Rentals during covid

[L Belle]

HI All

I am in  need of guidance.  I am a first time Landlord in Maryland of a row home in a C class neighborhood. I finished the updates, inspections and licensing right when the pandemic/ shelter in place hit in March-April 2020. Now I have a beautifully updated “C“ level property without a tenant. I am on the fence about renting it out now due to covid laws, freezes on evictions,  freezes on late payments etc., and can’t find much information on what other investors are doing during this time.  I have had a quite a few applicants and even after pre qualifying them with details such as income needing to be 3x the rent, proof of income and credit scoring needing to be at least 600 or more, the applicants end up not meeting the qualifications that they attested to. 
Considering the neighborhood is very low income, and with the extra $600 pandemic unemployment coming to end in July, I don’t think it make sense to rent out the property at this time.  I dislike the thought of the property sitting vacant and costing me a few hundred dollars per month but I’d also hate for all off the money I just spent renovating the property to be a waste and I will have to redo everything over again.  It just feels like an opportunity for someone to get into the property and possibly end up not paying anymore rent while I‘all have no recourse causing all of my efforts and $$ to be in vain.

I do own the property outright, I have an alarm system on the property and there are monthly ($300) expenses on this empty property. 

Please advise if I am missing something or if I am spot on with my decision to not rent at this time and what signs should I look for letting me know when it’s time to start renting or anyways to pivot during this time.  

Any insight from you seasoned Landlords/ Investors would be appreciated 

[Kar Sun]

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

In a country where there is a homelessness crisis, a pandemic, and people are being forced out of neighborhoods because of investors buying all the houses, leaving a perfectly good home vacant is incredibly unconscionable, immoral, cruel, and evil. 
the fact that you own it outright and don’t have a mortgage just makes it worse. If you’re not willing to take a risk then you shouldn’t be investing in anything. No investment is risk free. If you want something with no risk or low risk buy a savings bond or open a money market account and sell the house to someone who can actually live in it. 
there is going to have to be major national legislation passed to stop this kind of nonsense. Not everyone who has to rent is a scam artist or unreliable or a deadbeat. Not everyone who has had financial issues in the past is a bad person who can’t be trusted. 
I used to have a credit score of 475 because between 18-24 I knew nothing about credit and how important all that was. And once I began to care about it the damage had been done and I was trying to support myself while everything got more expensive but wages never rose in a similar way. 
ive had to dispute and fight eviction filings that took place when I was in the hospital, from when a landlord would not accept the rent aid I had applied and qualified for to make sure I could keep my obligations paid but kept charging me $20 everyday in late fees so that when we went to court one months $700 rent had ballooned to $1100 with late fees, court fees, a fee for posting a notice on my door. 
thank god for for this pandemic because I can take advantage of the unemployment benefits and not have to work a job I hate and instead focus on finishing school. 
my credit is now 723. We make $4000 a month in unemployment which will last until the end or September and have a $30,000 settlement coming on the 28th and yet people like you keep denying us for one reason or another. 
just pick someone and stop contributing to the already out of control housing crisis  

do you say the same thing about billionaires who live in 20,000sq ft mansions and all that space is unused?

what about their lawns where they have acres and acres of land while there are homeless?

what about wealthy people yachts, cars, planes? so much unused space?

the system is not run by the landlords.

yet they have convinced you that small time landlords somehow must share their property rights with you.

the courts system is not working like it should. your settlement might be 100k and landlord is not able to see any of this if you decide not to pay.

for some small amount of money you pay each month a landlord entrusts you the entire property.

remember one thing: when people property rights are erroded then goes freedom.

those who point out how the system is unfair are not giving up their wealth.

it is called identity politics.