August 2020 Eviction Moratorium Deadlines Approaching

August Eviction Moratoriums are fast approaching causing many questions about what to do? what are the real stats? What does it feel like in court? and a story about a landlord facing a squatter situation.  These are uncertain times making it difficult to navigate the waters.
Recorded June 4th 2020
Recorded:
June 4, 2020

Host:
Kassandra Taggart
Dave Stohr

Links:
The Landlord's Almanac
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Book: Pain or Profit

Sponsor:
Real Property Management Last Frontier

Show notes: Listed in the transcript.

Transcript

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David Stroh 0:00

Good morning and welcome. Kassandra Taggart is the president of Real Property Management. Last frontier, a property management company here in Anchorage. She is also the president of the Landlords Almanac. One of the largest landlord clubs in the country dedicated to networking, supporting, and training professional landlords. And she is the author of the popular book, Pain Or Profit secrets. Profitable rental property investors. Good morning, Kassandra. Well, in about two months, many Alaskans who rent will have to come up with thousands of dollars. It will be money that has to be repaid and back rent rent that could not be paid at the time. It was due because of conditions created by effects of the Corona virus. But what happens to those renters in two months, if they are unable to come up with the necessary funds. To stay in their homes. That question is the topic of our first conversation this morning with Kassandra is the process of eviction, a real possibility for those unable to pay. As we head towards July, August, and September, it is a real concern and it is a real possibility that eviction could happen to them. It depends on the relationship between the landlord and the tenant because landlords have the opportunity to do a payment arrangement.

Kassandra Taggart 1:11

And, my recommendation to tenants is pay something rather than nothing to show that you're trying really hard, which may make it where the landlord will be more willing to give you time on the back amount. to make it all good again.

David Stroh 1:25

Yeah. Has it been the SB 241 law that has given renders the grace period? They need to acquire the funds to pay their rent.

Kassandra Taggart 1:34

The regulations have come in waves for various properties because we've got the court was closed until May 31st. They're open now, and cases are going forward. Then you've got the SB241 law, which is the state law. And that one's enforced until June 31st, but that's only for particular tenants. That's not for all tenants. a lot of people have that kind of confused cause you can get your court date right now. And then of course you've got the cares act, which has a whole nother set of rules of when evictions can happen.

David Stroh 2:05

You know, I was going to ask you about that. What is the difference, between SB241 and the federal cares act? Are they closely related?

Kassandra Taggart 2:14

They're close, but they're not close. Okay. the, the SB241 basically gave tenants the ability to raise up their hands, say I'm directly impacted by COVID and they sign a form under perjury. Meaning if they lie, they can go to jail or they can get, you know, charges, misdemeanor charges for lying. Anyways, they can raise their hand and say, That I am directly impacted by COVID and I need time, which gives them until the end of June. Cares act has a couple different layers, but the majority of it gives them until July 25th to be able to make everything good. And if the owner has requested help as well, they get an extension on top of July 25th. So it is possible that some tenants. Don't even have to worry about evictions all the way up till December, maybe March next year, depending on what the owner did with their mortgage.

David Stroh 3:10

I see it has been reported that the state of evictions moratorium is, is in place until June 30th. and the CARES Act moratorium will last until July 25th. You may know, or not know if those dates have been adjusted, but what happens to those unable to pay the rent? After those two dates have come and gone.

Kassandra Taggart 3:27

So what will happen is the landlords have the right to post a notice of serve for non-payment and then they will say balance needs to be paid in full, and then they can start going through the eviction process, which then would mean after the notice was served, then they would get a notice to serve for the court date. And then they would go forward depending on how many cases are in July versus June versus, August, I guess, if you want to say the full timeline, it's going to come in waves. So it's a possibility that courts might be backed up a bit. but they are hearing cases now and trial dates have been set for many people now

David Stroh 4:06

you know, regardless of the two moratoriums, have you had to explain to renders that they still must pay their rent regardless of what happens?

Kassandra Taggart 4:15

Yeah, there's surprisingly, there's a lot of things, confusion, going around, especially with, certain advocate, people, they, they gave the assumption, that tenants don't have to pay at all until that deadline. When in reality rent still do rent is still charged and landlords still need that money in order to pay bills like utilities and mortgage and tax and insurance. so. If they don't pay their rent, the landlord will have a harder time paying their bills. Yes, landlords have some savings just like tenants should have some savings, but not for months and months on end. So if the tenant doesn't pay by these deadlines based on the type of property and based on the circumstance, you will be up for eviction

David Stroh 5:01

two weeks ago. You mentioned here that the city of Anchorage has a rent relief fund. Is that available to both local landlords and their tenants?

