A report from WSMV in Tennessee. “A Nashville couple said they were forced into forbearance by tenants they believe are taking advantage of the pandemic, going months without paying rent. No answer and still no rent Wednesday when Girish Rachakonda stopped by his investment property in Bellevue. ‘They’re not responding, they’re not paying the rent, and they’re not cooperating, and they’re taking advantage,’ he said. ‘It’s very frustrating, and also, it’s scary.’”
“Rachakonda and his wife told News4 they haven’t seen a rent check from their tenants in five months. ‘They simply said ‘We are not going to pay the rent.’ I said, ‘Why?’ And they showed the CDC notice. Now, it is going to affect my credit score, too.’”
From WFFT on Indiana. “Fort Wayne renters and landlords alike are feeling the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indiana legal services attorney Andrew Thomas says for landlords, ‘these are small businesses. They’re trying to make a living and if they’re not getting rent, they can’t pay their mortgage and so they’re facing foreclosure.’”
From KQED in California. “Jocelyn Foreman was full of nervous energy and dread. It was a crisp morning in early March. She arrived at the Pleasant Hill Community Center to find a handful of men and women in a semicircle outside the sandstone-colored building, clutching folders and holding cellphones. They were there for a foreclosure auction, poised to bid on the house that Foreman rents: a single-story, 1,500-square-foot tract home in Pinole. ‘The bidding finally stopped at $600,000. Foreman’s stomach dropped. ‘And I just thought, ‘Oh my God.’”
“Foreman had hoped she would be able to buy the house and continue living there thanks to a new state law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, that is designed to prevent pandemic profiteering — and give tenants like her a path to homeownership. But the law, which allows tenants and nonprofits a 45-day window to match any bid made at a foreclosure auction, provides no money to fund the purchases.”
“Before Foreman moved in, the house in Pinole had been in the same family for more than 30 years. Reginald Mayfield, a longshoreman for 51 years, bought the house in 1984 and spent his retirement years there. In the few years before his death in 2018, at age 82, he had planned a major rehab of the 1970s home, and took out a loan on the house. It was a project he planned to complete with his daughter, Rochelle Mayfield.”
“Mayfield had been having a hard time making the mortgage payments on both the Pinole home and a house in Richmond she inherited from her mother, where she also lives.”
From Habitat Magazine on New York. “Apartment sales in Manhattan are out of the red compared to year-ago numbers, according to multiple brokerage surveys. Apartments are still nearly 10% cheaper than they were at the beginning of 2020, according to Elliman’s report. The average sales price during the quarter dropped to $1.7 million from $1.9 million for the same period last year. Discounts were even steeper on the higher end. For the luxury market, co-op and condo sale prices dropped by more than 15% to $6.5 million over the course of 2020. But most of the activity took place below the $2 million mark.”
From Boston.com in Massachusetts. “It wasn’t that long ago that city condos garnered bidding wars when they hit the market and apartments were associated with hefty broker fees. But monthly rents are falling by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in some of Boston’s toniest residential developments due to pandemic migratory trends. Developers are even offering concessions like months of free rent or waiving fees for pets.”
“Rents averaged around $3,700 for one-bedroom apartments at 100 Pier 4 a little more than a year ago, according to YouGotListings data. But that average has fallen to around $3,200 in recent weeks. Potential renters were even offered $1,500 off on some units or, if they had good credit, half their security deposit waived.”
“It’s not unheard of to see luxury apartments that would have fetched rents north of $20,000 per month pre-pandemic now going for closer to $13,000, Eain Williams, a sales and marketing specialist with Compass said — still pricey but also a major drop.”
“‘Obviously, the world was on pause for the last year, but I think this is developers in the Seaport ensuring they can get people back,’ said Olivia Canada, who moved into a 16th-floor studio at the VIA in March. Canada’s monthly rent for her 471-square-foot studio is about $800 less than what similar studios rented for when the VIA opened in 2017. She even scored 2½ months of free rent, meaning her first rent check isn’t even due until June.”
From KTVI. “Video of an abandoned Missouri resort community is going viral again and this time law enforcement has a warning for people planning to visit. Construction on the Indian Ridge Resort near Branson started in 2006. The ambitious $1.6 billion dollar project included plans for a water park, a hotel, a marina, shopping, condos, and large vacation homes. The 900-acre project is located on Table Rock Lake.”
“Development of Indian Ridge Resort ended prematurely, however, after the Great Recession of 2008. Four people plead guilty to real estate fraud in 2015 for submitting fraudulent invoices to one of three banks they borrowed money from to build the mini mansions. Some of the structures have been demolished but many still sit. Some of the grand homes appear nearly finished, but they have all been left to slowly fall apart.”
“The construction project, which is visible from a nearby highway and is also the subject of social media posts and online videos, has drawn people curious about the area to share pictures and videos of the failed development. On Monday, the Stone County Sheriff’s Office posted this warning to potential tourists: ‘A recent Tik-Tok video went viral about the Indian Ridge development that went bankrupt. This has caused this location off of 76 Highway to become a tourist attraction. THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY AND YOU CAN BE CITED FOR TRESPASSING!’”