Supreme Court’s Decision to Throw Out Eviction Ban Comes Too Late for Many Small Landlords

LAS VEGAS, NV – Last week, the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the Biden Administration’s latest eviction moratorium – originally enacted to avoid homelessness in the midst of the COVUD-19 pandemic – is nonetheless a prime example of being far too little in the face of far too much, reports say.

The Supreme Court found that the decision of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to enact a new eviction ban during the COVID-19 pandemic without the express approval of congressional legislation was essentially illegal, despite its well-meaning intentions of avoiding homelessness that could contribute to additional spikes in infections due to the new Delta COVID variant.

However, while eviction cases that have been held in limbo will now be allowed to finally continue, multiple landlords are saying that – due to myriad eviction bans that have allowed some tenants to live rent-free in their homes for over a year – the Supreme Court’s decision may essentially amount to too little, too late.

The majority of landlords in the United States are not large corporate entities, but small mom-and-pop originations that relied on their rental incomes to support their retirements; but after a year of no income and requirements that nonetheless forced them to provide upkeep without any return, many of them are facing financial ruin regardless of the Supreme Court decision.

James Bathgate, a landlord in California, notes that federal rent relief funds have been trickling out ineffectually over the last few months, and will likely never fully cover the immense losses that they have faced due to draconian eviction moratoriums over the past year.

“We had to sell the property because I couldn’t afford it every month, not getting any income from rent and being forced to take $3,000 a month expenses on the property,” Bathgate said. “Is the government going to now pay me $70,000 that they stole from me? I doubt it.”

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

Last week, the United States Supreme Court struck down the Biden Administration’s nationwide eviction moratorium; however, is unlikely to have any impact whatsoever upon tenants facing eviction for nonpayment of rent due to a recently-passed piece of legislation in the state of Nevada which offers ironclad protections for those who have applied for federal rent relief funding.

Kaila Leavitt, president of Leavitt Evictions, noted that Assembly Bill 486, which prohibits eviction if a tenant has applied for federal rent relief funds, potentially offers more protections than the recently-overturned eviction ban put forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Here in the state of Nevada, we have [Assembly Bill 486] which arguably protects tenants more than the federal moratorium does,” she said.

A previous eviction moratorium issued by Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak ended on May 31; the moratorium enacted by the CDC, which targeted counties with high COVID-19 transmission rates, would have expired on October 3 if it had not been struck down last week by the Supreme Court.

Leavitt noted that AB 486 offers protections for 90 days for renters that have applied for federal relief funds and are awaiting the outcome of their case, allowing them to remain in their homes whether or not they are currently paying any rent to their landlords.

However, according to Leavitt, that may not be the case in terms of constitutional legality, and despite the fact that a renter may have applied for federal funds, it may still be possible to evict them for nonpayment of rent.

“I think many landlords were under the impression that the federal moratorium got extended again, they couldn’t evict. And that was just not the case,” she said. “When the tenant gets the notice, they don’t communicate with their landlord. They don’t respond. They just think they can’t be evicted and they just write it off. That’s just really not the case.”

AB 486 is due to expire on June 5, 2023, or when the $360 million in rental relief funds allotted to Nevada is spent.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The United States Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling that struck down the latest eviction moratorium enacted by the Biden Administration – stating that it can only be extended via Congressional legislation – clearing the way for potentially millions of evictions across the country to begin.

The newly-invalidated eviction moratorium was initially issued on August 3 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); this was done after a previous ban was allowed to lapse on July 31 after the Supreme Court had ruled that it could only continue through an act of Congress, which failed to materialize due to lack of support.

Nonetheless, the Biden Administration issued a more targeted eviction moratorium, aimed at areas with high infection rates; President Job Biden himself told reporters that he doubted it would pass Constitutional muster, but hoped that time eaten up by legal challenges would give states more time to distribute $46.5 billion in federal rental assistance funds. The moratorium had originally been scheduled to expire October 3.

The new moratorium – much like the original – was aimed at preventing homelessness by not allowing evictions due to financial hardship experienced from the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the Supreme Court declared Thursday that it was beyond the CDC’s authority.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the Supreme Court’s ruling stated, effectively ending the eviction ban immediately.

Liberal Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer, dissented from Thursday’s ruling.

The eviction moratoriums have been an especially strong hardship for smaller mom-and-pop landlords; currently, according to reports, as many as 15 million households in the United States owe a combined total of approximately $20 billion in back rent, with about 58 percent of tenants currently behind on rent.

Meanwhile, landlords have been forced to not only allow their tenants to live for free in their properties, but they have also been required to maintain the properties out of their own pockets, driving many to financial ruin.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – According to a recent study, the eviction moratoriums enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help reduce homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic have had the incredibly negative side-effect of proving extremely costly to both Nevada landlords and the state’s overall economy.

