Housing Protection in the Stimulus Bill Explained

And just I want to make sure in advance, everybody knows this is for buyers, sellers, tenants, basically the general public, real estate peeps. You'll be able to share this content with them, which is why we're. We're doing this is to just give, you know, we're doing these things for different groups of people in different segments. So this is going to be very consumer focused content today, you know, to help people out. But yes, we've got an hour. Let's dive into this and go through lots of the content.

Yeah, let's get it.

So, James, talk to us a little bit about what we know. Where are we now?

Yeah, so basically we have had a lot obviously over the past three weeks to a month. We are about a million total cases. A million 67,000 total cases for COVID 19 worldwide that we know of to be clear. I think everybody's aware that there's a lot of issues with testing. So these numbers are probably all very conservative. The reality is my estimate is least in the United States, confirmed numbers is probably three to four times that based upon the lack of testing available in most states today. In the United States right Now we're about 206,000 confirmed cases. It's climbing at almost 30,000 a day. I know that sounds grim, but we're going to be in this for a bit. Unfortunately, there's been about 6,600 total deaths in the U.S. i think that we're all on the same page now that this is something that we are as a country have never faced before. To be clear, we've gotten through very, very difficult times in this country and Americans are very resilient about doing so. But I think that it's a reality now that this is not something that is the flu. It's not a hoax, it's not any of those things. It is the reality that we are dealing with a pandemic in this country. It's something we can't see. We're going to cover a lot of safety things in this video today as well. And it's going to be here for a while. Just for a clarity of. There are lots of. I'm reading this stuff every day. There's lots of ideas on treatments. We don't have one yet. We're looking at different medications to try and figure that out. Whether it's some drugs that we've used for malaria, which aren't turning out very well this morning that I've read to plasma infusions which are actually starting to have some promising looks. There's Lots of stuff we have to get through. Let's go to the next slide about where we're going. I think that the part that is. I think the part that everyone needs to understand is this. This is not going away anytime soon. There's a lot of protocol that we're trying to play catch up on. It's certainly, I think everyone's aware that the federal government is behind on many things right now, and they're trying to play catch up to it. From the medical community needs proper PPE to just trying to get a handle on this. And we're obviously, everyone's heard flattening the curve. Certain states are implementing that have implemented that faster than others. There are certain states that are way behind on this that should have done it a while ago now. And so the next two months, which we'll talk about, is going to be a really interesting approach to seeing what works and what doesn't. And certainly with housing, Keith and I will jump into this quite a bit. How it affects the housing market, whether it's you own a house, you want to buy a house, whether you're a renter, we're going to cover a lot of that. But the truth is, until a vaccine's done, within the next 12 to 18 months, America is going to be dealing with this either in waves or to some degree, we'll have it around. I think it's important that we start to understand that this might be a sense of the new normal for a while, that social distancing measures will probably be in place for the foreseeable future. I do think that the government is very clearly trying to identify ways to turn on parts of the economy for obvious reasons. We're gonna talk about that, but I think it's important that everyone settles in and realizes that this is not going to just go away. I do firmly believe we will start to find a. Keith can jump in here, a new sense of normalcy with what this is. And that, you know, a lot of the way that we did things a month ago is probably not going to be happening in much of 2020. Like, I don't really see concerts happen anytime soon, see large gatherings occurring anytime in the near future, not until either treatments available or a vaccine, both of which there's no clear direction on any of that. No matter what anybody tells you on television. The truth is we do not have a clear answer on any of that at this particular point in time.

