Feb 22

[Thank you to Joe Murray for the research]

First, let me preface this that in general, I feel that Governor Evers has done well in the distribution of housing aid during the pandemic.

However, his proposed budget has a number of concerning provisions.  And how the heck does Wisconsin allows laws unrelated to spending to be part of a budget is well beyond me.

  • If passed, municipalities will be able to restrict how you screen, what you can charge, prohibit showing occupied units, making certain you lose a month or more between tenants, limit charging for damages, limit or prohibit security deposits and allow for rent abatement for minor issues.  
  • If passed municipalities will also be able to enact their own eviction moratoriums.
  • If passed, you will be inhibited from evicting for criminal activity. That should make other renters and neighbors feel safe — Not!  
  • If passed you can be required to disclose code violations “regardless of whether the landlord has actual knowledge of the violation

Actual details are below.  
—————————— 
Local landlord-tenant ordinances

Current law prohibits political subdivisions from enacting certain ordinances relating to landlords and tenants. Political subdivisions may not do any of the following:

1. Prohibit or limit landlords from obtaining or using certain information relating to a tenant or prospective tenant, including monthly household income, occupation, rental history, credit information, court records, and social security numbers.

2. Limit how far back in time a landlord may look at a prospective tenant’s credit information, conviction record, or previous housing.

3. Prohibit or limit a landlord from entering into a rental agreement with a prospective tenant while the premises are occupied by a current tenant.

4. Prohibit or limit a landlord from showing a premises to a prospective tenant during a current tenant’s tenancy.

5. Place requirements on a landlord with respect to security deposits or earnest money or inspections that are in addition to what is required under administrative rules.

6. Limit a tenant’s responsibility for any damage to or neglect of the premises.

7. Require a landlord to provide any information to tenants or to the local government any information that is not required to be provided under federal or state law.

8. Require a residential property to be inspected except under certain circumstances.

9. Impose an occupancy or transfer of tenancy fee on a rental unit.

10. Current law also prohibits political subdivisions from regulating rent abatement in a way that permits abatement for conditions other than those that materially affect the health or safety of the tenant or that substantially affect the use and occupancy of the premises. 

The budget bill eliminates all of these prohibitions.

Local moratorium on evictions

Current law prohibits political subdivisions from imposing a moratorium on landlords from pursuing evictions actions against a tenant. 

The budget bill eliminates that prohibition.

Notification of building code violations

Under current law, before entering into a lease with or accepting any earnest money or a security deposit from a prospective tenant, a landlord must disclose to the prospective tenant any building code or housing code violations of which the landlord has actual knowledge if the violation presents a significant threat to the prospective tenant’s health or safety. The bill eliminates the condition that the landlord have actual knowledge of such a violation and that the threat to the prospective tenant’s health or safety be “significant”; under the bill, the landlord must disclose to a prospective tenant a building code or housing code violation, regardless of whether the landlord has actual knowledge of the violation, if the violation presents a threat to the prospective tenant’s health or safety.

The budget bill eliminates these provisions.

Terminating a tenancy on the basis of criminal activity

Current law allows a landlord, upon providing notice to a tenant, to terminate the tenant’s tenancy, without an opportunity to cure the tenant’s default, if the tenant, a member of the tenant’s household, or a guest of the tenant 1) engages in any criminal activity that threatens the health or safety of other tenants, persons residing in the immediate vicinity of the premises, or the landlord; 2) engages in any criminal activity that threatens the right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants or persons residing in the immediate vicinity of the premises; or 3) engages in any drug-related criminal activity on or near the premises. 

The budget bill eliminates these provisions.

Nov 14

If you want to share this or any other housing concerns with your elected officials, go to democracy.io and enter your address.  The site allows you to write to both your US Senators and your Congressperson at the same time without searching for their emails or finding who represents you.

We should be asking for housing assistance to prevent the failure of both renters and housing.

If you do write – I’d appreciate if you send me a copy to Tim@ApartmentsMilwaukee.com

Notes on housing, supported by reliable sources such as Census.gov

74.4 % of rental properties owned by individual investors. Source: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/rental-housing.html and in an easier to read format in this report from Harvard: https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/who-owns-rental-properties-and-is-it-changing


55% of rental units as owned by part-time landlords: https://www.avail.co/education/articles/state-independent-landlords-2017


Rent debt will be $25-34B by January 1st. https://www.ncsha.org/resource/current-and-expected-rental-shortfall-and-potential-eviction-filings/ 

roughly 10 – 14 million renter households — home to 23 – 34 million renters — were behind on their rent by a total of roughly $12 – $17 billion as of September 14, 2020.