The positive benefit to Nevada’s economy that is generated by the state’s residential rental industry is estimated to have decreased by a full 9 percent – or a whopping $511 million – in 2020 when compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to the report released last Thursday.

In addition, lost wages and their subsequent lack of contribution to the state’s economy due to the eviction bans have cost Nevada approximately $12.6 million in lost sales and use tax revenue in 2020 as well.

The report also found that small mom-and-pop landlords – who make up the majority of the rental marketplace in Nevada – have suffered the most financially from the eviction bans, with an average loss of approximately $1,870 per unit. In addition, landlords with over 30 units have been deprived of about $350 per unit, with an average of $422 per unit lost between March 2020 and February 2021.

Nevada Realtors and Nevada State Apartment Association President Brad Spires noted that the report helps put this damage caused by the CDC eviction moratoriums into perspective from an economic point of view.

“It reinforces what we’ve been saying throughout this pandemic about the disproportionate harm these policies have had on individual property owners who depend on rental income to survive,” he said.

The report arrived at these findings by surveying 140 landlords and property management firms, who own a combined 21,000 units among them.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The U.S. Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Friday that upheld the eviction moratorium enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on August 3, after the previous eviction ban was allowed to lapse by Congress. The next stop for the case, filed by a group of Alabama and Georgia landlords, is the Supreme Court, which is slated to hear the case this week.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the plaintiffs who were seeking to block the new moratorium, but the landlord groups quickly pivoted and filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court. In turn, Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered the administration of President Joe Biden to respond to the lawsuit by 12pm on Monday.

“As five Members of this Court indicated less than two months ago, Congress never gave the CDC the staggering amount of power it claims,” the motion filed by the landlords read.

This quote in the motion refers to the previous decision rendered by the Supreme Court in June that allowed the CDC’s first eviction moratorium to remain in-place until its original expiration date of July 31. However, Brett Kavanaugh – who voted with the 5-4 majority in that ruling – noted that he would not support any further extensions of the eviction ban without the approval of Congress, which failed to materialize.

After the ban was allowed to expire, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced the new eviction ban, citing the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19. The new ban applies to counties where at least 50 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people have been reported over the past seven days, which currently covers nearly 95 percent of all U.S. counties.

The new ban is set to expire October 3, but can be lengthened or shortened based on changes in the spread of the virus.

President Biden himself has admitted to reporters that the new CDC eviction ban many not be constitutional, but noted that any legal challenges would grant extra time for states to distribute federal rent relief funds.

LAS VEGAS, NV – As the months go by and the economy continues to improve emerging – ever-so-slowly – away from the COVID-19 pandemic, records continue to be broken on a regular basis in Las Vegas’ housing market. But according to experts, while home prices are the highest they’ve ever been in Southern Nevada, there’s at least one way that home values are still underneath their pre-recession levels.

According to local media reports, signs that the Vegas housing market is on fire can be plainly seen in the numbers, with buyers for homes in Spring Valley and Summerlin last week paying a whopping $22,000 and $75,000 over their respective asking prices. And if you don’t think that’s a sign of intense competition, let’s not forget about the Henderson home that recently sold for approximately $160,000 more than its owner had paid for it just a few short years ago.  

But while real estate records are falling by the wayside with increasing regularity as of late in Las Vegas, one way experts note values remain in question is that they are still shy of the levels achieved prior to the burst of the housing bubble in the mid-2000’s, and that’s due to inflation.

In July 2021, the median sales price of previously owned single-family homes in Vegas was an all-time high of $405,000, representing a 22.7 percent jump from the same period of time in 2020. But the previous peak of median house prices in the region was in the middle of 2006, when they reached $315,000… which, in 2021 dollars, would come to $423,834.

Experts say that factor alone illustrates a great many things about Las Vegas real estate, such as the extreme bloat of the pre-recession marketplace and how circumstances today – despite prices rising again to the point of creating affordability concerns – are far more stable overall, leading to less risk of another hosing bubble pop and subsequent financial disaster.

Many analysts predict that the current boom in Vegas will eventually level off as developers continue to construct new homes and rental properties to satisfy demand, although exactly when that will happen is anyone’s guess.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – North Las Vegas is set to receive a slew of new rentals homes soon to help address Southern Nevada’s intense housing demand, as an Arizona developer has announced that they are set to break ground on a tract of dwellings later this year.

Rental homes have made up a growing segment of the housing market in Las Vegas, as the booming economy and the slow-but-steady withdrawal of the COVID-19 pandemic have given rise once again to the need for affordable rental properties.

Avenue North, originally opening their doors for business in 2011, is looking to begin development of the 165-unit project –  which will be built on nearly 12 acres running along Simmons Street, just south of Ann Road – within the next three or four months, according to founder Ryan Hartman.

