Landlords Say, What About Us?

While Klein and the industry he works in could survive and thrive in a market-caused collapse, though, they cannot endure a manmade one. The economic downturn wrought by the Covid pandemic has led to millions of job losses, and the federal and state governments intervened to impose a blanket ban on evicting anyone from their homes, even for lack of rent payments.

Politicians enacted this unprecedented intervention with good intentions — they wanted to ward off the specter of “Hooverville” mass homeless encampments. However, because the intervention included no support for landlords, it has created some perverse incentives.

Eli Klein, who owns the Clifton-based Daytron Management Group, says that the eviction moratorium has led to a bizarre situation where landlords must continue paying their bills and maintaining the apartments, yet tenants are increasingly failing to pay rent.

“They are taking our properties, they are taking my buildings, without using eminent domain, and telling us that we cannot collect any revenue on it — but you still have to pay the taxes and insurance on the building,” said Klein, 42. “This is such a great deal for them. Can you imagine if they walked into a grocery store and said, ‘Listen, it is your grocery store, we are requiring you to run the register and run your business from nine to five, but you cannot collect any income for it’? Which storeowner would be okay with that?”