So I'm in Chicago. Two six flats. 8/12 tenants now not paying rent. I've been talking to other landlords and it's the same story. I have two buddies with 60 units between them. They're are mostly 1 bedrooms. Rent is under 1500 a unit which I think is contributing to it. 38/60 didn't pay July rent. Are we alone here or has everyone just stopped paying rent?

I was looking for just this post. I'm a small landlord, and so far only one tenant cannot pay. This will be the third month. I was hoping to find other landlords who have found some way to get tenants to pay? Any advice? In my state, the governor placed a moratorium on evictions for non payment of rent. Would love to hear what others are doing.

@Meryl McElwain I don't think it's the rate that contributed to it. It's the screening process you and your investor friends used to select qualified tenants. That's nearly 70% not paying. $1500 for a one bedroom ain't cheap in Chicago or any midwest market. 

That amount of non pay is shocking, but I wish you the best of luck getting everyone back on track. 

Through the end of June, we've collected 99% of the rent owed since March on close to 1,000 doors here in San Antonio. People were a little slower, but just about everyone has caught up at this point. We're on pace to have regular collections this month as well. Most of the other investors and managers I know in Texas have had similarly strong collections. 

I have heard stories like yours from friends of mine in Philly, NYC, and parts of California and New Jersey. It seems like collection issues have varied a lot by market. In many areas, I think it must have more to do with anti landlord sentiment than it does with tenants' actual ability to pay. I can't imagine that people are doing that much worse in those areas than we are here. I certainly could be mistaken about that though. I'm just glad I moved to this market when I did.

Originally posted by @Jaron Walling :

@Meryl McElwain I don't think it's the rate that contributed to it. It's the screening process you and your investor friends used to select qualified tenants. That's nearly 70% not paying. $1500 for a one bedroom ain't cheap in Chicago or any midwest market. 

That amount of non pay is shocking, but I wish you the best of luck getting everyone back on track. 

I've been doing this a long time but let me clarify a few things:

Under 1500. Under 1500 in Chicago is a 1 bedroom or a studio. This means you generally not dealing with roommates or families. These are single people with no roommate or family to lean on.

Add to that we have an eviction moratorium through July 31st. That's to file. Not to actually go through the process which is already arduous in Chicago. Court is closed here except for emergency matters. My attorneys, good attorneys, agree that you wont be able to get an eviction court date until next year. Evictions are also stayed here in the winter time. Between Nov and march. I'm a lawyer as well and my regular matters that have been pushed a year out from the original date. Not a typo. There will be no civil jury trials in Chicago in 2020.

Next we have a serious problem with the unemployment system here. People who filed 3 months ago still havent gotten unemployment.

So you combine all this you have a serious issue for people who dont have significant savings. 

Frankly, I'm wondering where the hell everyone else is getting their rent from because we do screen and with the amount of people out of work from Uber to restaurants and bars I dont know how any of them are paying.

Average rent is 1250

@Meryl McElwain it strikes me as a regional malaise.............some people are unfortunately being trained to believe that actions do not have consequences. Seems many big cities where irresponsible politicians and activists have been coaching and encouraging bad behavior, LL will have to mitigate risk in those areas with tighter screening.

Has to be area or property type problem if it’s not screening. These tenants should qualify nemploymwnt bonus and have no problem paying rent. 

14 single family in Vegas and one in MN. I had one tenant Move out this year. New tenant is paying 20% more ($1900 vs $1600) nobody else has even been 2 days late with full rent. This could be because they are houses instead of apartments and because I only do multi year leases. But check with single family landlords in Chicago. If they have experiences like mine, try swapping property types. If they have experiences like yours, try swapping property areas. 

I have 4 rentals.  Only one couple has had problems paying rent and they are usually a few days late as neither of them are working.

Eleven out of twelve of our tenants are paying, all duplexes and SFHs, mostly long term tenants.  The one who is refusing is an inherited tenant (we closed in late January right before COVID, we think this tenant may be the reason the previous owner sold) on a M2M, so the contract will be ended once the memorandum is lifted.  We have approached him with cash for keys offers since rentals are still filling, but the landlords have zero negotiating power in the current situation and we just have to wait it out.

Own a duplex out here in monrovia, CA. No missed or late payments yet. One family is UPS driver and one is a LA county public school teacher and so far so good. 

Out of nine mixed units roughly half did not pay. Most are commercial tenants. Here in NYC there is freeze in moratorium in eviction until Aug 20, for nonpayment. The few apartments that we do have so far paid. Property taxes are due so fortunately we had the funds to deal with them. 

@John Kwak

50% is how many units? And how are you dealing exactly?

@Michele Fischer

What kind of situation would you be in if 50% of tenants werent paying?

@Meryl McElwain , if we were down to 50% collectibility, we would be bleeding about $2k in cash each month, since none of the costs stop.  We have deferred upgrades, and could maybe reduce lawn care, but everything else is fixed, including some utilities included in rent.  It's grim for sure.  We gave all of our tenants 50% off rent in May to ease their burdens, hoping we could break even compared to normal profits for 2020.  I think the real wild card is what eviction and turnover costs will there be in addition to lost rent.  From my perspective, almost everyone has economically suffered by the pandemic.  It's too bad it couldn't be more fairly distributed, but such is life.