Kassandra Taggart 5:10

So what that program is, that came out of the assembly where they allocated a million dollars towards rental assistance. And it tenant can call two, one, one, or landlord can call two, one, one. And they can apply with presenting their lease and presenting all their details to try to get some money from that fund for them. case So if the tenant qualifies the money, is suppose to be given directly to the landlord, that's based on the lease. so that way it'll give some assistance in helping pay that back balance to avoid the eviction in the first place. So. Everyone needs to still be calling, different programs too. When is the best one? Because they know about a lot of programs and you can get food assistance, you can get daycare assessments, cause those are starting to open back up. You can get. housing assistance and utility assistance. There's all kinds of assistance by calling two, one, one that can help pay for some of the bills. So you have more money to pay for your rent.

David Stroh 6:08

You know, those who are offering assistance, those nonprofits in this time, They have been tapped. Are they, are they struggling?

Kassandra Taggart 6:17

some are taps, some are still available because, what's happened is some of the funds, other people have contributed to it saying, Oh my goodness, you're gonna have a hard time. We're going to give you money to help fund you again. So some people have had more fun, like pick, click, give for example, which is coming off of the PFD funds. People can donate to that. Well, if they released the money early for the PFD that click pick, click give program is going to get some more funds, which can probably assist on like utilities, for example, and just depends on how that funds working with you as an individual. But. Basically, some of these funds are getting restocked. Some of these funds are getting additional funds because people are reaching out and donating. And so keep calling, don't give up and keep in mind. There's all kinds of programs. When our office put together the program list, we're talking two, three pages long, and it's just main phone number, name, phone numbers. So it tells you how many there are out there that can help you. And it's pretty easy to get lost because you don't realize there is a lot of resources. So just keep calling,

David Stroh 7:25

good advice. If we are standing on the cusp of what could be a huge number of potential evictions, what are some of the preemptive actions a landlord can take to protect his or her investment?

Kassandra Taggart 7:37

So the right now, what I can say is what a lot of the larger property manager companies are doing, in us included on some cases, is we look at how many people are behind. Are they really behind cause the COVID or are they behind because they just normally aren't paying and they just took advantage of a situation. Anyways, you take it, look at that situation and you try to say, can we negotiate this opportunity now for us, it's not up to us. It's up to our landlord. Our landlords will decide if they want to negotiate or not. And we just honored what they wish us to do. as a tenant, if you can pay something, then that shows that the today is true, their best to make good efforts. And that is a tenant that you probably really need to consider working with because they are working their booty right now, trying to find a way to make something good for you. And some of those tenants that are slow paying do have the money sitting in savings. They're just holding it cause they're scared still, and they're not releasing all of it until they know everything back to calm. So they probably might have it. And when we hit the deadline, so they may just give us the cash and then. The other tenants that are not trying at all, or non-responsive at all, those guys are probably going to end up getting their eviction. And that's probably where you need to start serving first.

David Stroh 8:58

You know, it seems like there are two problems here that have been, have been made, apparent, trying to help people stay in their homes. And somehow find the funds for investors to repay their loans. Have you ever in your business life ever seen circumstances like this?

Kassandra Taggart 9:12

No. This is, definitely uncertain times and times. We've never seen it in times. We'll never see again. I hope, what I can say that, some positive news that a lot of people may not realize is. Several of us, larger offices came together and shared some of our numbers and some of our strategies. And we found out that the numbers could have been a lot worse and they're not. I mean they're bad. We normally have around 2% to 5% of slow payers non-payers and then by the time, and we get to the end of the month, we'll have like one person that needs to be evicted. For example, with the COVID situation, we're now having about double that. So we're only having about maybe 10%, 15%. That's not paying right now or slow pay. Whereas a lot of us we're entering this thinking. We were going to experience somewhere around 25 to 40% not paying, and that's actually not the case. So it's actually much better of a picture today than when we entered. It's still bad. But it's not, it's not as bad as it could have been. And I think the reason why is because being nonprofits and the assistant funds and the federal money did come out and they came out pretty quickly, not as fast as what everybody wanted, obviously, but it did come out and a lot of people started making up ground. So. there are people out there that are still experiencing the 25, 45% not paying because they're in that bracket where, or their type of property is in that bracket where most of the tenants had those kinds of jobs with the retail and they're probably still struggling maybe. But overall, it's not as bad as we thought it would be.