Yeah, I think, James, you're right. There is a sense of acceptance of this new normal. One of the great things about humans as a species is we're incredibly adaptable. We've managed to adapt quickly and fast and so we do have an ability to modify to a quote, unquote, new normal. Yeah, you're right. There is a phase process here that we are as a globe really just getting started on. And the first is finding a drug protocol that as far as where we're going, there's a drug protocol that we've got to try to find to help with treatment, not a vaccine, but to help with treatment. And the first step in that is to try to find drugs that are already in use that have some effect on the virus. And all over the world those are being tested in different places and to different frequencies. So far, not anything that looks like it's going to have a massive impact, but there are many different treatment protocols that are working and. Yep, being worked on. Yes, being worked on. Exactly. And also then there is the process of creating new drugs for treatment that takes longer than of course, drugs that have already been through FDA approval and are already in circulation. But there is work being done on those. And then the last step is a vaccine which there is also people working on that right now. All three of these are being worked on at the. And the vaccine which will happen. It just takes 12 to 18 months to design, test and get a vaccine out. We have created vaccines for this kind of, this kind of virus is something that a vaccine has created, been created before. We just haven't created a vaccine yet for this one. But that train has left the station too. So all three of these things are happening in tandem and in time. We will see treatments that with current drugs, then we will see treatments with the new drug that are more effective than the current drugs and then we'll see the vaccine be released.

We just.

Just one comment on the vaccine that I think is important is there there's been some misinformation. The reason why it takes 12 to 18 months is they have to go through clinical trials, they have to test it on people and they need enough time to show that the drug that they created doesn't actually kill the very people that they're trying to treat, to put it bluntly. So the reason why that they have to do it through a proper timeframe and why the accurate number is 12 to 18 months and that's pushing it, is to make sure that there's no side effects or long term effects on people once the vaccine's been created. So just wanted to.

There are vaccines that are in trial right now we have to see, A, if they work and B, they don't make you worse in some other way. So again, that is where we're going. That is where we're headed. Social distancing for now is the new normal to varying degrees across the country to talk about.

So just to give you guys some, we'll go to the next slide. Keith, just some case numbers. We are approaching 30,000 new cases a day. This is the curve that we're trying to flatten. Everything that I'm hearing is that we are nowhere near our peak yet. And the numbers, as I'm sure all of you heard, and it's absolutely just awful and I'm just, I'm repeating numbers that have been stated by the President of the United States is roughly, you know, several million Americans will likely get sick if we work on flattening the curve. And unfortunately, somewhere between 100 to 240,000Americans will likely die from this disease. It unfortunately will be a case study in how we need to do a better job of handling a pandemic. And what I will say is that we will be better prepared the next go around. The American citizens will demand that our government is better prepared for this in the future. So kind of continuing on that some hotspots that are currently now happening in.

The U.S. let me jump in on.

That for just two seconds though too, James. I do, I think it's important to remember that while we see these new cases continuing to spike, there's a tail here that won't be reflected to the social distancing steps that many states, almost all states have taken at this point.

So what I mean by that is.

We'Re now testing at a rate that we probably should have been testing from the beginning. So it's not like when you see these numbers, that doesn't mean that many people caught the coronavirus yesterday. That means that many people got tested and tested positive. So the tests are lagging. But we've taken the actions in many parts of the country. We started with Northern California, where James and I are sitting. We started three weeks ago. So these steps have been taken, but there will be a tail to it reflecting in the numbers because there's a massive spike in testing that's happening. So when you see the daily new cases, that doesn't mean social distancing isn't working. It just means we're testing at a significantly higher rate. So you're going to get a lot.

