Rental Property Investor · Hendersonville, NC · Member since 2016 · 446 posts · 412 votes
I'll go first. I only have LTR's:
vacancies - I had poor timing with 2 vacancies that took from March to June to fill. I had a third unit being remodeled, that I just listed and had a huge amount of interest (July), so it seems that things have picked up a lot from June onward.
Payments - all tenants paid April, all but 1 paid May (-9%), all paid June and July.
Overall, vancancies were ill timed (end of February/early March), but I haven't seen much impact from those that were filled being able to pay.
How about everyone else? I know there seemed to be a bigger impact in the beginning to STR's but maybe picking back up now too?
We have a duplex, that since 2014 has had one side LTR, the other, monthly furnished vacation rental (not STR).
Last fall we decided that the monthly would become LTR as soon as we needed contents for our Home Staging and ReDesign business, and 90day minimum until then. Our travel nurse guest extended 3mo to 6mo, and left in June, a week before our current 3mo guests.
Longterm (5yr) tenants had some difficult work cutbacks, so we were able to give them a $350 break for April/May, then reassess. Giving them $100/month cut thru December, then expect to go back to regular rent. They had asked if we could discount or defer rent for a month, but we didn’t want them to owe us back rent. Didn’t want that ominously over their heads. They’re young mover/shakers, and we have confidence that they’re going to continue to do well in life.
So looks like we’ll be down $1400 for the year, if things don’t get much worse in a second wave.
Not sure when we will empty the furnished side and look for a fulltime resident. The year started with a bang for home staging, but not sure how many we will be doing. All four we staged since Jan have sold - one in 2days(!), after 3wks of comments about how “dark” it was - Boom! We helped! (That was fun!). But we currently don’t need the furniture, and I am NOT looking forward to screening fulltime tenants in this iffy employment market.
Vacancies- I filled vacancies in April and June within 1 week of listing. I am about to list another for August but based on my prior experience I am hopeful that it won’t be too painful.
Payments- I have not had a single tenant late pay, short pay, or not pay at all. To be fair, though, I have a very small portfolio. A big part of this, of course, is quality tenant screening.
Based on what I have seen, demand is still very high in Asheville due to low inventory and a consistent flow of people trying to move here. This is especially true of B-C grade rentals that are in-town, dog friendly, with a yard.
On the flip side, we’ll see how a potential “second wave” of COVID may affect our already stressed tourist economy. I certainly know a lot of people who are still out of work or have limited work. If they don’t re-open the Federal wallet to support unemployment, we may really see things get painful towards Q4.