David Stroh 10:59

Oh, that is a good thing. Has the state of Alaska talked about, or has yet to create any kind of subsidy that would help people stay in their homes and find the funds for investors to repay those loans

Kassandra Taggart 11:11

for the state of Alaska? I have not heard of anything at this time. What I can say is that some of the senators am. and how members have reached out to me asking for some stats and for some information to try to assist them in navigating, how big is this? And based on, just for example, the Anchorage bowl, if you do all the math of how many rentals there are, which is about 44,000 rental units in the Anchorage bowl. And if you do the math backwards about, let's say. 10% not paying rent. And the average rent is around 1275. That makes it to where we're about $5 million short a month on rent. But that's, like I said said, that's only about 10% of the total number, which is better than it could have been, but it's still, you know, not amazing.

David Stroh 12:04

You know, if there are a sudden surge in evictions throughout our city and South central Alaska in July, August, and September, and people are suddenly homeless. I'm going to ask you to be a bit of a futurist here. One in your opinion will be some of the consequences throughout the state or for our local area.

Kassandra Taggart 12:21

I'm nervous about a couple of things happening. For example, I'm nervous that. lawsuits will get filed with the state to try to assist either landlords or tenants, and that will delay court proceedings for I'm evictions. That that'll happen. I understand wanting to stop evictions to stop this bleed, to stop homeless. I get that. But the problem is that we're not talking about or thinking about is landlords are faced with squatters right now. We are faced with tenants, actively destroying our property and we can't do anything about it. and that's not right. That's their property. It's a private contract. You should let us have our day in court. I think if, lawsuites do get filed, which hold up everything, it would be very nice if they found a way to still protect those emergency cases while they're still trying to figure out how to handle them. As far as the homeless situation, here here's, what I do know is that there are a lot of do it yourself, landlords, that don't do a full background chat. And because the court that is backed up, in the records department will probably be backed up as well. A tenant will probably get maybe an eviction and then hop to the next, do it yourself, landlord that doesn't do a full background check and they'll have housing again. And, I'm not saying that they'll probably be able to hop around with the professionals, landlords and property managers, because we do do full background checks, but the reality is they'll pop up. They get housing and they'll probably get housing with just a different person. And they'll probably this whole time was not paying their current landlord, holding the money and they'll use that to move. For them, it's easy to move with just a pickup truck.

David Stroh 14:02

And I want to address every issue you just mentioned. Let's put it out there. The E word eviction, how we've said it. Now, how involved is the process of beginning to evict a tenant for nonpayment?

Kassandra Taggart 14:16

It's not as easy as a lot of people think. so especially right now, because right now we have additional form that we have to fill out and disclose to the judge before we even get our day in trial. So for those that are wanting to do an eviction right now, and you need to be. Be understanding that not only do you need to file for the court case and prove your you're allowed to go to court, you also now have additional forms and documents that will probably be in place all the way through the end of the year to confirm the status of the mortgage in order to even see if we can go to trial. And, so there's that issue. So there's more paperwork that you have to do. There's more notary documents that you have to do before you can get your day in trial. Then the day in trial now is backed up already because they're hearing cases from March forward right now. And so like, for example, we have one right now that finally got filed and pushed through and our court dates, not till the end of the month. Normally I would have had it in two weeks. So no court dates are even longer

David Stroh 15:19

can renders who are facing eviction, stay in the home until a judgment is rendered for let's say another month or two, they could. so that's the other unknown is when we finally get our day in court, is the judge going to warrant the normal 24 48 hours? Or is the judge going to get them more time based on the circumstances of COVID we are not for sure what the judges are warning giving out right now. But it's possible that a tenant will get, their seven day served right now, because then the courts are now open. And then they get their day in court, which is another month out. And then they finally get the judge and the judge gives them maybe another week or so. And then if they don't leave, we've got the troopers and the troopers are, might be backed up. And that might be another two, three weeks. So it is possible. Well, that attendant won't get another 60 days out of this easy.