The property itself was purchased by Avenue North in late 2019, and Hartman notes that the development – which will be in partnership with Arizona real estate firm Harvard Investment – will be coming in at approximately $50 million in cost.

In addition to feature single-family homes with backyards, the project will also include such amenities as a clubhouse, fitness center and a pool, just like many high-end apartment buildings.

While most of the houses will be stand-alone, detached models, Hartman noted that 29 of them are planned to sit on top of a row of five parking garages, one garage going to the home sitting atop it, and the other four being made available to rent to other tenants in the development.

Hartman’s project is his first ground-up rental development in Southern Nevada, he said, adding he has multiple projects in Phoenix and is looking to buy land for more in the Las Vegas area.

Build-to-rent housing communities have been rising in popularity with renters, developers, and investors, with noted companies such as American Homes 4 Rent, The Calida Group, and Moderne Communities getting in on the action in Southern Nevada.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is expected to issue a ruling this week as to whether or not the recent eviction moratorium set in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be allowed to continue.

The new, limited moratorium was imposed by the CDC on August 3, 2021, covering areas with substantial and high transmission of COVID-19 – currently covering about 90 percent of the U.S. population – in response after a previous moratorium, originally set in place on September 4, 2020, had expired on July 31, 2021.

The Court of Appeals set an expedited schedule in response to a lower court’s ruling on Friday, when U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich declared the CDC’s eviction moratorium to be illegal, but nonetheless said that she was forced to allow it to stand for the time being, stating that her “hands are tied” by a previous decision handed down by an appellate court earlier in the year.

The Justice Department has been given by the Court of Appeals until 9 a.m. Tuesday to respond; the plaintiffs, made up of Alabama and Georgia realtors, have until Wednesday morning. Both parties have requested that the court issue its ruling on the matter by Thursday, with the realtors stating that “This Court should do what the district court thought it could not.”

If the Court of Appeals does not end the CDC’s eviction moratorium, the plaintiffs are expected to take the matter to the Supreme Court, who had previously ruled against the previous moratorium being ended before its July expiration date. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who had voted not to end the eviction ban early – also noted that he would also reject any additional extensions without Congressional legislative action, which failed to take place.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued their initial eviction moratorium in September of 2020, landlords have been unfortunately caught in a tug-of-war between the federal government and their tenants that reside in their rental properties, all due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a national malady that seems to refuse to go away.

Many landlords are understanding of the financial issues that their tenants may have encountered as a result of the pandemic, but at this point the CDC’s eviction moratorium has been ongoing in one form or another for nearly a year. The latest ban on evicting tenants for failure to pay rent for reasons related to COVID-19 is slated to expire on October 3, but who’s to say it won’t be extended yet again?

In the meantime, a recent article has laid bare what landlords are going through in Las Vegas – many of them small mom-and-pop operations who rely on rent money for their livelihoods or retirement – and the feelings that they are expressing can be summed up in one word- “enough.”

In the article – a commentary by Susy Vasquez, executive director of the Nevada State Apartment Association – it is pointed out that the burden of the economic issues being faced by so many in this country today are unfairly – and solely – being placed on the backs of landlords.

“No other industry has been asked to give away its goods and services for free during this global pandemic,” she said. “No other industry has had a cap placed on its ability to charge a fair market price for its products or services. And no other industry facing this situation provides one of the basic human necessities: housing.”

“Rental housing providers in Nevada and nationwide have been forced by our federal government to house everyone for free, if needed, only to learn months later that not all renters would qualify for government-provided rent assistance,” she continued.

Vasquez points out that landlords had been previously assured that eviction bans would not be extended again… only to discover that was not true, as evidenced by the CDC’s new moratorium, issued on August 3. The author also notes that it is highly likely that the CDC’s current eviction ban is illegal and is already being challenged in the courts, but the trust between landlords and the federal government is already tarnished.

Vasquez states that the CDC eviction ban was more about buying time to distribute federal rental assistance funds than anything else – a process that has been slow to roll out at the state level – and points out that the longer this process goes on, the worse it will be for all parties involved.

“The CDC’s eviction order leaves renters facing insurmountable debt and jeopardizes the ability of rental housing providers to provide safe, sustainable and affordable housing,” she said. “The distribution of critical rental assistance has been painfully slow. Renters and rental housing providers desperately need these funds to catch up on their bills.”

If landlords are forced to shoulder this burden much longer, Vasquez says, many will soon be in the same situation that many of their tenants face… or worse.

“The bottom line is that eviction is always our last resort. The housing industry is in the business of housing people and trying to find another tenant means additional lost rent and more hassle for housing providers,” she said. “Enough is enough. Rent assistance needs to be made a top priority and be distributed to those in need at a much faster pace, making landlords and tenants whole.”

