It certainly has been an eventful couple of weeks for the real estate and property management industries here in Indy.
We’ve been getting questions and concerns from Clients about the state of the market and what impacts we may be seeing.
So, we thought we would provide a quick update on a couple of hot topics and share some insight into what’s currently going on around us.
The Indianapolis Tenant Protection Initiatives
We provided a pretty good overview concerning the City of Indianapolis and the Tenant Protection Initiatives. You can read that blog here… Tenant Protection Blog
In short, the City of Indianapolis passed measures to add additional protections to Tenants residing in Indianapolis. These protections would put additional burden (although in our opinion, not much) on Landlords and provide Tenants more legal resources.
The measure passed all required committees and was signed into law by Mayor Joe Hogsett on February 26th.
However, the State Legislature is now on the brink of undoing everything the City did.
Very long story short, the State will likely prohibit individual cities from passing specific landlord-tenant laws. Instead, the state must adopt laws that all cities would then have to follow.
All that’s left is for the Governor to sign.
We’ll continue to update this story as more information unfolds.
Is the Coronavirus Affecting the Indianapolis Rental Market?
Clearly, the Coronavirus has sent shock waves through the world.
Nearly every major event has been canceled, restaurants are closed, offices are closing and people, likely, will not consume as much.
All of these factors WILL impact some of our Tenants. For example, people who work for the Indianapolis Pacers are likely going to suffer. Same goes for restaurant servers, event coordinators, etc.
We will follow our normal collection procedures. However, given the extreme circumstances that we all face, we will encourage our Clients to be more flexible if Tenant can prove hardship due the effects of the virus.
We will recommend in those cases that we offer payment plans and possibly delay legal action. In fact, we are learning that many courts will only hear “essential” cases. So, actually an eviction in this climate could be nearly impossible.
Is the Coronavirus Affecting the Indianapolis Real Estate Market?
What started out as a non-threatening, foreign issue has now snow balled into something that is hitting close to home.
COVID-19, aka the Coronavirus, has turned the world upside down, so it’s no surprise that you may have concerns.
Now, let me just start by saying that I’m not an expert, I’m not a health professional, and I’m not an economist, but I am a Real Estate Agent who is actively helping investors purchase properties.
I would say my profession and daily activity give me some pretty proprietary insight into how the market is performing, and, as you may have read about in our previous blog, it’s performing well.
In the midst of the Coronavirus outbreak, falling stock prices, and major sports and entertainment events canceled, we have yet to see an ounce of slowdown in our real estate market.
In fact, with mortgage interest rates so low, some may argue it’s gotten even busier.
Obviously we can’t predict what things will be like in a month, but as of now, I don’t think investors have much to worry about.
I’ll also take this opportunity to reiterate our philosophy that real estate investing is a long term play. Even IF the market took a dip due to this current issue, if you plan to hold on to a property for 10 years, does it really matter?
