16 Wednesday, April 1, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Renting and owning in the time of coronavirus Dear Property Guy By Mike Zoormajian Dear Central Oregon: I9d like to interrupt our normal format to pro- vide some information and thoughts during the corona- virus shutdown. Let me start by saying that everything, and I do mean everything, is very fluid right now. And any- body who says they know what is happening (including me) is wrong. I also want to recognize the very human and very real suffering that is occur- ring right now in our com- munity. Not just the people who are sick. But the people who are scared, people who are unemployed, families who are worried about mak- ing payroll, people who are struggling with anxiety and depression, people who are just plain sad and lonely& These are our neighbors. Now let9s talk about being a renter and being a property owner right now. There is no playbook for what we are experiencing. Straight up: there is plenty of pain to go around, and nobody is going to escape it. The biggest driving factor of this financial pain is that this shutdown has put innu- merable people out of work. Please note that almost 70 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings and live paycheck to pay- check. Right here, right now, our neighbors are running out of money. Money to buy food, money to take care of their children, and money to pay rent. The reality is that neither unemployment, nor government stimulus checks are going to help for very long. So we now (or will soon) have large numbers of peo- ple who not only can9t pay rent, but struggle to meet basic needs. I9m hearing from clients and tenants that April is mostly good, but May is another story if the shutdown continues. There is an emergency rule in effect that temporar- ily prevents evictions for non-payment of rent. It9s not rent forgiveness, but allows renters to pay back rent over time. Again, we are in uncharted territory, and nobody knows how this is going to work as we move forward. Many property owners depend on rental income as their sole or main source of income. The prospect of not collecting rent has many owners scared and consid- ering putting their residen- tial rentals on the market. This reduced supply will put further upward pressure on rental prices. Banks and mortgage debt holders are still work- ing out how they are going to work with borrowers who are unable to make payments without rental revenue coming in. Some seem to be offering pay- ment deferments, but the common thread is that lend- ing institutions are difficult, if not impossible, to get a hold of right now for firm answers. That9s kind of a rental