More positive and you're looking at a four week cycle. So everybody understands the number Here it's from when social distancing is put in place. You're really about four weeks later is when you should start to see the effects of it. And the reason is you're asymptomatic for up to two weeks. Right. You couldn't show symptoms for two weeks. And then the viral loads had an effect where you get sick, and then you're obviously in it for another two weeks as well of being sick. So there's a very delayed timeframe. To Keith's comment about the tail of this. It's going to come like this. Then you'll start to see that effect come down. So why you're seeing some extensions of these things, like California, everyone was hoping it wouldn't be more than a few weeks. We're now being locked down through the end of April is to make sure that that entire time frame of somebody potentially being sick is gone through. So we're not spreading any further on the end of that. And you know, and unfortunately, there's just been different approaches to this. There's two things we're facing here. One is the ability to lock things down to save human lives. Makes complete sense fully in favor of it. The other side of that coin is shutting down. The economy is obviously having a catastrophic effect on everybody, too. And so we're trying to figure the balance between this hot spots. Obviously, you guys have all seen New York, in New York City especially, it's being hit just tremendously hard. I think that unfortunately you're going to see that happen in Florida next. The governor there should have locked that state down a while ago. I mean, literally, it was in days ago. People were on the beach for spring break. So, you know, there's definitely some policy differences on the way that people have been handling things. Certainly, you know, Georgia will be one. You're kind of seeing the maps here. The truth is, every state's going to have a slightly different tale of when they have their peak. And what I want to make a comment about, there's a positive in all of this. I know it sounds weird, but there is in that different states that go through this earlier will be able to turn on their businesses earlier than other states going through it later. So my comments are, instead of the entire country being hammered down, you'll see certain states turn back on faster than other states. They'll be a little bit behind or lagging maybe a month. That could have a positive impact on the economy because we're not having the entire country on a standstill. So one thing I wanted to comment on, and Keith's going to take it away on some other stuff is the safety. So some really important things that I want to share. I have never been in agreement. This is just my own personal philosophy, which is now actually being agreed with by a lot of different people, that we shouldn't be wearing masks. If you are asymptomatic, meaning you have the virus, you don't know, and you're walking around, you're, you're touching things, you're sneezing, whatever, and you don't even ever show symptoms, which can happen, you're still spreading the virus. And it's important. Why you look in a lot of Asian countries, why they wear masks is that if you don't know if you're still sneezing, you're sneezing into the mask, you're not sneezing everywhere else. Two other things that we know is the virus can live on different types of material for up to two days. Cardboard being an example, your grocery bags, plastic, aluminum. One of the safety things I would encourage all of you to do, and we'll include a link in this follow up email about the webinar, is how to clean your grocery bags, making sure when you're bringing them back into the house, you're properly cleansing things so that you're not touching something that accidentally was touched by somebody who didn't know they had COVID 19 and now you're spreading it in your own household. I would encourage you guys to wear latex gloves if you can get them, shop with them, throw them out after, make sure you're obviously washing your hands. But further than that, I would encourage you, if you do have a mask, which can be a little weird because it's not normal American culture, to wear masks, I would encourage you to start wearing them anyway just for safety of. If you're in a grocery store, somebody sneezes, that mask will help with some of the ability to stay away from those particles that have spread in the air as well as things that you're touching. So be really mindful of that and you'll help, obviously stop this. To you or your family, it's an invisible thing you can't see. Assume it is everywhere around you and you'll be safer if you follow that mentality.

Good advice always and definitely in today's time. So we're going to shift gears now a little and start talking about the economy. As James mentioned, the things that we have to do to keep ourselves safe and to keep the nation safe obviously are going to have a real impact on the economy. And we've lost a lot of jobs in the last few weeks. You can see that graph that we are in uncharted ground as a nation. As far as job loss, there have been. I'm not a math major. My dad's a mathematical physicist and I help run a real estate company. But I can do 6.6 plus 3.3, that's 9.9. I think that's a tremendous amount of jobs. And I in no way want to make light of it or that is massive job loss. If you even go back and look at 2007 through 2010, when we had the Great Recession, this job loss is far exceeding that. I've said this analogy before, but the job loss during the Great Recession was not as steep. Obviously, you can see on the graph, but it was long. It was years of unemployment numbers growing and growing, growing every month. Every month, every month. 5000-006000-00500,000, 400,001 month. We had nearly 700,000 in the worst month prior to the last few weeks. This is bad. It's not good. But I also do want to put it into context. There are 15.2 million leisure and entertainment jobs in the U.S. a lot of the areas that are most impacted are the areas where tourism is a big thing. Tourism is a big draw. And this is happening at different times across the country, as James mentioned before. So that is a little bit of help. But it's still a tremendous job loss. And that is why the government is trying to do all they can. And what we're going to spend the rest of this time talking about is there is this impact. But the impact is really steep. But hopefully it's going to be really short, because if that's the case and we can do things to help people weather a storm, a short storm, then we should come back out the other side. But these are big job loss numbers. Unprecedented. But again, put into context, hopefully this is something that is short and we can make our way through, but you will see this number continue to grow. Don't be surprised by that.

