Navigating the current, and future world of REI.

[Lawrence Rutkowski]

Hello BP friends,

These days I find myself thinking about the future quite a bit.  

We're living in a time of rampant polarization, which is directly effecting every aspect of life, but more importantly, and for the purpose of this post, real estate.  

I own rental properties in Buffalo NY, where I grew up. I live, work and own properties in San Antonio TX.

As I'm sure many of you are aware, places like NYS are getting increasingly difficult to be a landlord. Landlord-Tenant laws are very much pro-tenant. To the point where you can't legally refuse a prospective renter because they can't afford the rent.. We are seeing metro areas, like Cincinnati, banning security deposits. Covid has been a reason to outright cancel rent collection and evictions, thanks to executive order on a federal level as of this past weekend.

I do NOT want this thread to turn to politics (Save it for facebook lol), but, and I'll keep this macro, we are looking at a presidential candidate and party who are increasingly villainizing landlords, floating ideas of a 25% "flip tax", and a litany of other legislation and taxation that would seemingly destroy private sector residential real estate for many of us small business owners.

I have been contemplating liquidating NY assets based upon this looming potential doom and gloom. I'm not going to because I've been fortunate with good tenants, but my mind can't help but think of what's on the horizon.

My question to you all, what are you doing to prepare for this, if anything? Are you changing your real estate strategy and income mix? Are you investing in something else altogether? 

Inquiring minds would like to know..