I am hearing from more and more owners who are not paying their mortgages, utilities, and even fire insurance because they can’t, due to uncollected rent. Maintenance was the first casualty.
If you are facing similar problems and would be willing to share with your elected officials and or the media, please email me. Tim[at]ApartmentsMilwaukee.com
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/17/success/landlords-struggling-rent-eviction/index.html
If landlords are struggling, tenants will also be affected as home maintenance slides.
“I’m seeing landlords who can’t pay for trash removal,” Gray said. “We’re getting ‘no heat’ calls. They aren’t paying real estate taxes. They aren’t paying their mortgage.”
For the typical landlord in trouble, which he said is someone who bought their property in the last five years and is leveraged to the hilt, there are no reserves. “Despite tenant protection laws, these landlords don’t have the cash reserves, nor the equity in their building to get loans,” he said. “With the moratoriums, they’re taking hit after hit.”
Some landlords, he said, are being paid less and seeing the wear and tear on their property increase as grown children or friends double up after losing their own housing. Routine maintenance that was supposed to take place this year has in some cases been delayed or canceled because landlords just don’t have the money, said Gray.
“They can legislate the need to do timely repairs,” he said. “But for many landlords, there is no money.”