Handling distressed properties were among the greatest challenges that real estate managers encountered in the pre-pandemic era. And that situation has been exacerbated as a result of the economic tumult generated over the past 12 months as the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on everyone”™s lives.
Carmelo Milio, president of Trion Real Estate Management, observed that while the health crisis is being mitigated with vaccine rollouts, the financial problems carried by many tenants has not abated. From his perspective, Milio stressed that a holistic and information-driven approach is needed when dealing with these tenants.
“What we”™ve done for people on the commercial side is really just kind of hold their hand and help them get information on the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan or the SBA (Small Business Administration) loan,” he said. “Not that those are necessarily the answer, but it kind of helped them slowly get a little bit further ahead.
“On the residential side,” he continued, “there were some programs that came out where residents were able to get some help, and I think also getting stimulus checks helped somewhat. What we did was be proactive and speak to residents. But I feel like that as people are going back to work and vaccines are being distributed, you”™re starting to see a bit more movement and less delinquencies.”
Milio referred to landlord-tenant communication as “always a focal point to our management.” For Trion, which has offices in Yonkers and New York City, communicating with tenants mitigates the potential for stressful situations.
“The more communication we had with the residents, the more we were able to work with them and help figure out answers or set up payment plans,” Milio said.
For many tenants, the past 12 months saw the federal and state government step in with moratoriums on evictions and forbearance plans for homeowners. And while the deadlines for these solutions have been extended several times, they ultimately cannot last forever ”” and Milio is not looking forward to what could happen next.
“I think the court system is definitely going to have a bottleneck,” he said. “But if you go back to communication, you can try to figure out a game plan for those people that have communicated to stay away from any type of court proceedings. For those who don”™t communicate at all, the next step is to go to court ”” and, unfortunately, there are people that are in that situation.”
Milio worried that many tenants “are looking to the government to come up with something that”™s going to help them because they”™ve accumulated so many arrears over a year”™s time that, in many cases, it”™s very difficult to get out of.”
He acknowledged that many landlords carrying mortgages have the same wishful thinking of Washington coming to the rescue again.
“As a management company, we really hope the government comes out with some sort of program that can help everybody along the way,” he said.
As for the next 12 months in real estate, Milio is not expecting much difference from the last 12 months.
“I don”™t foresee it changing dramatically,” he said. “I personally feel that it will improve more when people get back to work and offices start getting filled up. And then there should be more of a trickle-down effect where those people in the offices are going into the retail areas and are more comfortable as well.”
