Toyrantula Real Estate

During the financial crisis, Richard Lawson was head of the Consumer Protection Division of the Florida Attorney General’s Office. In that turbulent time, he oversaw the state’s review of people’s petitions to modify their mortgages.

“That was a huge, huge issue during that whole crisis,” says Lawson, now a shareholder with Tampa-based law firm Gardner Brewer Martinez-Monfort. “The remedies that we obtained from the banks were geared towards fixing that experience [modifying mortgages] for the consumers.”

In the current COVID-19 crisis, regulators will be watching a variety of things, including banks’ stress levels, rents, and even prices for retail goods, if a state of emergency is declared in a particular location.

Rental housing owners could have difficult decisions concerning how they handle late or unpaid rent.

“Much of that [decision about how they deal with residents] will depend on what kind of relief the creditors will be

Usually at this time of the year, the start of renter season, multifamily landlords are raising their rents. This March, for obvious reasons, has been atypical however, according to RentCafe.

It reports that the national average rent was $1,474 in March, having gone up by 2.9%, or $42, which is a hard drop compared to February’s 3.2% yearly rise.

“The slowdown is visible in 60% of the cities we analyzed,” it wrote. “This is the first time since 2016 that we see a deceleration from February to March (when the rental season is supposed to kick off), as the new coronavirus pandemic is beginning to take its toll on the economy and the apartment market.”

This snapshot provides only a partial picture of the market though as the data has yet to reflect the full impact of COVID-19, according to Doug Ressler, manager of Business Intelligence at

SoftBank is not going to move forward with a planned $3 billion purchase of WeWork stock, citing closing conditions that have not been met as the reason.

“Given our fiduciary duty to our shareholders, it would be irresponsible of SoftBank to ignore the fact that the conditions were not satisfied and to nevertheless consummate the tender offer,” said Rob Townsend, SVP and Chief Legal Officer of SoftBank, in prepared remarks.

The unfulfilled closing conditions include, according to SoftBank:

• The failure to obtain the necessary antitrust approvals by April 1, 2020;
• The failure to sign and close the roll up of the China joint venture by April 1, 2020;
• The failure to close the roll up of the Asia joint venture by April 1, 2020;
• The existence of multiple, new, and significant pending criminal and civil investigations that have begun since the agreement was signed in October 2019,