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The Las Vegas housing market continues to astound, as a unique, all-time record was set last month; the price of previously owned single-family homes shot past the $400,000 mark, a boon for sellers but a sign that has some buyers worrying that they may be priced out of the market if this trend continues.

In July, the median sales price of pre-owned, single-family houses in Las Vegas – making up the vast majority of the real estate marketplace – hit $405,000, which represents a 2.5 percent increase from the last record high achieved in June, and a 22.7 percent jump from July 2020, reports say.

3,352 houses were sold in July, which was a drop of 5.4 percent from the month before, but a small increase of 0.8 percent from July 2020. And while the amount of available homes on the market increased from June to July, the overall inventory remained low, leading to a continuing increase in prices.

Reports indicate that 3.007 houses were available for sale on the open market at the end of July, representing a 22.5 percent increase from the previous month but a 37.4 percent decrease year-to-year.

The housing market in Las Vegas has been a hotbed of activity in recent months, with demand essentially outstripping inventory and leading to skyrocketing prices, fueled by low interest rates on home loans that have allowed buyers to indulge themselves at times. Competition has been fierce as a result, with interested parties – many coming from neighboring states – dog-piling on attractive home prospects and routinely paying over the asking price in order to get the upper hand on other potential buyers.

As a result of this activity, home builders and sellers alike have regularly been increasing their prices in order to take advantage of the intense demand, often putting interested buyers on waiting lists and sometimes even accepting bids for properties, experts say.

However, this highly-competitive marketplace is unfortunately serving to price some first-time buyers out of the running for home purchases, forcing them to make do with rentals homes or lower-priced condos.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – It seems that that real estate in Las Vegas is getting so in-demand that even the shell of a burnt-out house will sell in near record-setting time. A scorched and gutted one-story home, located off Cheyenne Avenue east of Interstate 15,  features numerous boarded-up windows and no roof, back door, or many walls to speak of, but that didn’t stop a buyer from swooping right on in and picking it up as if it was a brand-new luxury condo.

After the (former) residence was listed on the open market on July 22, six buyers almost immediately submitted offers for it, and while four of them attempted to low-ball the owner – who listed the property as an “investment opportunity” – two agreed to his asking price of $90,000 for the burnt-out wreck of a house. Currently, the owner is under contract to sell to one of the investors.

Thanks to low interest rate home loans, investors have been snapping up homes in the Southern Nevada region for months, with 3,000 having been sold in the second quarter of 2021; this represents a whopping increase of 280 percent from the second quarter of 2020, when sales dropped during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The owner of the burnt-out house, which was constructed in 1963, had originally acquired the property last September several months after it had burnt down due to a fire. Originally, the man planned on using the remains of the home – which are still in usable condition, and building a new home upon them. However, the owner said he found himself with too many other projects at the time, coupled with the fact that contractors are in high demand right now.

Finding himself on a waiting list for rebuilding the home that could have taken months, he instead decided to take his chances on listing it in hopes that individuals who specialize in rebuilding homes would be interested in picking it up, which is exactly what happened.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new national eviction moratorium on Tuesday – after the previous one had expired over the weekend – with this one not taking the form of a “blanket” ban on evictions, but instead targeting counties in the United States with high infection rates of COVID-19.

And while the CDC’s announcement was initially met with waves of confusion over what areas in the country would be affected by it, the question for our readers was quite obviously “will the new eviction ban impact Nevada landlords – especially those in Clark County – yet again?” And, after a few days of waiting, we finally have our answer: yes, it will.

Nevada Health Response indicates that 12 of Nevada’s 17 counties qualify as “substantial” or “high” transmission rate areas, and as a result, those 12 counties are now under the mandate of the CDC’s moratorium not to evict tenants who are unable to make rent payments due to financial hardships brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Substantial” transmission is 50 to 100 cases per 100,000, or a positivity rate between 8 percent and 10 percent, and “high” transmission is 100 or more cases per 100,000 people or a positivity rate of 10 percent or higher.

The new eviction moratorium, slated to expire on October 3, currently affects the following counties in Nevada: Carson, Churchill, Clark, Douglas, Elko, Lincoln, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Storey, Washoe, and White Pine.

The CDC has stated that the purpose of the new moratorium is to give time to U.S. residents to access billions of dollars in federal rental assistance funds, funds that have been proven to be notoriously slow to distribute.

However, many experts have opined that the CDC’s new eviction moratorium is almost certainly illegal. This may be especially true in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the previous eviction ban could not continue beyond July without legislative action on the part of Congress, which failed to happen. In fact, the Biden Administration has already received a legal challenge to the CDC’s new ban, which a U.S. District Judge decreed must be responded to by August 6.

Shelter Realty Property Management specializes in the areas of  Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.