I don't see Seattle, WA producing many deals for RE investors down the road as the city has so many Hot companies like Amazon, MSFT (allowing workers work from home) but CA/FL has Disney that are going to lay off large percentage of its company's workforce.

Looks like a joke but then again he did lay off quite a few people.

Also, with lower income, sometimes people are paycheck to paycheck, and life happens, tenants have breakdowns, surgeries, job switches, lay offs, stuff happens remember-- these are real people you're dealing with.   

When layoffs were announced 6 weeks before they actually happened everybody was freaking out.

They have been effected by the recent lay offs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He wife answered that during a layoff, he was bored at home with nothing to do, complained to his wife, so his wife said "you been complaining to me about the gutters, if you're looking for something to do, go out and fix it".

I won't finger the tenant based on a landlord's guesstimate of what a normal bill is, let alone what her normal bill is, particularly where the landlord is trying to lay off his responsibility for structural maintenance.

Invest some of it in real estate companies with a Robinhood account, so you learn some of the lingo, read their reports, study how they make money. 

I am currently working but my job will be doing some layoffs at the end of July.

Our area is hit hard by low oil price and there are recent layoffs in the nearby hospitals too.