quickly will taxes and everything else go up, but they will always go up.  The debt ceiling will go up next round, no elected President or Congress will willfully follow Greece down the tubes.  Maybe some of the elected idiots will think to export a bunch of CNG where it's worth more and tax it so we can pay the bill on all our spending and wars that were paid on credit so we don't follow Greece and others down the tube.  It's a good thing we never fell for the world currency crap. 

It's all warm and nice to agree, but it can sometimes be OK to disagree.

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