Kassandra Taggart 16:07

Just because it's timing. That doesn't mean take advantage, because we can add to your judgment and increase your balance.

David Stroh 16:14

Yeah. It also brings up another good point. Does the law either local police or troopers get involved in these situation and is that common in eviction? Up in the eviction process?

Kassandra Taggart 16:25

in the eviction process, the police doesn't actually help the people who do help us troopers and they will only help once you have a writ of execution for possession of the property. So you have to get all the way through the court and get that stamp and then walk over to the trooper's office and give them a copy and pay for them again. So you've got to pay for the troopers to, in order to get the assistance, you can't call the police and say, Oh my gosh, they're in my place taking my stuff out. Like there's one landlord right now in the forum where, the tenant is actively selling her, Cabinetry and her toilets and everything. That's in the house right now. And there's nothing she could do about it. Cause the police will not interfere.

David Stroh 17:07

So when one is evicted, does it become a blight on their credit report?

Kassandra Taggart 17:12

It can, if you're using a property manager that does report to credit, there's two ways to get deigned on your background. It's either through the court proceeding or through the credit bureaus, real property management. What's cool about us is we actually will hit on both sides. So that way, whichever way we need to try to collect on we can. And we're also signaling to everyone in the world, what this tenant has done in their history. if you're doing it yourself, landlord, you might probably not have access to be actually be able to report collections or import payment behaviors, which makes it to where tenants can take advantage of you a lot easier.

David Stroh 17:53

So when you've been evicted, is it hard for a render to find another place here in Anchorage? Yes and no. So if you're a tenant with an eviction background, it is harder to get funds from Alaska housing. it could potentially be almost impossible for you to get the funds from our Alaska housing. It just depends on the circumstances then that makes it harder to find funds to move into another place. If you have an eviction on your background, let's say that's been missed several years ago. some landlords will ignore that and go ahead and let you proceed and just raise the deposit. Cause you're in your you're higher risk. Which makes sense. but through people who just had an eviction, if the courthouse is slowl at posting those online, most of them, landlords, aren't going to notice that it's sitting there and they will go ahead and rent to those tenants. So you'll get what we call tenet hoppers, where tenants will hop from one limiter to the next slammer by not paying the first landlord and try to pay the next one. No, because the startup cost we'll let them move in. Even though there's a pending eviction or eviction already happened and the records just haven't been updated. And if the next landlord is just not going to know, because it's not updated is the rental market industry here in South central, able to track would be renters who have been evicted and are working against the system.

Kassandra Taggart 19:11

Yeah, there is a way to track how many fed cases there are fed means the eviction cases. There is a way to track those. and I'm sure that the court system is going to be tracking those because they're going to be wanting to know what their, their risk level is as a state in, and the judges are gonna want to know, did they Brina not to try to create time and fair enough time for all parties? So I know that they're tracking it and I know they're going to really watch it. And they have the stats from prior years to where they can see if it's increased or not over the prior years, but it's going to be kind of skewed because we haven't been able to go to court in March and April and may. So those three months will be backed up into one month. So they're going to have to kind of. Understand the stats are skewed before they try to compare it and report on it with the news. but yeah, it's, it's possible that they can see what the increase is. as a company, we can see what our increases and so far it looks like we're going to be within our normal numbers

David Stroh 20:14

when a landlord or investor, is prepared to evict a tenant is the price is the cost of this process, roughly the same. On each person being evicted?

Kassandra Taggart 20:26

No, actually that's a really good point. A lot of people don't realize that you'll hear landlords say that the cost of evictions, it's only 500 bucks and your done. Well, that's not really being only cost. and it gives a fake. Idea what the cost is because the cost of eviction is your cost of time. A lot of landlords will do the eviction themselves or try. And when they try to do it themselves, they don't charge for their time. Whereas in the professional world, we do charge for our time and then you've got the cost of the serving. troopers. attorney. a writ of execution paperwork. then you're going to go back to court and do your job judgment process and the judgment, all it does once you go through that trial is another round of papers. Cause you have to serve again for the judgment trial date gets the trial date. And then finally, if you are awarded your writ of judgment, then you're going to go back and keep doing re executions for the collection side of things. So this isn't a, I go to court and are done in the next two days, right. This costs a lot. Yeah. So to answer your question, it could be as cheap as 500, cause you don't charge for your time. All the way up to usually around 1500, $2,000, depending on how hard the tenant fights. And that's just the eviction, not the judgment in collections.

