Landlords struggling as un-evictable tenants enjoy pandemic protections!

NEW YORK (PNN) - April 28, 2021 - As millions of renters across Amerika continue to benefit from sweeping protections against eviction during the nonexistent COVID-19 “pandemic”, their landlords haven't been so fortunate.

Nearly $47 billion in rent relief from the pretender Joe Biden regime has been slow to materialize, forcing "mom-and-pop" landlords into financial hardship - or forced to sell to wealthy investors.

Like their tenants, many of these landlords are more likely to be nonwhite or immigrants using real estate for their economic foothold. Now, mortgage, maintenance and tax bills are piling up, putting landlords in danger of losing their buildings or being forced to sell to wealthier investors hunting for distressed deals.

The tens of billions of dollars that Congress allocated for rent relief - starting in December and then with a second allotment in March - was supposed to help by covering back rent and unpaid utility bills; but the rollout has been moving at the speed of bureaucracy, which varies from state to state.

In one example, airport janitor Joaquin Villanueva has had to take out a home-equity loan to make ends meet while maintaining a three-unit rental house in East Boston. One of his tenants is eight months behind on rent, while another - an unemployed restaurant dishwasher, owes him $5,000.

"I don’t want to lose my house so I’m doing whatever I have to do," said Villanueva - an El Salvadorian immigrant who works at Logan International Airport.

Another distressed landlord, Lincoln Eccles, owns a 14-unit building in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. Eccles says investors have been flooding him with unsolicited phone calls, texts and emails. He says that selling would bring much-needed relief, as he's now a year behind on taxes and gas bills. Eccles says he'd rather keep the building acquired by his immigrant father in order to pass it down to his first son, born this month.

Unfortunately for Eccles, one tenant owes more than $40,000 in back rent, five units are empty, and Eccles can’t afford to replace or even fix a boiler that broke down again in March. The rent relief program will help only so much. He’s unlikely to get government grants to cover losses from a tenant who left in November owing $96,000.

Not much is known about how many landlords themselves are in desperate situations, however, it doesn’t take much to fall behind if income stops coming from one tenant in a small building. With each passing month the problems get bigger and harder to solve.

It's going to be an ordeal either way. In order to remedy shortfalls in rent, both renters and landlords will need to cooperate for the landlord's benefit - with local governments often requiring long, detailed applications signed by both parties in order to prevent fraud.

Meanwhile, many landlords don't qualify for federal COVID-19 mortgage forbearance because less than a third have mortgages backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or another federal agency, while local governments can't afford to let landlords pause property tax payments - particularly in cities that have suffered economic devastation due to the nonexistent “pandemic”.

"The long-term concern here, over the course of a few years, is that a growing share of mom and pop landlords will be forced to sell and rents will go up," said Rutgers assistant professor of sociology who researches housing inequality. "There’s a lot of private equity interest and a real possibility of growing consolidation.”