quote:

Washington’s pandemic response is battering the finances of independent landlords, most of whom haven’t received federal rental aid designed to keep them whole during a nearly year-long eviction ban that has forced some property owners to house tenants for free.

The distress is acute for so-called mom-and-pop landlords — those who own fewer than 100 properties, which typically have between one and four units. They supply about half the housing stock in the country, and they’re more likely than corporate property managers to have lower-income tenants who’ve fallen behind on their rent as a result of Covid-19. About 30 percent have household incomes below $90,000 a year. 70 percent make more than that each year.

Many are growing increasingly angry with the government’s handling of housing safeguards, as they continue to pay utilities and mortgages but face state and local bottlenecks when trying to tap into $46.5 billion in rental aid allocated by Congress to offset losses from the eviction ban imposed last September. As of the end of June, just $3 billion of the funds had been disbursed. Landlords have lost billions of dollars a month under the ban.

“We’re doing everything the right way,” said Matthew Haines, a Dallas property owner. “But we’re drowning.”

Landlords are unsympathetic figures in the eyes of many struggling tenants, but they’re emerging as a new economic problem for Congress and the White House, after Democrats prioritized renters by pushing for the revival of the eviction ban earlier this month. The Biden administration has yet to find a way to accelerate the release of federal rental aid, meaning property owners will continue to be squeezed until the eviction moratorium expires Oct. 3 or is struck down in court.

A federal judge on Friday said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exceeded its authority by implementing the ban, but she let it remain in place in place until higher courts decide its legality. Local chapters of the National Association of Realtors are suing to block the policy.

Roughly 23 percent of small landlords leasing single-family rentals had sold at least one property as of February, according to a survey by the National Rental Home Council. Six months later, the renewed moratorium and the continued logjam in aid disbursal mean many more may not be able to hold on to all their property.

Some 6.5 million renter households are behind on rent, according to the most recent U.S. Census survey. Nearly 59 percent of those households live in properties with between one and four units, 72 percent of which are run by mom-and-pop landlords, according to an analysis of government data by the National Association of Realtors.

“The majority of rental housing in most major cities is provided by individuals,” said Dean Hunter, CEO of the Small Multifamily Owners Association and a landlord in Washington. “The problem is in this case the government regulated individuals as if they are multinational organizations. It made no sense.”

White House spokesperson Emilie Simons said the administration is concerned about renters and landlords in need, citing its support for rental assistance.

But some Democrats are openly dismissing property owners’ concerns.

“Yes, the small landlords are at a disadvantage, but guess what, they know how to go to get a job, they know how to get a loan, ” House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said July 30 as she rallied support for extending the eviction ban. “They know how to deal with hard times. ... I believe that they can hang on until [aid] flows smoothly, and I do not believe that the [renter] families, many of whom have three and four children, have that opportunity.”

Even if they can wait out the sluggish aid, though, some landlords may never recover the money they’ve failed to acquire over the past year and a half.

“The eviction moratorium is protecting some renters who aren’t eligible for aid or who will move out before it can arrive, so the landlords will never see that money,” said Jay Parsons, a rental housing economist at property management software provider RealPage.

quote:

"We’ve turned it over to collections, but we’ll never see it,” he said of his tenants unpaid rent. “In January we had to take $50,000 out of our personal savings just to keep one of the properties going so we didn’t have to lay anyone off or sell a property.”

Haines said he had one tenant who did not lose her job but who refused to pay rent over the course of the pandemic before moving out in January. If a tenant has moved, the landlord cannot receive assistance to cover their back rent. Another non-paying tenant has cut off communication, which means Haines can’t file a claim for assistance on his behalf because such claims need the tenant’s signature.

“Next to the front-line medical workers and emergency responders, I think the small-business landlords who have kept their tenants housed should be getting a good deal of credit,” he said.

gently caress You And Diebold posted:

Ur in Texas, everything is 45 minutes away and the whole state sucks

Schmoe Cwead posted:

https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1426412502875664385

Schmoe Cwead posted:

https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/1426266637259481090

Rah! posted:

lmao

"open biden!!" -trundo thread

Schmoe Cwead posted:

https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1426412502875664385

Schmoe Cwead posted:

https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/1426266637259481090

titty_baby_ posted:

How about ducklo tho

Plinkey posted:

https://i.imgur.com/WWKyHhl.mp4

DryGoods posted:

Alec Eiffel posted:

stage 4 cancer

emfive posted:

lol he's going to get embedded alright

pre-op bebop posted:

Isn't that one of those flags that you get when someone was in the military & died? Who was in the military in their family?

Alec Eiffel posted:

he’s dying, emfive

Schmoe Cwead posted:

https://twitter.com/nathanTbernard/status/1426559524605935617

emfive posted:

lol he's going to get embedded alright

DryGoods posted:

Bearjew posted:

have some sympathy, please

PyPy posted:

never



this




is







trump












thread

Bearjew posted:

have some sympathy, please

pre-op bebop posted:

Isn't that one of those flags that you get when someone was in the military & died? Who was in the military in their family?

WrasslorMonkey posted:

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Maybe there is yet another hidden sibling that turned out to be a loser/sucker

DryGoods posted:

who?

pre-op bebop posted:

Isn't that one of those flags that you get when someone was in the military & died? Who was in the military in their family?

emfive posted:

I had some Italian basil and some Thai basil that got too hot and almost died but now they're happy again

I should sacrifice something, like some garbage or whatever, and find a good nature god

Elephanthead posted:

sacrificing all my mint plants to Mojito the god of headaches.

emfive posted:

lol he's going to get embedded alright

Rah! posted:

lmao

Koirhor posted:

reinstatement day has strong 18th century predictions of the second coming of christ vibe.

pre-op bebop posted:

Isn't that one of those flags that you get when someone was in the military & died? Who was in the military in their family?