David Stroh 21:45

You know, every day crucial to both renders and landlords to come up with some sort of solution. Before eviction notices are served, lawyers began litigating and law enforcement is called. It's vital for everyone to open up communications and do everything that I say possibly can right now, the reason why it's so vital is because everyone's sitting here watching the stats and they want to use the stats as a way to potentially create suits with the state. so the more everyone can try to work it out. The more everyone can try to pay and make arrangements for paying and try their best in such a difficult time. The less likely, claims will start taking place and bogging the system down even further. even the best landlords have questions. And we are asking them this morning. For Kassandra's best advice and insights. Here's your first question, Kassandra, should I have tenant screening questions prepared before I show a unit to eliminate time-wasting?

Kassandra Taggart 22:49

Yes, you should. And there's pros and cons to it. Just be aware of it for your personal style. So. If I was to ask a whole bunch of questions on the phone before I do a showing that's one way of doing tenant screening. So I can ask questions, like, is there a dog just letting me know that there's no dog policy in this property, so you're not wasting your time and finding out later that there's a dog, when it's a no dog policy, you have to be careful in your tenant screening questions because you can't up and. Approve or deny someone at that phase in the process, because it's a fair housing violation, potentially because you're asking without actually doing their background check. So you have to be careful what kind of questions you're asking, in this particular situation, this landlord wanted to go to the depth of making it a Google doc survey form and making people fill it all the way out before they do it. So you gotta make sure your email can email to them right away, which can add time. To being able to screen people. And the more challenges you add to a tenant, trying to see an apply to a place, the lower number of people will apply because you're giving the wrong impression making it too hard to where they don't think there's even a chance at trying to get your place. So it's okay to do it. Just knowing that you're screening very, very, very heavily, which will reduce the number of applicants that you're going to have.

David Stroh 24:17

One of our landlords wants to know are landlords legally responsible for removing wasp nest from a property?

Kassandra Taggart 24:25

So it depends on if you're in Anchorage or the Valley, and it depends on if it's a health and safety issue or not. it also depends on what you have on your lease. So there's various variables to that answer. what I can say is the cost of getting that removed. We're talking like less than a hundred bucks. Versus the cost of battling it out in court or pissing off the tenant to where he won't renew. And then you've got to turn over costs and so on. Sometimes it's best just to pay for it as on landlord and move forward. but there is a time and place to do back-filling of taking care of pests and it depends on the circumstance. So in this one, I would say I would take care of it myself and push it and then pay for it myself. And not put it on the tenants. And, hopefully that will, will make the tenant happy and want to stay and renew and not use that as a reason to try to leave.

David Stroh 25:19

Here's a timely question. Do I need to get a notarized COVID document for a pending eviction.

Kassandra Taggart 25:26

Yes. There is a document that you have to fill out. It's about two pages long. It talks about your mortgage. It talks about. If you're a later night, it talks about, why you're doing your eviction. There's a lot of things to it. And then you also have to notarize it. banks are starting to, to open up to where you can go to a bank too. You get it notarized, but you may have to find somebody who does notary for a living. And there are traveling notary. I can travel to you to notarize it because electronic notary is not allowed yet.

David Stroh 25:58

In a recent webinar, the topic was cats. Cat pee smells like money. How so?

Kassandra Taggart 26:07

What happens a lot of time is when landlords are looking for properties to purchase, they're not quite understanding what they should accept or should not accept. And a great example is when you walk into a property, And the tenants had kept the dogs and they peed everywhere, making it smell so bad. You have to have a mask just to enter. And, both sometimes are the best properties because the people who are buying places to move into don't want to move into something with spells and they don't know how to take care of it and get rid of it and so on. but properties that have like a foundation problem. Or a structural problem. Those would not be a good property. So anytime you see a property that has an odor issue or a tenant problem, those are great ones to look at trying to potentially purchase because you can get them at a discount and you're not competing with most buyers out there. So that's basically the concept is look for those kinds of deals and you'll probably score some money.

David Stroh 27:06

Is that recent webinars still up on the landlords club? Facebook page? Yes, it is. We did record that webinar and we're starting to learn how to do all the technology for recording our webinars and making it available for everybody.