Yeah. And one context that Keith, is there's what we're going to talk about, as you mentioned with the stimulus is to help curb some of this. I think that the. If the stimulus package with SBA loans and the paycheck protection program that's being instituted with businesses, a bunch of other loans that are occurring. One of those, the purpose of that is to actually not increase unemployment. It's to incentivize employers with money Stimulating in their businesses to hold on to employees by the government infusing capital into a business. Basically.

Yeah.

So if, if the stimulus package works and there's always a if. But I do have belief that the 350 billion that they, that they are putting aside and the Treasury Secretary yesterday made a comment that they will institute more or go back to Congress for more is to give the employers the money needed to keep their employees on payroll during the next several months while they go through this. You might see this also we'll call flatten the curve, bring it down as well. And that's the hope of what that stimulus plans for.

Yeah, and James knows I'm a bit of a business theorist and a business historian. I'm our resident economics nerd for the company. I am not an economist, but I can't think this is just, it's something that's never happened before in modern times. We've obviously had pandemics throughout the history of. But we've never had where like a whole sector with 15.2 million jobs basically.

In a week the lights were shut.

Down in that sector. If you think about airlines, travel, vacations, cruises, that whole industry just stopped. And that is why you're seeing that's never happened before, like ever. So of course we're going to see graphs that we've never seen before. But again, it should be short. Okay, so what does this mean? This means that basically the appropriate approach to this is to create some social distancing for 30 days, maybe even a little longer. I think areas like New York where there's incredible density, New York City, where you've got incredible population density, they might have a little longer pause in areas where you've got less population density. In Olathe, Kansas you may have a shorter pause, but there's a 30 day pause to flatten the curve and to stop the virus from spreading. Then there's another 30 days to kind of come back out of it. Some places might be a 60 day pause with 30 days, but the minimum you're going to see is this sort of 60 day pause button that is being pressed across the country. But the good news is it's not being, James alluded to this, it's not being pressed all across the country at the same time. So there are some parts of the United States where it's. I won't say it's business as usual, but its business is different. Okay, but there's still business. The difference is there's safety precautions being taken and social distancing being adhered to, you know, you can still pick up a pizza, but they've got a different line set up that's taped out so people are staying six feet apart. So it's not this isn't 2008 where the whole economy flopped and the whole country went into it at the same time.

The whole country will go through this.

60 day pause button in some way.

That will happen and we need to.

Accept that and prepare for that. But the whole country isn't going through the 60 day pause button at the same time.

Now we're going to transition into talking about the stimulus bill and its impact. And I've seen some of the questions, you know, what does it mean for.

Independent contractors, et cetera. So we're going to do our best to dig into this.

Remember that this is a. It's not, it's confusing, but it's confusing because there's the federal stuff and then each state is also doing different things. For example, some states have deemed residential real estate non essential, meaning you aren't supposed to practice real estate while you're on lockdown. And some have deemed essential, which means it's okay for you to do things, but you've got to do them in a very modified fashion. So it's different across the state. James and I can't do a state by state analysis of what it's going to mean for every single state. That would be a 10 hour webinar. So we're going to do our very best to talk about it from a macro standpoint and then if you have really specific questions, whether you're with our firm or not, you can email me@keithnexthome.com keithexthome.com I will explain your specific situation to the best I can as I know it. This is the one Mortgage forbearance is.

The part of the stimulus plan that.

Has been getting the most news coverage.

And.

It'S there to help people.

But there's a flip side to the.

