Why the Eviction Moratorium Didn't Work for Anybody...and What to Do Next Time That Will Work for Everybody

Yesterday the CDC extended its eviction moratorium one more month.

What a mistake! In hindsight, it helped no one long term. It endangered the nation's housing stock by driving individual landlords out of business, added years of debt to tenants who will never be able to pay it off and will clog courts for months.

But there is a better way...for next time.

My Story

I am America's most caring landlord (OK, it's a self-appointed moniker.) I currently own rental properties in Aspen, Dallas and Las Vegas. I've been housing tenants since 1980.

In the 41 years I have been America's most caring landlord, I have been

• Physically assaulted by tenants. I once needed 10 stitches in my mouth
• Had ICE escort me to present an eviction notice because the tenant was wanted for murder in Canada
• Had to collect rent at a strip club every month. I got my rent in $1 bills. (Yes, it was in the 1980s. Now it would be $10 bills. Inflation.)
• Had a tenant flood the house the day the constable locked him out.
• Been invited to Thanksgiving dinner more times than I can remember when tenants heard I was going to be alone.

My Eviction Policy

I understand the difficulty of having more month than money. I am a single mother who never received a penny in child support.

I have always tried to work with tenants when money got tough. But in the end, I am not their bank.

Then The Pandemic Hit

Straight out of the Pareto Principle, 80 percent of my tenants paid and 20 percent didn't.

Of the 20 percent that didn't, 80 percent faced true economic scarcity. The other 20 percent had money but CHOSE not to pay me because they could.

For example:

A husband, wife and two adult children who worked moved into my house in Henderson Nevada on February 1, 2020.

I knew their hours would be cut, so in March 2020, I cut their rent in half.

I made them sign a loan statement saying they would have to pay the back rent in 12 monthly payments after the pandemic ended.

They jumped at the chance and thanked me profusely.

All four got three rounds of economic impact payments from the government. That's 12 payments.

But they chose not to pay me. They currently owe me $28,000 in back rent. That's not including the $4,500 damage they did to the house. (The biggest expense: their son backed into the garage door. It was so bent it wouldn't open.)

During that time I had to pay:

1. Mortgage payments
2. Property taxes
3. Insurance
4. The homeowner's association
5. Pest control (Las Vegas has a roof rat problem)
6. All habitability repairs like fixing the garage door since Dad's car was in the garage

P.S. If I take this loss as a bad debt on my taxes, my tenants will have to pay 1099 income tax on the sum next April. Surprise!

I had to sell the house

When their lease was up, they were not protected under the eviction moratoria. They chose to move out in February 2021.

I was so far behind financially, I had to sell the house. Karma: I sold at the top of the hot real estate market.

If they had paid me, I would have been happy to continue to rent it to families in Henderson Nevada. The city lost one house in its already tight rental stock.

I am probably not the only small landlord in America who had had enough...

The Government Exacerbated the Problem

I asked my tenant to apply for CHAP rental assistance in August. He told me "he was too proud to ask the government for money." Well, excuse me. (Me being snarky.)

So I applied as a landlord in December.

It took me two full days to fill out the form. I am a real estate professional and I was flummoxed. You needed a PhD in math to do the calculations. I can see how tenants just gave up.

The powers that be made it much too difficult to complete the form.

In January I received an email saying the city gave all the money to tenants. There was none left for landlords.

A Better Way

First, the eviction moratorium was a big mistake. If my Henderson tenants knew I could evict them, they would have found a way to pay me from the federal government largesse they received. They kept all the money and didn't pay me because there were no economic consequences.

Second, the government should have made rental assistance a joint project between landlord and tenant. Both parties need to file one claim jointly.

Third, the government should have paid the landlords to keep the tenants in the homes instead of paying the tenants. There was no guarantee the tenants would actually pay rent.

Fourth, the government needs to get its act together to:

1. Make it easy to file for assistance
2. Provide the payments in a reasonable time

Pandemics seem to happen every 100 years. America, you have 98 years to get it right for the next time.