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Rentals during covid
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