Coin that I'm going to talk about.

In just a second.

Everything that we're talking about starts on the Start date was March 13th. March 13th is when this was agreed upon and signed into law. And government backed securities get up to 180 days of forbearance. So what does forbearance mean? It's a fancy word. Basically what it means is it's not forgiveness. Forgiveness means I'm sorry that I yelled at you and I'm sorry that I didn't pay my mortgage. And they say no big deal, this is not forgiveness. This is forbearance, meaning you will still owe this money to the bank at some point in time. You can, you must. On all these things we're going to talk about. I should have started with this. On all these things we're going to talk about where you get some sort of relief. You must communicate with whoever you owe the money to. You can't just not pay it and say sorry, Covid was an issue. And so you've got to communicate with them, you've got to talk to them. But you get some relief, some forbearance and it could be pushed to the back of the loan or there are different structures based off of how you work it out with your note holder. So you can have up to 180 days of mortgage forbearance and even in some specific situations, on some loan products, it can even be longer. So that is the reason that was designed, is housing is most people's biggest expense. Let's create a way where they can get a little bit of a break from that if they have job loss or if other things happen. And that's not a bad idea. But there is an issue. We were already having some liquidity issues in the mortgage market. And if the whole United States decided to not pay their mortgage for four months, we got massive economic problems, huge economic problems. So what's important to me is, and listen, if anybody's been impacted by this and you have been impacted by this, this is here for you and you should take advantage of it. But please, please don't just think of this as I can take a four month holiday or more from my mortgage payment. If you can pay your mortgage, please do. If you haven't had a change in your job status, please do. Because the impact in the secondary mortgage market if significant percentages of the United States stop paying their mortgage will be devastating to the US economy. So again, if you need it, it's here for you. Take advantage of it, it's okay. But if you can, you should pay your mortgage.

Yeah. Just one comment, Keith. I know people are like, oh, you know, the banks, who cares? But like reality is, banks having liquidity to loan money is what drives the US economy. So if they are, the more strain that occurs on the banks, the feds are going to have to step in with more money to support them and back them up. Which means the very people, all of us as taxpayers are responsible for that stimulus money and we will have to pay that back at some point in time. It all ties together, is my comment. It's like we're all in this together.

Yeah, great point. And Vicki asks, interest continues to accrue with forbearance. The answer is it depends on the structure that you work out with your note servicer on that forbearance. So there's no one clear answer. There are different banks are handling it different ways. Yeah. So that's why it's really important that you talk to your servicer when you're.

Working out this structure. Good question, Mickey.

There is also protection for multifamily owners. There's a lot of, listen, the big corporate landlords, they've got attorneys and they've been pouring over the stimulus plan and they know what's going on.

Okay.

But the people that were most that we want to hear this message the most are the what I call accidental landlords. It's the Americans who bought a house, lived in it for 10 years, then traded up and bought a bigger house. But they didn't trade up. They kept that original home as a rental and they maybe done that two or three times in their life and now they've got two or three investment properties in town. That's one of the beautiful things about residential real estate. But they don't have tenant attorneys on staff, they don't have people to process all of this for them. So there is some protections for landlords and it's important that they know about it. And if you are a landlord, you're going to hear it from me. If you're in the industry, be reaching out to your accidental investors or to your smaller mom and pop investors. They really need some help right now and they really need to understand what protections there are for them if they've been impacted. So if a tenant doesn't pay or if something happens to them and their job status, for example, landlords can have 30 day forbearance on their mortgage payment and up to two 30 day extensions on that. So landlords can get up to 90 days forbearance on multifamily owners or non owner occupied loans. So loans that are non owner occupied, you can get one 30 day forbearance and then up to two more for.

A total of 90 days.