These renters will owe $25 – $34 billion by January 2021,
(from a chart just below the P1 fold)

More State-Specific info at: https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2020/08/chart3_fsp.png

Local economic multiplier of rent payments from a report by Brookings Inst.
 

RENT HAS IMPORTANT MULTIPLIER EFFECTS IN THE LOCAL ECONOMYRent checks don’t just line the pockets of fat cat landlords—they also contribute to essential government services and other workers’ wages. If many households are simultaneously unable to pay rent, the economic impacts will be felt throughout the local economy.

The first entity that gets paid by a monthly rent check isn’t the landlord—it’s the local government. Property taxes have a higher priority even than mortgages; if a landlord falls behind on both property taxes and mortgage payments, the local government’s claim supersedes the lender’s.

Cities and counties rely on property taxes from all their constituents—individual homeowners as well as owners of apartments, offices, and other nonresidential properties—to cover the cost of providing public services. Although local governments could defer property tax payments during the current crisis, the pandemic is already stressing local government budgets. Cities are front-line providers of health care and emergency services, and also need money right now to feed children whose public schools are shut down and care for older adults and vulnerable populations.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/25/halting-evictions-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-isnt-as-good-as-it-sounds/ 

Census reports that the average rental unit generates $1,198 per unit per year in wages.
https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/rhfs/#/?s_byGroup1=12&s_tableName=TABLE4&s_type=2
Mean Payroll Costs for Employees Per Housing Unit 1,198

We can fix evictions for what it costs to allow the problem to continue
https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2020/08/Evictions-Data-Update-August.pdf

Providing shelter and services to a family experiencing homelessness can cost local governments $10,000,[1] which is more than the $9,120 average annual cost of one housing voucher to the federal government[2] 

[1] Evans, William, James Sullivan, and Melanie Wallskog. “The Impact of Homelessness Prevention on Homelessness.” Science, 333:6300 694–6999, 2016. https://science.sciencemag.org/ content/353/6300/694.full.

[2] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Snapshot of Housing Choice Vouchers, 2016,” June 2018, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/elist/2018-june_08.html

Impact of the 2008 housing crises on Milwaukee

The following is from a letter we wrote to Milwaukee’s mayor.  It outlines some of the economic factors of rental housing and the harm that will come if there is a mass failure.  In 2008 smart money could see prices rising over a two and a half year period at a rate not sustainable by wages.   In 2020 the economy was screaming, then two weeks later it stopped. The suddenness of the event is a recipe for disaster.

If action is not taken to avert this, the aftermath of 2008 will look like a walk in the park on a sunny day.


A December 2019 Milwaukee Dept of City Development report  stated “The economic impact of the Great Recession and mortgage foreclosure crisis has had a significant, detrimental, and ongoing effect on City households.” DCD 12/2019.[ii]  Foreclosure filings in Milwaukee County were three times higher in 2009 than last year.[iii] From 2008 through 2010,16,000 Milwaukee properties were in some stage of foreclosure by lenders and the city.[iv] In those two years, the tax base lost almost $2 billion in value, with a resulting $16.7 million loss of tax revenue.  The resulting demolitions had a large impact on the City’s budget due to the cost of razing along with the impact on the property tax and municipal services collections.[v] The neighborhoods where those properties were located suffered long-term damage.  We continue to feel that impact even today, and we certainly hope to avoid a similar outcome in the future.

[ii]Section 2: Housing Needs and Demand Housing Affordability Report Department of City Development  |  December 2019 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/eb043b089173407aa469eba948dd9601

[iii] State’s Foreclosure Rates Have Plummeted » Urban Milwaukeehttps://urbanmilwaukee.com/2019/07/11/states-foreclosure-rates-have-plummeted/

[iv] www.sewrpc.org/SEWRPCFiles/HousingPlan/Files/foreclosure-in-milw-progress-and-challenges.pdf

[v] Tom Barrett wants to spend $2.4 million on home demolition, rehabarchive.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/barrett-wants-to-spend-24-million-on-home-demolition-rehab-b9933176z1-211401301.html/

Jul 30

The recording is at:

Newsmakers: Evictions in Wisconsin During COVID-19

It was a great program, and worth watching.

Discussion topics

  • Statistical comparison of eviction numbers from the first six months of 2019 vs. 2020.
  • A forecast for the remainder of 2020 for landlords and tenants.
  • Potential long-term effects on housing as a result of COVID-19. 
  • Potential fallout from a national eviction moratorium.
  • The rent strike movement’s effects on potential investors in rental property.