These are mostly small buildings . My family has been in real estate and have a total of 9 properties . Half are mixed buildings with apartment on top of the retail space. In total 25 tenants occupied and 2 vacancy. Five tenants are behind rent. It may not sound like allot but it's 4 out of the 9 properties because four of these are single story retail buildings or retail use only. So roughly 50%. So it's lesson when you look to invest. Buy a mixed unit than a standalone building.

Two of the retail buildings are still close due to the lock down.  So I can understand why they would have hard time paying rent. The other two  retail tenants are restaurant business and as we know they are having hard time too. There is also 2 apt behind in rent but I think they want to surrender the place but are trying to find a new place.

The difference between apartment unless if it's a luxury apt which I don't have retail tenants pays much higher rent particularly in NYC. So that's what's hurting us. We do have security deposit . Fortunately we are lucky that the mortgage has been paid off but the property tax is a killer.

What can we do? Fortunately we do have cash reserve but for how long? We were able to pay the July 1 property tax that was due . We tell tenants that they still have to pay rent but we understand the tough situation.

Part of the reason why I join bigger pockets is to get different ideas or something. I always thought real estate was a safe investment but this was tough lesson to learn.

How long can we last? Well once the eviction moratorium is lifted we plan on evicting. Let say things are still bad and in the future we evict the tenants and cannot find new tenants because everything went down.  That's a good question. We would still have to pay property tax and up keep the properties but if the cost is too high we would have no choice to sell . Time will tell.

@Meryl McElwain

I do not have a lot of properties but I’m getting rent payment. 
I wanted to ask, for MF units more than 4 is the banks not given forbearance? 
or is the forbearance only for SFH?

@Meryl McElwain that’s disheartening to hear. I was concerned when the pandemic first started, but like most people on here my collections so far have been unaffected. I’d tend to agree with some of the others and it may be a location or screening based. In my area there aren’t any comparable rentals in the price range I’m offering right now. So my tenants can’t afford to get evicted since there’s nothing available. I may be leaving some cash on the table by not raising rents more aggressively, but honestly if I’ve got good tenants and I’m cash flowing why stir the pot.

I saw an insightful article on CNBC that I saved just in case. It’s a letter a landlord sent to his tenants explaining that through these tough times landlords and tenants are both struggling.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/10/told-my-landlord-i-cant-pay-rent-due-to-coronavirus-how-he-responded.html

It wouldn’t hurt to mail out a similar letter you your tenants and hope for a humane approach. Unfortunately there’s not much sign of things getting better in the short term, but we have to adapt.

What you are experiencing has nothing to do with your screening process; it has to do with the already pro-tenant local/state laws on the books coupled with the executive orders that governors/mayors have proclaimed in these pro-tenant areas and the public messaging these elected officials are producing.  

This is human nature 101.  If you were a person of marginal ethics (in this case, 75% of your tenants), and the governor publicly announces you cannot be held to account for not paying rent (no late fees, notices, or evictions), and in fact implies that it's okay not to honor your written contract, then what's the downside of not paying?

Society does not work with "all carrot, no stick."

When you go out of business and your portfolio is foreclosed upon, what will the government do with all these squatters in abandoned buildings and no tax revenue from said properties?  Inordinately raise taxes on the businesses and individuals that were able to get through this, is my guess.

We own a small office building in Long Island NY. All seven tenants have been paying their rent so far. Some of them a little late but they still paid. Our appraisal company occupies one of the offices in the building.  The highest rent amount is $1,350.00 per month. The other tenant we have in our duplex has been paying as well.

@Meryl McElwain An author of this website did do a post in the beginning of covid19. One suggestion to pay your rent is paying it with a credit card and ask the credit card to have a later payment. Search "paying rent with credit card". Another suggestion is to have the tenants ask friends and family to help them with their rent. Another suggestion is to have the tenants pay some of it and have them catch on. The issue here is if you accept anything than you cant claim that month in eviction court. Another option on your end is to ask your bank to push your mortgage payment back. I just refinanced and I didn't have to make a payment for 2 months. I used those 2 months to renovate. I dont know if refinancing helps you and lower your payments so you are in less in minus at the moment.

We have one managed property that is a non-pay so far this month but says will be paying today. But she's been on the bubble for months, even before this took hold, so I don't see it as related. All other tenants are paid up and on time. I think there's a lot to the geography of where you are. We have friends from Chicago and while you can make some serious money there - they retired based off of many years of good rentals - you have a lot of tenant-favored laws and attitudes to deal with. You see that in most major cities but Chicago appears to be right up there.

@Meryl McElwain I thought this thread was asking are we still paying rent. Lol I read that wrong.

Governor says "you can't be evicted for not paying rent"

Tenant hears "free rent"

These states will have to answer for the financial damage they are doing to landlords. They are modifying contracts and removing due process for landlords. As a result they are taking property. All unconstitutional. 

None of my tenants have missed or been late on a payment this year. We never had a moratorium on evictions, but the courts were closed until the end of May.

I closed about 5 weeks ago on a triplex and none of those tenants paid rent on time last month. My PM had to harass them and finally two paid. This month, one paid yesterday and the others are not looking likely at all.  I also pay utilities on this property, so now I'm paying them to live there...its definitely frustrating.  

They have not signed new leases with me and the two who haven't paid this month (and one of them for two months) indicated that they are moving out. I guess I'm just stuck with this but do I have any recourse on the utilities?