There are also tenant protections in place for the next 120 days. There can be no eviction started for non payment, no late fees applied for lack of payment. And again, it's so important that you communicate with your landlord. Try to find a workout plan if you have been impacted. The landlord will normally require some form of proof, a letter from your employer, a Letter of explanation from you, but really probably they're going to want a third party, but something to explain how have you been impacted by the virus. But there are tenant protections. Again, 120 days, you cannot start the eviction process for lack of payment for 120 days. No late fees gonna be applied, etc. But if you are a tenant, you've got to communicate with your landlord. And this isn't a, hey, I don't have to pay my mortgage. I mean my rent for four months. Sweet.

Thanks.

That's not what this is what you. You want to work with your landlords to find a workout. And this kind of goes both ways, especially with the smaller mom and pop landlords. Call your tenants, get ahead of it, call them, talk to them, find workouts, find different ways that work for you as the landlord and also work for the tenant. Work together with them in these situations. If you've got great tenants and they've been great tenants for years, you want to keep those tenants. So call them, talk to them, get workout plans in place with your tenants that are in your properties. There's also credit protection. So this is credit cards or other notes that you have taken. And they, the government has an edict that they should provide more leeway for deferrals, partial payments, modifications if you are reported as current prior to March 13, even if you have late payments or other things, they are required to show you as current. So that is some protections. But again, it's time to get on the phone if you're going to need to make a partial payment or a lower than the minimum payment on a credit card or some of those kinds of things. They have been instructed to be more flexible and you can get on the phone with your note holders across the board. So that is something that you should take action on as well. Question from Elizabeth 120 day for no evictions is that nationwide it was part of the federal plan now that you can't take anything as unilateral in this environment, you can't take anything. It is unilateral because some states have increased protections on various whether it's landlords or others. Some states have increased protection. So it could be different in every state. Now there's also a question. FHA and VA does not put payments.

On the back end.

So how every servicer is handling the forbearance differently, there is no unilateral answer for how it works. If you do have to use the forbearance, most of them are not just saying hey, at the end of four months you have to pay us back in a lump sum. Some you can take the total that's owed and distribute it over the remainder of the note. Some are saying we could just add so many months on the back end each note servicer and note tight, whether it's FHA, VA, conventional, jumbo, et cetera. There is no one answer across the board. It's not a one size fits all.

It's too complicated.

So I think I've handled and one.

Thing I want to make a comment on Keith too, just for everyone to be realizing as he's mentioning. If it's credit card company, call them. If it's the mortgage, call your bank. Like you need to talk with them independently. We're just giving you the stuff that was in the bill. The other thing you need to make sure you understand is when the government puts a bill in place so politicians write it and then it has to be implemented and there's a lot of gray area in between the time the bill is written and guidance is given down to a local bank or a credit card company, et cetera. And candidly, some of that guidance changes like we're learning about right now how the payment protection program the feds put in place is still the guidance hasn't been given to the banks locally yet. And here we are almost two weeks later and we still don't know what the whole guidance is on the program. So my comments are is that the feds will say something, then it's the states to implement or a servicer to implement. And there's a lot of gray area in there. So you need to keep communication high with anyone that you're talking to and if they don't have an answer, keep calling back because eventually they will have an answer once they get some of that guidance.

James, I got some questions so I'm.

Going to clean out some of these. Financial help for commercial property owners. There isn't anything that I've read that specifically is for if you own an office building or if you have an office lease that tends to be more of a business transaction. I will say most commercial landlords have been through this in 2008, 9 and 10. There are workouts that you can do. You've got to get on the phone with them and start the conversation. But from a federally mandated standpoint, I don't believe there is anything in there. And if you have real specific situations on a specific question for yourself, email me and I can look it up and help you dig in on It So for buyers and sellers looking to buy or sell, would I just say wait until this is all over? That is such.