Discussion panelists

WisconsinEye senior producer Steve Walters will host the panel discussion with the following panelists:

  • Heiner Giese, lobbyist for the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASEW)
  • Chris Mokler, director of legislative affairs for the Wisconsin Apartment Association (WAA)
  • Colleen Foley, executive director for the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee
  • Joe Murray, director of political and governmental affairs for the WRA
May 24

I was invited by TMJ4 to talk about the end of the WI eviction moratorium on Friday. I cannot find a link to the show, but here are my notes and a picture from when my granddaughter happened to catch the broadcast when she was watching tv. It must have been one of her homeschooling assignments. 😉

My notes for the interview. Unfortunately I was not able to make all my comments.

How are you working with tenants?

Most important is communication. Tenants need to talk to their landlords. The sooner the better.

Our company has posted a list of resources for tenants on our website at:
ApartmentsMIlwaukee.com/r/  

Despite dire predictions by attorneys for Legal Action, we do not anticipate a large increase in overall evictions.

What may be surprising to some, rental owners do not like evictions. It is in both parties best interest for a resolution.  Successful landlords need successful tenants. Every eviction is costly to landlords in terms of lost rent and often damages.  Evictions are costly to tenants as it impacts their future housing and is disruptive to their lives.

If tenants have resources to pay rent, then there will be no eviction crises when the moratorium is lifted.  Governor Evers just announced $25M Wisconsin Rental Assistance Program will go a long ways to providing those resources and preventing many evictions.  

Most owners did not charge late fees for April, well before the prohibition against late fees was issued.  

We are seeing greater than 85% of tenants have paid their rent in full for April and May and generally timely.

As would be expected, some tenant took advantage of the moratorium and did not pay rent when they had an ability to do so.  Many people are in better financial position today than they were three months ago due to the enhanced federal unemployment and stimulus money.  

Our company and many other landlords are working with Mediate Milwaukee to attempt to resolve some of these issues without filing for eviction.

Are you worried about how the rest of the year looks?

Absolutely. Landlords need to collect their rents in order to survive. If landlords do not survive, tenants and municipalities suffer.

The real fear is, unless something dramatically changes, that August and September will be far worse due to the expiration of the enhanced federal unemployment, the stimulus money being spent, and those employers who received the SBA Payroll Protection Program grants will no longer be required to keep those employees.

Any substantial disruption in rent collections will cause an impact on not only the property owners, but also on future rental housing costs.

Milwaukee and other communities have recently furloughed employees due to COVID’s impact on their budget.  This comes well before we will see the impact of COVID on payment of property taxes, sewer and water and reductions in collections of other city fees.    

We can look at  2008 and see how that impacted Milwaukee’s housing for years after. The City ended up foreclosing on hundreds of properties, with many having been vandalized to the point they were razed.  Milwaukee continues to have a huge number of tax foreclosures today, even in what was one of the best economies in history. It will only get worse now due to COVID.  This is not only a burden to the cities but also reduces future housing choices for tenants.

Picture of one of Sherrena (from Desmond’s EVICTED) properties on 10th & Center that was foreclosed upon shortly after the 2008 crises.  It burned in April 2018 and was finally razed in November 2019. (Photo by Heiner Giese)

There are predictions that the COVID housing impact will be far worse than the Great Recession. The 2008 bubble was predictable and the build up to it was over a couple of years.  Many people in the housing industry realized the prices of real estate at the time was unsustainable and those people were not harmed. 

COVID brought the economy to a sudden and unpredictable stop.  No one was prepared, and many businesses will not return.  

What resources are available to landlords?

Not many.

Landlords with very specific mortgages may forgo payments, but interest may still occur.  Mortgages are only a fraction of the operating costs.  Nearly an equal amount is paid to the municipalities in taxes, sewer, water, and other fees.  Maintenance is a large portion of the owners’ expenditures as is insurance and other operating costs.

Here is an infograph from the National Apartment Association:

Dec 04

Over on the ApartmentAssoc@groups.io email discussion list Mike writes:

Fortunately the facts are not as laid out in the post.  The article makes this clear.   “Property taxes” would not go up 64-128% under the proposals being considered.  The MPS portion of the property tax bill would go up by those percentages, not the whole bill.  The increases are still substantial – I estimate 25-50% of the whole bill.  If we landlords want to be involved in the political process we must arm ourselves with facts to avoid embarrasing ourselves and damaging our cause. 

Mike is correct, the percent of increase is the school portion. The original Journal article, which I based my comments on, stated:

“For a home assessed at $300,000, that would push property tax bills from $2,874 to $4,716 on the low end and $6,723 on the high end — increases of 64% and 134% respectively.”

Milwaukee Journal article as it appeared on 11/19/19

The Journal article has since been rewritten to “school property tax”

This represents an annual tax increase of $921 to $1925 on an average Milwaukee home.

I stand by my original comments of the dire consequences this will cause to our market.

