Just a Landlord

For many reasons I’ve felt that much of commercial real estate is a poor investment. From Amazon keeping people out of stores, to increasing work from home arrangements. My daughter does an important job for AT&T. She has worked from her living room for many years, since they closed their main Brookfield office.

Now there is one more reason for companies to abandon commercial space – pandemics .

“It’s a good opportunity for us to test working from home at scale,” said Alvin Foo, managing director of Reprise Digital, a Shanghai ad agency with 400 people that’s part of Interpublic Group. “Obviously, not easy for a creative ad agency that brainstorms a lot in person.” It’s going to mean a lot of video chats and phone calls, he said.

Bloomberg 2-2-2020

The is a great, worth the time to read, article on landlord regulation over at BiggerPockets.

In 2006

Everyone: “The market is high, aren’t you going to sell and make a killing?”

Me: “Nope, don’t know where I would put the money if I did sell.“

In 2009

Everyone: “Wow! you must have lost a lot of money due to the real estate crash!”

Me: “Nope, I did not sell, I’m not selling, occupancy rates are the highest I’ve seen and rents are going up.“

If you are in this for appreciation or flipping, the fluctuations in real estate values directly impact you. If you are a buy and hold owner, then the market does not impact you as much.

My buddies who sold out in 06, 07 and thought they made a killing, lost a lot when the stock market corrected, plus paid taxes on the sales. Those of us that stayed in the rental game did okay.

Property values and rental returns do not move in unison.

In forty years I’ve seen the worst housing markets being the best rental markets, as long as you bought right and financed right. In 05 and 06, when anyone who could fog a mirror was given a mortgage, we saw double digit vacancy rates.

So strong housing markets can actually be bad for the rental market.

A worthy read:

Evictions: They Are Not The Terrible Landlord’s Fault

From today’s Milwaukee Journal Schneider: Desmond’s ‘Evicted’ is a flawed masterpiece

Homes in Milwaukee’s poorest areas often can be bought for as little as $8,000, with rents running upwards of $500 a month. In virtually no time, landlords can own the properties free and clear and the rent they collect is pure profit — as long as they can collect. As succinctly put by one of the landlords featured in the book, an African-American woman named “Sherrena,” (pseudonyms are used throughout the book) “The ‘hood is good.”

Further, despite the book’s grim portrayal of landlords, one can only imagine how far these neighborhoods could fall if landlords weren’t there to keep at least some semblance of order. If housing laws were to squeeze the amount of money property owners could make on their rental units, they may simply abandon these homes altogether, leaving a lawless landscape devoid of structure.

The Milwaukee Journal Editorial based on Matt Desmond’s new book Evicted builds upon some misperceptions about the rental industry.

A NYT reader’s comment on Desmond’s Evicted more closely follows what typical owners see when trying to run lower income housing.

The Journal editorial echoes Desmond’s advocating for legal representation for tenants in most evictions.  If you frequent eviction court you seldom see a day without Legal Action representing tenants.  ATCP 134 provides enticement for attorneys to represent tenants  tenants tin cases where the owner is doing wrong.

Implying tenants need legal representation simply perpetuates a myth that wrongful evictions are common and owners somehow benefits from an eviction. In fact by the time it is over the owner has lost two to three months rent and often more.  Legal representation for tenants in evictions seldom does more than simply let the tenant get another month of nonpayment before leaving.
 
In an average month eviction judgments in Milwaukee County exceed $847,000 – every month.  But this is but a fraction of the losses suffered by property owners.  Of those evictions, only a third of the cases had money judgments other than the court applied fees.  Was this because the tenant did not owe rent?  No, more likely because the owner did not want to waste more time chasing a judgment they will never collect.  Those in our industry as well as those outside of the rental business will tell you that less than a quarter of uncollected rent ends up in eviction court.
 
This is money removed from housing and increases costs for the rest of the tenant population. While some tenants may use the money for real needs like shoes for kids, some use it for other things that further harm the community.
 
Then there is the comments about constructive (illegal) evictions.  While statements like this flame the fires of hatred against landlords, such acts seldom occur and when they do there is adequate remedies for the tenant.  I own two duplexes that a guy walked away from his 1/3 down and eight years of payments after he spent a weekend in jail because he threw the tenants’ belongings out on the front yard and changed the locks.  Seems the tenant did not pay rent and when he went to find out why, he also found they broke the front picture window.  His first stop after getting out of jail was my office to see if I would buy them for the remaining mortgage.  Small owners take these things too personally…
 
Desmond’s book has brought the issue to the forefront. And this is good.  Its is our industry’s job to make sure this does not turn from what it is, the bringing a real problem to light, into yet another excuse to bash the rental housing industry.
 
The part of the discussion that would be helpful to the overall community is increased housing vouchers.  Universal food stamps for people in need was a good first step many years ago. Housing and utilities vouchers for those who need them the most would be a good next step.
 

Bill Lauer writes on the Apartment Association email discussion group:

I have thought about this often from a political perspective.

Why are the Democrats typically the political polar opposite to providers of lower cost housing and the Republicans often more supportive of our issues?  Every proposal that increases costs or decreases competition in that market adversely impacts the lower income residents, a constituency the the Dems purport to be theirs.  If you think about it the Dems should be the allies of rental housing.

I extracted the data from the 28,835 Milwaukee County eviction cases between 1/1/13 and 2/28/15.

Landlords who went to court  lost $22,677,299.01 in these 26 months.  

Remember this was only Milwaukee County And only a small fraction of cases end up in court or are pursued to a money judgment.  Most owners I’ve spoken to tell me that less than a quarter of their non paying tenants end up in eviction court. 

Some sad facts:  

• Only half the cases resulted in a money judgment against the tenant (14,424 of the 28,835)
• 12066 were dismissed either by the court or on stip
• Largest judgment  $243,255.95 (commercial)
• Largest residential eviction judgment:  $24,348.00
• Smallest judgment $1.30
• 4,020 judgments under $200
• 6,846  judgments over a grand ($1,000-243,255)
• 4,194 judgments over two grand  ($2,000-243,255)
• 2,106 Judgments over three grand ($3,000-243,255)
• 1,068  Judgments over four grand  ($4,000-243,255)