All Forum Posts by: Calvin Lin

I am someone who usually think of worst case scenario so what happens if this happens on Election Day: Dems take both the WH and the Senate as well as keeping the House, then the bill gets passed and no eviction nation-wide during 2021.  Court challenge is delayed (let say for many months) or even losing the case in the initial rounds (lower court) and appeals take many months and again no eviction in 2021.  More and more tenants figure that it is worth skipping paying rent for a year even with ding in their credit score because hey who knows maybe same thing in will happen in 2022.  

This is not an unplausible scenario and perhaps indeed shorter-term leases make sense at this point going forward in case you can still evict for non-renewals.

So I am wondering if any other landlords are giving their tenants more leeway for non-rent related transgressions during the pandemic eviction ban we are currently facing in various states and the recent CDC order?  For example, I am 6 months in on a first year tenant at a new townhouse who turned out to be very, very messy inside (but outside looks OK) but pays rent on-time every month so far and she gave me 2 months of rent as security deposit.  My lease specifies that she has to maintain a sanitary and habitable condition for the property, however you define that.  During normal time, maybe one would think about going the eviction route because maybe fear of pest situation developing, or longer term issue down the road in case some damages occur as a result of the mess.

But reading all the struggles other landlords are having at the moment due to non-paying tenants and no way to evict them, even if I could evict for non-payment reason (not sure if judges are also giving tenants more leeway for such things) I am thinking I should not be doing that and count my lucky star that I don't have someone who hadn't paid for many months and won't be able to evict for many more months, and I just tolerate the mess for now and when the lease expires in 6 months make a decision then, no reason to make a big fuss about it right now.

Wondering if other LL's are thinking the way I am?

OK I see there is already a thread on this.  MOD feel free to delete this one.

Did anyone see this?  Just came on the news wire, apparently nation-wide.  Not sure if it only applies to homes backed by FANNINE mortgages or everyone, but it sounds like everyone since CDC is using its federal power to halt the spread of the virus as the justification.  It does mean that even if your state just resume eviction hearings this puts a stop to all of that.

There is no end in sight for us landlords.

David, I moved from NJ to the Raleigh area (Cary to be specific) just last year.  In your post you didn't mention if you would be looking for a new job in NC?  You may or may not know already but the Raleigh Triangle area is known for its tech and biotech (Research Triangle Park) related jobs and has quite a few universities, while Charlotte has the big east coast banks (BoA, WellsFargo, etc).  Don't know much about Winston Salem / Greensboro but definitely quite a bit smaller than the first two and more affordable.

I remember working in NYC with a Wall St firm on Sept 11, 2001 (my company had > 2,000 employees in 1 of the WTC towers).  After that my company decided to open suburban remote offices on LI, Westchester and NJ to lessen concentration of workers in 1 single location.  Now fast forward to 2014-2015, > 10 years has passed and not a single major attack has occurred in Manhattan, so they decided to close these offices for the most part and moving most back to Manhattan.  5 years later Covid-19 happens, and now protest & riots where you can't safely go into an big office building anymore in NYC. 

I hate to sound doom & gloom but if someone is in charge of corporate office planning for 10 years he or she would not be doing his/her job correctly if they don't see where the risk lies in having most of your employees in a big city setting.

Yeah me too, I bought my new house in West Cary, moved from NJ 2 years ago.  I miss really good Japanese food but that's about it.

 I do not have any, thus it was a bit easier for me.  But my brother is going to do the same soon and he does have 1 boy, so it is possible too.  Just have to give up a few more Starbucks coffee.  :-) 

This is for Uhaul only.  I am not in the SF area so I can't say from personal experience but from what I read online and from news source the out migration trend from super expensive coastal cities like SF, NJ, NY, LA have been in motion for years and now with coronavirus and work-from-home being made permanent at many companies one would assume the trend will accelerate years to come.  Also you will find many folks on BP in cities such as Dallas, Austin, SLC, Phoenix, Denver, Raleigh, Charlotte, Nashville, etc all saying they have lost of recent arrivals from such coastal areas.  But if you are saying in fact places like SF have more people moving into it than moving out then I guess it's not what I would expect, especially now.

 Interesting you mentioned the next Austin, I feel that the NC Triangle Research Park area (Raleigh, Durham) is a few years behind Austin in terms of tech company expansion, and RE prices is a bit cheaper than Austin.  NC does have a flat income tax but RE tax is much lower than that of Texas (NC about 1% of value vs TX from 2%+).  It's also a big college metro area w/ 3 large univerities (Duke, UNC, NC State).  As you know more educated workforce = better economic opportunity as it tends to attract more companies.  I feel this area presents a good combination of cash flow vs appreciation, a topic that has been disussed many times on BP.  Some wants only CF and some want appreciation but for me a little of both is the best of both worlds.

Another thing I look at is the political climate of the location.  If the politics at the location where you want to invest in has a pro-tenant/anti-landlord political leaning, then you should think very hard about investing there as such locations only get harder and harder for landlords as these type of laws usually get worse, not better over time.  Just look at what's happening in NY and Seattle area, I wouldn't touch those locations with a 10 ft pole.

So for me things I feel are most important:

1) In/out-migration trend -> do people want to come here?

2) Political climate -> are politicians out to hurt you?

3) Education level / big universities -> do companies want to come here, especially those that pay high salary?