The eviction moratorium has received multiple extensions, buying tenants some time to gather necessary funds. Unfortunately, buying them time doesn’t actually aid them in getting funds, and all the while, landlords are also missing a portion of their income. There is no plan for loss mitigation. SB-91 may help somewhat — it allows landlords to acquire 80% of their rent payments via federal funds by waiving the remaining balance. However, this law exists only in California, and doesn’t apply to all rental situations.
Landlords do have another way to mitigate their losses, but it’s not a good option. Landlords who are close enough to do the job themselves could reduce their costs by laying off their property managers and maintenance staff. This doesn’t help anyone, though, and results in increased job losses. While landlords definitely do take a risk in getting a mortgage on a rental property, currently their best recourse to offload that risk is in ways that do nothing to aid a recovery and instead exacerbate job losses. It may be tempting to let risky investments fail, but at the same time, it could be worthwhile to also give landlords as well as tenants some breathing room to avoid worsening the issue.
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