Mortgage Deferral for ALL residential Real Estate

[Scott Trench]

There's a lot of press going around about HUD suspending foreclosures on homeowners and many states and cities no longer processing evictions. I can't agree or disagree with the politics and/or health reasons for this.

As landlords and investors this is why we invest for cash flow, and invest with reserves. We should all be able to temporarily withstand even a few months with no rents. 

But, longer-term, it seems crazy to think that multiple months will pass in a row where landlords are unable to legally enforce rent collections or evict AND have to pay mortgages and that this will be an ongoing reality. We of course need to work with our tenants through this, but the only way to sustain this over a period of more than a few months is for landlords to be able to likewise defer their fixed overhead - taxes, insurance, and principal/interest. 

It seems to me that a very simple answer to this situation, if things are prolonged, is to simply allow landlords to defer mortgage payments, similar to what is already being done for homeowners. 

To me, this seems like the logical outcome. Sure, landlords may still be on the hook for property taxes and insurance, but they may also collect some rents as some tenants remain employed.

With mortgage deferment, everyone loses together in a more relatively appropriate way. 

What do others think? 

[Anthony Wick]

@Scott Trench

And then what about mortgage companies and their shareholders and employees? They will lose money, lay-off employees, go under. In the end, somebody ends up paying.

I don’t like a blanket policy for anybody to stop paying their bills. That is why I am not reaching out to my tenants. Yes, we will have a policy if they do reach out, but I’ve posted in many forums that I will not ask my tenants if they need help before they need help. And my mortgage company is not reaching out to me to offer zero payments as of yet either.