I'm sorry, not necessarily correct. It's market dependent. You need to talk to a real estate professional who can give you the in the field knowledge about what's happening in that market. I've been on the phone with franchise owners, real estate offices across the country. Every single market is different. Some places are on lockdown, like New York. Nothing's gonna happen in New York right now because literally the governor's not allowing it. Other places I've talked to, business is just flowing. And so what will back this up multiple times is you must talk to your mortgage professional. You need to talk to a local real estate professional to get what is happening in that area. There is. Is there potentially less buyers? Probably. But at the same time that also might make an opportunity for you because maybe a seller needs to sell and you can, you can pick something up at a better deal. Like it's so local based. You need to talk to a professional to get the answer to that.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more and we'll probably do that caveat again. You need to talk to a local real estate mortgage professional on all of these situations. And the answer is James is right. Maybe my experience is people move because of timing in their life, not just timing in the market. And the reason that I know that to be true is people bought houses in 2007, 2008, 2009 and every single day in the news. It was. Real estate is the reason we're in an economic crisis. So there are people that are going to have job transfers, there are people that are going to have a need to trade up or trade down. The life events still have occurred that cause people to buy and sell. That being said, it's a very personal decision. And if someone feels like they need.

To wait, I think I can respect that and understand that.

But it doesn't mean everyone will stop. Okay, Fred has a question. I understand tenants rights. The Cliffs Notes is sounds like tenants may not have to pay, but landlords get a forbearance. So how do we make it up with. If you are an owner of property and you have a tenant, how do you make that up? Fred, in essence, you're right. But you've got to have a workout, a conversation with your tenants. The corporate, the big corporate holders are going to work their way through it. They may extend term. There's a lot of ways you can structure it with your tenant. You could extend term so that you receive those payments, you could feather the payments out. You could do a slight rent increase that starts in 60, 90, 120 days. This is about communication. Most of the time. What I've experienced in tenant and landlord situations, the landlord doesn't want to lose the tenant if they're a good one, and the tenant doesn't want to lose the place if it's one they've enjoyed living in. So this is about communication and finding workouts, especially for the smaller landlord. So, Fred, that's my stab at it. If you want to go deeper, shoot me an email.

Guys, just remember, every single one of us, every person that you know is going through some, what I call trickle down effect of this economy. Like if you're not receiving payroll, then you can't make payments and that affects somebody else. So you have to just communicate with everyone I've talked to, not in our particular case, but members of ours that are having conversations with their landlords and they're saying, yeah, we'll take 60 days, they can afford it. We'll give you the cash for 60 days and we'll put it on the back of the loan. Like there's just nobody wants to lose a tenant. No, the tenant doesn't want to lose the building, as Keith said. So you just have to communicate extensively. And we're finding, I love Americans because we are, like I said, we're just resilient. We work through this stuff. We will figure it out together. It's not one versus the other. It's this particular situation is we are all in this together, every single person is. And so we have to figure out how to do that. Except when it comes to toilet paper. That's a different conversation. No one has been helpful on taking care of one another with that.

But anyways, another question. I just did a car loan deferment and was told the interest continues to accrue. Is that the same with a mortgage? The answer is you still owe the money. So the interest will still. How that's structured will depend on the structure, on how, on the workout that you do with your mortgage. Yes, you still owe the money, so you will still have to pay interest on that money that you owe for some determinant period.

Okay.

I think we're clear on questions, James. So I'm going to add this last one and then I'll throw it back to you. But also there is workouts for student loan debt, especially if you're a real estate agent or a mortgage professional listening. Reach out to your past clients that have career paths that tend to accrue a lot of student loan debt. That is a relatively easy phone call and a relatively easy workout because they aren't.

Everyone's trying to call their note holder.

Right now, but the student loan companies aren't getting quite the press. By press, I don't mean publicity, but like the mass of people calling into them. So that's a pretty easy one to work out.

And again, they are working out structures.

With the people who owe them money. So student loan debt is another one that can be worked through.

