We are not talking about investment losses here. We are talking about breach of contract. A renter signs a contract promising to pay rent.

The value of the building, whether it drops or increases, is the investment component of being a landlord. That is not in dispute here. If a building drops in value the landlord just has to deal with it. But until now, if someone promised to pay rent and did not do it, a landlord could sue them, or evict them, because the landlord would be the victim of a breach of contract that has nothing to do with investment value.

What is in dispute here is that people who promised to pay rent are being allowed to stop paying, but landlords who promised to pay their mortgages are not allowed to stop paying. That's not fair.

It's not good for the economy either, because most businesses can't afford to buy property and need to rent from landlords, and we are now making it very unattractive to be a landlord.

> but landlords who promised to pay their mortgages are not allowed to stop paying.

Why not provide them an extension during this time, as well?

We should! But for some reason, a lot of people think we shouldn't.

Because the next step after that would be to bail out the banks. You can't solve this problem without conjuring money via government debt.

I disagree with your conclusion. If landlords think owning land is too risky, they’ll sell their properties, supply will increase, prices will drop and new buyers will come in to take advantage of the low prices before the market inevitably recovers.

Owning land is lucrative in NYC and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.