Raising rents on acquired property during COVID

[Ignacio Rosenberg]

Hiya all;

We're closing on a property in the next few weeks and struggling with balancing the business and the human side of what we do.  The property has tenants in place but are between $130-200 / mo under market at the current state of the place.  Way more if we revamp it a bit.  We realize this is an incredibly hard time to ask for a rent increase, but we don't see how we cannot as a business. One idea is to give them a free month and then start again with the new rents, while also giving them the option to break the lease if they want to.  We do want to provide homes for people, but we can't lose money right off the bat!

I can't get a fully straight answer about the rental market at the moment, everything seems too volatile, but it does mean we'd have some time to spruce up the homes and get better rates.  We also run the risk of not getting tenants for a while.

Anyone going through something similar in these unprecedented times, or have any suggestions?

Thanks!