Kassandra Taggart 27:20

And that one was recorded and it is posted it's posted on our YouTube. So that way you guys can go to our YouTube page and watch it from there. We have other webinars recorded. I that may be of assistance for you.

David Stroh 27:34

Here's our next question. Can I deduct money from a deposit for excessive wear and tear, even if I don't make repairs at this time?

Kassandra Taggart 27:43

So that one depends on how well are you at documenting what was the wearing tear, excessive wear and tear. And is it something that you can argue and potentially win in front of a judge? A good example of. How you can do a wear and tear claim or beyond wear and tear claim is let's say you put in the carpet, right? When the tenant moved in, the tenant lived there for three years, but the carpet should have last seven years. But because they were so hard on that carpet, you had to place it in three years and didn't get the full seven year benefit. So you can buy new carpet, install it, and then charge the tenant for five years of the carpet that you had to purchase. And that's what you call depreciating an item through the security deposit. Cause you don't say, Oh, they damaged the carpet. I'm going to charge them the whole carpet bill. You can only charge them for the lights that they took from you and caused harm to you as a landlord. Now, if you go home and say, Oh, they were hard on the carpet, it's going to make it where the carpet doesn't last, the full seven. It's only going to last five, but not replace it. That's a very hard, difficult argument to have in court because you're not replacing it. You don't have an invoice, but yet you still want to charge a tenant. couple of the landlords said that they've won in court with that. I personally would never go to court for something like that. because I don't think the chances of winning are strong and I don't think it's fair to charge a tenant for something I haven't had an expense for. because in my head that's considered normal business and normal, cost of doing business. So I wouldn't do it.

David Stroh 29:26

Here's a question directed at your industry should a property management company collect management fees. When a unit is empty,

Kassandra Taggart 29:33

they can, it depends on the contracts. at real property management, usually don't charge for. If the property is vacant and I don't charge my management fee because the management fee is for when we collect rent. So if we have a tenant that's not producing, you're not getting paid, I'm not getting paid. And we all have a common interest to get that tenants pay, right. So we can all get paid if a property, if the property manager is charging while the property is vacant, then there's no real incentive to be in alignment on goals of trying to get it rented and trying to get rent collected. because you're getting paid, whether it's, they confirm that I get why the industry has been moving towards it, because the cost of the operations and the cost of the system, and we're still servicing you as a client, even though it's not rented. So we want to get paid for those basic costs so we can keep surviving during times. so I get why the market has been trending towards it.

David Stroh 30:33

Here's an interesting question. Can a landlord discriminate against the kind of dog breed I will let or not let into my units?

Kassandra Taggart 30:42

I don't know if you would want to say that the word discrimination is appropriate for this. Okay. what I can say is that. You can say that there are breed restrictions because of your insurance policies. So if your insurance policy on your rental, which is called a, landlord, fire dwelling insurance policy, if they came down and said in their policy, we don't let. Doberman pinschers for example, then you have to do your best as a landlord to not accept Doberman pinschers because it's not allowed in that property. Now, if it's an accident you did tenant said no dogs. And you said no dogs. And then all of a sudden, two years later, you find out there's a Doberman pincher at it. bite a kid that would be, yeah, you didn't mean to, you didn't know about it. You weren't aware of it. So the insurance might assist you, but the insurance could still reject you. That's why having renter's insurance is so vital and important. So, yes, you can do restriction. I don't think it's called discrimination. cause it's not a protected class, unless it deals with servicing animal. That's a protected class of animals and they're not pets. They're animals and they're, they're just service a particular disability. Those guys are protected. You can't charge for them. but they still have to follow the same rules.

David Stroh 32:03

What's the best platform for my tenants to use, to pay their rent with just the touch of a button.

Kassandra Taggart 32:11

So, if I was speaking to a do it yourself, landlord that needs assistance for tenants to have a variety of ways to pay the recommendation would be to go to Experian and Experian has on their website, a list of program that do make it where tenants can pay online. At the same time, it reports the credit to the credit Bureau. So that way you're getting a couple of benefits out of it. Not just the tenant can pay, but also that is reporting their payment behavior to the credit Bureau, which could potentially raise or lower the credit report for that tenant.

