Yale, NYU, and UChicago researchers conclude: Evictions are a costly last-ditch effort to begin recouping unpaid rent
California's eviction moratorium may have expired, but the idea that residential evictions are largely unjust has (as Reason mag's Christian Britschgi explains in his newsletter) lived on. However, new research finds most evictions cost landlords 2-3 months' rent—so are used as a last resort, when nonpaying tenants refuse to work out a deal.
A new working paper on residential evictions finds that the costs of eviction are high to a landlord, that landlords frequently offer temporarily delinquent renters forbearance agreements as a result, and that the most common tenant protection policies likely do little to ultimately prevent evictions.
The paper, authored by researchers at Yale University, New York University, and the University of Chicago and uploaded to the National Bureau of Economic Research website this month, found that an eviction typically costs a landlord two to three months' rent.
As a result "landlords usually allow tenants to default for multiple months before incurring the costs of eviction, and the majority of evictions involve tenants who are persistent non-payers," researchers wrote.
The implication of these findings, researchers argue, is that common tenant protections like short-term rental assistance, extended eviction proceedings, and increased eviction filing fees do little to alter a landlord's decision to pursue an eviction.
If a landlord expects a tenant is unlikely to ever pay rent again, they'll be unmoved by the government providing short-term rental aid and undaunted by the costs of a lengthy eviction process. Eventually, they're going to want their nonpaying tenant out.
On the flip side, if a landlord expects a tenant will return to paying rent, short-term rental aid or a yearlong eviction process is only a secondary deterrent to them pursuing an eviction. They were already willing to work out a deal.
Researchers argue that a primary effect of these tenant protection policies is to keep nonpaying tenants who'll eventually be evicted in a unit for longer.
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