<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ethanbond</author><text>As far as pricing: simply purchase the properties for whatever their value was last declared on tax forms. Can even add 5-10% for good measure. You lowballed the government to decrease tax burden? No problem, that’s the price you get.&lt;p&gt;This isn’t an anti-millionaire plot, so it doesn’t matter much what he earns. This is a hibernate-then-stimulate plot.&lt;p&gt;We cannot hibernate if businesses and individuals are getting absolutely gutted at the end of each month.&lt;p&gt;We cannot stimulate if stimulus checks are going directly into landlords’ pockets.&lt;p&gt;After this is over, yes, either the government can keep it (as Singapore does) or even sell them back, giving preference to the original owners at the original price (who had been kept employed throughout the hibernation).&lt;p&gt;The land itself is not charging landlords to hold it, so landlords don’t &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to be charging tenants to exist on it (except mortgages&amp;#x2F;taxes, which would be frozen).</text><parent_chain><item><author>hpoe</author><text>So I know a guy that he bought some real estate he owns 3 properties I think. He isn&amp;#x27;t a millionaire just a software engineer working the 9-5 and the properties exist mostly to help him prepare for retirement. Now he has some money set aside so that if one of his properties goes dormant he can cover it for a while, but if he were to lose all three of them at the same time. That would be bad.&lt;p&gt;Then you suggest the government can just buy him out at market rates. Who decides what the market rate is? What if the government decides to value the property for $50,000 less than it is worth?&lt;p&gt;Well suddenly he has just had $150,000 taken from him by the government. When things restabiloxe what do we do then? The government owns tons of housing? Who is going to manage and administer that? If they dump them than all that you&amp;#x27;ve done is transferred the properties from small owners to massive multi-million dollar firms that managed to take the hit. What about people who got laid off and still don&amp;#x27;t have a job after it is over? Because it was a result of the coronavirus do we just continue to say it&amp;#x27;s okay don&amp;#x27;t pay rent? If we do that guarantee a year from now tons of properties won&amp;#x27;t be paying rent still.&lt;p&gt;It sounds like an easy and simple fix but it is usually more complicated than that and drastic decisions made will often have downsteam effect for years and decades that we can&amp;#x27;t see now.</text></item><item><author>ethanbond</author><text>1. Cancel rent payments, mortgage payments, and property taxes. People simply stop paying and stay where they are, no enforcement burden and no distribution necessary.&lt;p&gt;2. For landlords who cannot sustain the loss of cash flow, offer to buy them out at market price and then hire them as property managers for their previously owned properties.&lt;p&gt;With essentially zero overhead, you&amp;#x27;ve eliminated small business&amp;#x27;s first or second largest expense (payroll and rent). If they still can&amp;#x27;t make payroll, it&amp;#x27;s not a super huge deal since those employees also have their rent frozen.&lt;p&gt;Now the economy can hibernate.&lt;p&gt;When we&amp;#x27;re ready to resuscitate it, do a direct stimulus check as you reopen businesses. Let money start flowing without any component going to rent for some amount of time until we&amp;#x27;re back on solid footing.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Japan to subsidize 100% of salaries at small companies</title><url>https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-to-subsidize-100-of-salaries-at-small-companies</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>pfranz</author><text>Item #1 was to cancel mortgage payments and property taxes. This person would only be paying for things like maintenance contracts, lawn service, and insurance. I would think those would be relatively low and all of them are very likely negotiable right now. I know many are proactively reaching out to accommodate. Much like Japan subsidizing 100% of salaries, there would be a timetable for it to sunset since it&amp;#x27;s obviously can&amp;#x27;t happen indefinitely.&lt;p&gt;Not that I think that idea is 100% feasible (I don&amp;#x27;t think states and counties can function without property taxes), but losing an investment seems like a better option than losing where you live.&lt;p&gt;Ideally, &amp;quot;the market&amp;quot; would fix itself. Nobody has leverage here. It&amp;#x27;s not like there are new tenants waiting to move in and pay rent. So everyone is motivated to renegotiate--unfortunately, the volume of renegotiations often means enforcing silly policies like &amp;quot;evict everyone immediately&amp;quot; might get used. This happened in 2008.&lt;p&gt;I, too, am worried about consolidation. I know that will happen without any action, and will likely happy if the government does.</text><parent_chain><item><author>hpoe</author><text>So I know a guy that he bought some real estate he owns 3 properties I think. He isn&amp;#x27;t a millionaire just a software engineer working the 9-5 and the properties exist mostly to help him prepare for retirement. Now he has some money set aside so that if one of his properties goes dormant he can cover it for a while, but if he were to lose all three of them at the same time. That would be bad.&lt;p&gt;Then you suggest the government can just buy him out at market rates. Who decides what the market rate is? What if the government decides to value the property for $50,000 less than it is worth?&lt;p&gt;Well suddenly he has just had $150,000 taken from him by the government. When things restabiloxe what do we do then? The government owns tons of housing? Who is going to manage and administer that? If they dump them than all that you&amp;#x27;ve done is transferred the properties from small owners to massive multi-million dollar firms that managed to take the hit. What about people who got laid off and still don&amp;#x27;t have a job after it is over? Because it was a result of the coronavirus do we just continue to say it&amp;#x27;s okay don&amp;#x27;t pay rent? If we do that guarantee a year from now tons of properties won&amp;#x27;t be paying rent still.&lt;p&gt;It sounds like an easy and simple fix but it is usually more complicated than that and drastic decisions made will often have downsteam effect for years and decades that we can&amp;#x27;t see now.</text></item><item><author>ethanbond</author><text>1. Cancel rent payments, mortgage payments, and property taxes. People simply stop paying and stay where they are, no enforcement burden and no distribution necessary.&lt;p&gt;2. For landlords who cannot sustain the loss of cash flow, offer to buy them out at market price and then hire them as property managers for their previously owned properties.&lt;p&gt;With essentially zero overhead, you&amp;#x27;ve eliminated small business&amp;#x27;s first or second largest expense (payroll and rent). If they still can&amp;#x27;t make payroll, it&amp;#x27;s not a super huge deal since those employees also have their rent frozen.&lt;p&gt;Now the economy can hibernate.&lt;p&gt;When we&amp;#x27;re ready to resuscitate it, do a direct stimulus check as you reopen businesses. Let money start flowing without any component going to rent for some amount of time until we&amp;#x27;re back on solid footing.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Japan to subsidize 100% of salaries at small companies</title><url>https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-to-subsidize-100-of-salaries-at-small-companies</url></story>