David Stroh 32:51

And our final question can noise made by the tenants on and around the grounds of a unit being enforced, including large motor engines and loud sound systems.

Kassandra Taggart 33:02

So in Anchorage, we have what they call, municipal quiet hours. And they also have what's acceptable noise during the day. That's why when the concert happens, sometimes you have to have a permit for a noise permit in order to have the concert, for example. so. In the, or certain locations I should say anyways, for houses or apartments. Yes, they can be regularly, can be enforced and that's actually a police matter. So if you tell all your tenants and you that when there is a noise complaint during the day or the evening, they are welcome to report it to the police. If the police have time, they will come to the situation and they will file a report. And then that report can be used to build up a file. For doing an eviction based on the noise complaints. Now keep in mind. Police's very backed up right now. Right? In fact, we had a police report situation over the last weekend and it they're coming out telling me that it's 12 months before we'll even get our hands on the report and our court cases here in about two weeks on it. So, we're going to have to do some sort of thing with the judge under. A testimony to vouch that this did happen here is the case number. I just don't have a copy of the outcome of the report with the police. So we have to leave that unknown in the court case. Cassandra, thank you so much for your spontaneity in answering these questions.

David Stroh 34:31

Well, the coronavirus is still amongst us and with every indication it probably will be for awhile. We wanted to get Kassandra's perspective and insights on its effect throughout South central, Alaska. Kassandra, as you go back outside, how you feeling about mixing it up with the population again?

Kassandra Taggart 34:49

gosh, it's, it's really interesting. I was actually talking to somebody the other day, how you would go into one hardware store and everyone has mask. And then you walk into the next hardware store and nobody has an mask. So it's very interesting walking around trying to get things done because you're wanting to follow all the rules and not get sick yourself, but some are completely following and some are not.

David Stroh 35:11

If you had to predict, what would you say is going to happen to the state's economy in the next six months? Is it going to get better? Is it going to stabilize? Are we in for the worst coming up?

Kassandra Taggart 35:22

I was actually sitting on a group session call with, several leaders in the housing industry and all the signs do point towards the economy, slowing down all the signs, do point towards potential house pricing, dropping rental prices, potentially dropping and more. so I do believe hard times are about to come. If you're a person that was thinking of selling, today's the best day to sell? Not tomorrow, because I think it's going to go down. what I can say is that those that choose to live in Alaska, those that like this lifestyle will stay and will weather it out just like we did in the eighties.

David Stroh 36:04

Right. Have you ever been, have you been able to see any opportunities as a result of the pandemic in the last three months? Opportunity four grade deals to buy.

Kassandra Taggart 36:15

I have not seen that yet. I don't think I'm going to see that until about quarter one of next year, based on the timeline of how foreclosures can happen based on the timeline of how lawyers can get the paperwork together and the courthouse to approve and dah, dah, dah, dah. So I'm not seeing some of those until about quarter one. So I've been adjusting my personal investments accordingly to be able to do those big deals. Come quarter one.

David Stroh 36:42

Are you satisfied with the job or elected officials are doing in the face of a sustained attack by the virus?

Kassandra Taggart 36:49

You know, it's. It's a position I would have never want because it's a position where it's beyond beyond difficult. I w I, Darren Hardy is an amazing person and he's a, I like to call him a mentor of mine. He said one day, he said, think about it. If you're the president of the United States and every in, based on elections, right. 50% of people like you and 50% do not like you. And, and I would assume the same all the way down to, you know, dun lovey and the assembly and the governor and so forth. And you know, you're going to have so many that like you and tell me, me personally, just speaking from the communication side of things, I'm very glad that they up stood up and just started talking, that, that helped everybody else make decisions day to day. So I'm going to give a huge shout out to all for taking the time to talk. sometimes two times a day. Just to say, here's where we're at. Here's our update. Here's our resources. And just being more transparent, I think that builds more trust and more confidence in the market. And I think it helps make us not be as bad as it could be.

David Stroh 37:58

You know, incidentally, I just finished mr. Hardy's book, the compound effect. It's very good. If you have an opportunity, you probably already read it. Well, kassandra, we want to thank you for your knowledge, your passion and your guidance over this last hour. You are, as I'm sure our listeners now know an invaluable resource and experienced advisor for those who are investing in real estate and taking their first step towards success, Kassandra will join us again for another conversation I'm Dave stro, have a good day.