All right, let's talk about stimulus. I'll take it back from you, Keith. You can provide commentary. A lot of notes here. So I'm just going to go through this. You guys are probably familiar with a lot of this. There's maybe a few things in here that you weren't. So I'm going to recap slightly. But in addition to all those things Keith talked about, like individual stimulus money that's coming your way. $1200 for individuals, $2400 for couples, with 500 for each kid under the age of 17 years old. To be clear, it's based upon your 2019 tax return. If you have not filed for those tax returns, they'll use 2018 as the default. So they'll determine how much money you're going to receive in stimulus based upon those prior amounts. When you refile your 2019, to be clear, if there's additional money owed to you, you will actually get that at a later date. It starts to phase out at 75,000 in income for individuals and 150,000 for couple. The phase out is $50 for. It's basically 50 bucks for every thousand that goes up in payroll. So it kind of starts. The threshold comes off. If you make more than 99,000 or $198,000, you won't be receiving anything. Most important thing I could tell you is that you need to have direct deposit set up in order to receive the stimulus money. If you do not, you should call the IRS and set it up now. If you do not have it set up, you can expect that checked in the next several months versus what they're saying up to three weeks. I just want to clear. The treasury secretary is saying that you should have the stimulus money within three weeks. That was as of last week. So hopefully within the next two weeks. Fingers crossed that that's actually what occurs if you are an independent contractor. Some news on the unemployment benefits front. The feds put money in the stimulus for gig workers or, you know, 1099 workers to receive unemployment benefits. It's $600 a week up to four months is the number you apply through your state in order to get those benefits. So it's being regulated at the state level as of right now. I've heard that some states are offering their own state unemployment benefits as well. I don't think that's going to be common practice because the state unemployment benefits is a fund that's been paid in by W2 based employees. So I'm not sure independent contractors will get that benefit. But at the very minimum you can expect $2,400 a month in money from the Feds. What I have also heard is that not every state is ready to accept those benefits or the ability for independent contractors to apply. We'll put a link in the email we send as a follow up for all attendees here that allows you to go to your individual state and then see how to apply for those benefits. I do want to make a comment that I made last week on this. For some reason some people really have a negative connotation towards unemployment benefits. And I don't know, maybe it's politics or whatever, but this is different. This isn't you being lazy and you got fired. This is an economic pandemic that's occurred. So you should apply for those benefits, take your personal pride out of it and use what's available to help you get through this so that the whole economy comes back. That's the point, is to get everybody employed again and then the economy starts to move. So don't skip on that. Make sure it's something that you're doing. We do believe that there's going to be an element. I think this is going to be very laxed regulation. My personal opinion on whether you were classified as essential or non essential. The reality is if the state shut down, I think basically the Feds will open up the coffers and just say here's the unemployment benefits. So I while I think that the idea in the beginning might have been depending upon essential, non essential and who shut down, I think the Feds will just open it up for those people to have benefits.

I want to piggyback on what you said just a second ago. I agree that if you need help, this is there to help you. So take the help if you want to and you're really in your head about it. Make a commitment to help somebody when this is all done and when you.

Go back to work, find, find someone.

That you want to donate money to. Find a cause that you want to reinvest in, but don't. Whatever mental gymnastics you have to do to be okay with it, be okay with it. If you need it, take it and find a way to give back after.

By the way, it technically is your money because the Fed's printing money and it's being added onto our national debt. So you're going to end up paying it back at some point in time when Congress actually deals with that.

Yeah. A couple questions from the audience that I want to clean out too. James, on this topic, can you quickly file your 2019 taxes? Let's say 2018 I made more money, but 2019 I made less. Can I file my taxes super quick, fast, in a hurry.

So I'm not a cpa.

Correct.

Just to be clear.

Excellent disclaimer.

I have read only and this guidance can change that. If you are. If you made more money in 2018 and you don't file 2019 and they give you money based upon that, I have read that. They're not going to make you pay that back. However, all of that money is still taxable income, to be clear. So that's what I've read. I don't work for the government. I'm just telling you that. That's what I've read. So maybe it's in your benefit not to file your 2019 right now.

Yeah.

Also, if you, if you are expecting.

A refund, file that bad boy, right?

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, file for your refund.