Dec 03

From Rebecca Knox at Brew City REI Club

********Brew City: If you are concerned about the MPS referendum suggesting a SIGNIFICANT PROPERTY TAX INCREASE 64-128% and want to relay your thoughts on this, the LAST MEETING with the task force will be at 5:30 p.m. at Bradley Tech High School, 700 S. 4th St, Dec. 10.
********

All of the meetings will be open to the public. The panel is expected to make a recommendation to the school board in December 🤨😲 This is the last meeting they are having.

We spoke to District 4 elected MPS board member, Annie Woodward and she said there are a lot of agendas going on and encourages everyone to share their opinions.

The current conversation across our industry is Evictions.

What will happen to tenants who are already near failing, when tax bills force widespread rent increases?

What will happen when rental owners, who are already operating on slim margins, cannot find tenants that can pay the increased rents that mirror the increased taxes.

What will happen to homeowners who are barely keeping up with expenses today?

If property taxes double, which is the mean predicted increase, Milwaukee, and Milwaukee alone, could easily see a foreclosure/failure rate comparable to 2008.

Owners in the rest of the metro will be unaffected, making rentals and homes there more valuable and desirable, furthering the exodus from, and the decline of, the City of Milwaukee.

The Journal reported just two weeks ago of the harm caused by 28% of City workers leaving the city for the burbs.

Nov 29

From the Milwaukee Journal :

A new report from RENTCafe found that West Allis registered a 14.6% increase in average rent rates from just one year ago.

Per RentCafe, Milwaukee saw a 4% increase. Their report for WI is at:

https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/local-rent-reports/wisconsin-rent-report-october-2019/

4% for Milwaukee sounds about right. 14.6% for West Allis is surprising.

But if the proposed MPS budget goes through with its expected 64-134% property tax increase, then I expect that Milwaukee rents will skyrocket, all the while profitability will decrease.

Jun 20

Since yesterday’s post on Milwaukee rent stats I’ve spoken to a number of people, both landlords and tenant advocates, who felt rents had significantly increased in Milwaukee over the past couple of years.

I took a look at this using Rent-O-Meter’s rent analytic tool.  (I highly recommend this tool for accurately  setting residential rents) In moderately priced neighborhoods both on the Southside and Northwest, their data is showing that for two bedroom units rents have actually dropped quite a bit from 2016.  Three bedroom unit rents remain stable.

Not sure what to attribute this to.  There has been a softening of occupancy levels over the past year or so, which nearly always causes price corrections.  No money/low money mortgages are reappearing.  That temporarily drives up vacancies, but as we saw in 2008, that bubble pops.

 

 

Rent-o-Meter data NW Milwaukee

Rent-o-Meter data NW Milwaukee

Jun 19

Rents have not changed significantly in Milwaukee (2008-2012) compared to 2013-2017)

What has changed significantly is the number of people paying over 35% of their income in rent.  That percentage DROPPED from 50.1% in 2008-2012 to 45.9% in 2013-2017.

While there is still room for improvement, it looks like the financial status of Milwaukee’s tenants is improving.  This is a good thing for all.

Table is from the US Census Data:

Milwaukee Rental Data From US Census

Milwaukee Rental Data From US Census

Dec 02

Last week my son sent me the following text:

I read this from time to time and thank you for it

The Public Policy Forum a few months back said Milwaukee’s really short of low-cost rentals. If more people went into the business, researchers said, it could help. Yet Ballering, who’s owned for 32 years, told his son to find another occupation: “It’s such a difficult business,” said Ballering.

“There’s better things to do with your life.”

Not what a city in need of rental housing wants to hear from entrepreneurs who provide it.

Source: http://archive.jsonline.com/news/opinion/59534347.html/

The back story:

My son was nearing high school graduation.   I asked him what his plans were.  He said that he was going to follow me into the rental business.  He was initially upset with me when I told him no.  Today he is happy as a partner at a major marketing firm.

Although being in rental housing has done well for me, it is a harsh business.  There is little to no appreciation for the amount of work and risk involved. Many who enter the industry leave broke and broken. Your properties get damaged, your tenants do not pay and, to quote the late Rodney Dangerfield, we get no respect.

The government, who would benefit from successful rental housing, seldom support us or gives us the tools we need to succeed.  As an urban housing provider, you become responsible for the misdeeds of your tenants, while those who commit crimes are often not prosecuted.

There is an eviction crisis.  Yet instead of putting resources towards the causes, poverty and social issues, those claiming to want to solve the problem are providing more resources to free legal helps so that the nonpaying or disruptive tenant can stay a month or two longer due to an undotted i or uncrossed t.

So, yes, being a marketing professional seems like a much better life.

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