Over $80 billion of multifamily assets are at risk of distress
More lenders are submitting offers to refinance debt: JLL
Landlords foroffices, apartment complexes and other commercial real estatehave $1.5 trillion of debt due by the end of next year, and about a quarter of that borrowing could be hard to refinance, according toJones Lang LaSalle Inc.
The value of buildings has broadly dropped after higher interest rates boosted funding costs for property owners. Those lower valuations make it harder for landlords to borrow as much, forcing many property owners to raise equity capital to secure new debt or extend their existing facilities.
Affordable housing is rising in Brighton with a predicted opening next year at the corner of Chambers Road and East 144th Avenue.
Taylor Morrison, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders and developers, will build Farmlore. It will be a suburban community close to historic Brighton.
New affordable housing is being built at the corner of Chambers Road and East 144th Avenue in Brighton. Credit: Belen Ward
“Our target is towards singles, couples, and families. Taylor Morrison recently purchased 6.4 acres to be developed into 60 alley-loaded lots within the new Farmlore Master Planned Community,” said Ricarda Dietsch, Taylor Morrison, Denver division president.
The new housing development is a half mile west of I-76 past Prairie Center, where Farmlore’s historical big brick barn is located.
Dietsch said the Farmlore community would feature a unique restored barn with a community center for families and children to work and play, along with walking nature trails, three community parks, and an outdoor pool.
“The Farmlore Community would have 60 homesites with detached homes from 1600 to 2100 square feet with three to four bedrooms, 2.5 baths two story and two car garages,” Dietsch said.
Dietsch said the future lots are located at the section of 144th Avenue and Chambers Road. The road would be widened as part of Phase One of the Farmlore development.
“This is the northwesternmost corner of the overall Farmlore Masterplan. The Farmlore Masterplan is comprised of 500 acres and will be developed in several phases. It will include both detached and attached homes, open spaces, amenities, trails, parks, and school sites,” Dietsch said.
For the Brighton area, the 2023 median household income to qualify is $93,000. Taylor Morrison’s design product pricing is from $400,000 to the low $500,00, based on research of the earnings within the community earning of median household income.
“We understand that monthly payments are top of mind, particularly in the current interest rate environment. Taylor Morrison also currently offers rate-buy down programs for our new homeowners to assist in achieving attainable monthly payments,” Dietsch said.
The neighborhood they are building has a history of three generations of family farms that grew flowers in the area.
“There is now the chance to plant roots in an approachable new construction home. Residents at Farmlore will enjoy idyllic suburban charm with quick access to historic Brighton, Denver, and more,” Dietsch said.
Diesch said Farmlore is a Planned Unit Development that was approved by the City of Brighton in 2019. Its prior uses were a farmhouse with agricultural uses.
“All necessary approvals have been consistent with the Planned Unit Development, which was reviewed and approved through City Staff and City Council. Final Plat of Farmlore North Filing No. 1 was approved in April 2022,” Dietsch said.
Dietsch said the Taylor Morrison Homes will have four floorplans with optional loft, study spaces, smart home features that the buyers can choose from for their particular decor and budgets.
“We are currently building a similar floorplan line-up at The Aurora Highlands in Aurora. The floorplans will be modified to meet the local Farmlore community and Brighton guidelines but provide a good idea of our offering,” Dietsch said.
Dietsch said Taylor Morrison had discussed the project master plan with the owner and developer for several years.
“We are excited to re-enter the Brighton market after six years, following the success of our previous Brighton East Farms community.”
Housing affordability in the United States has taken a sharp turn for the worse in recent years,as house prices surged to historical highs during and after the pandemic and mortgage rates have risen steeply over the past three years, as the Fed tried to rein in inflation.
It all began with a surge in demand for houses during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many Americans, flush with cash from government stimulus checks, reevaluated their living situation and sought more space amid stay-at-home orders and the sudden possibility of remote work. Further fueling demand were the historically low mortgage rates after the Fed had slashed interest rates to near zero at the onset of the pandemic.
At the same time, supply of new and existing homes was very constrained, as construction was disrupted by Covid restrictions and would-be sellers refrained from putting their house on the market during this uncertain time. This imbalance caused a rapid increase in home prices across the country, pushing many potential buyers out of the market, a trend that was exacerbated when the Fed started to tighten its policy stance in March 2022 in its efforts to cool inflation.
Back then, the minimum income to buy a mid-range house – around $380,000 at the time – was $74,000, roughly in line with the national median income.
Since then a massive affordability gap has opened up, as a required income of $120,000 stands opposite a median income of around $84,000 – more than 40 percent shy of what would be needed.
America’s housing crisis is one of the critical issues of this year’s presidential campaign — but plansunveiled by Vice President Kamala Harristo reduce rent costs and boost home ownership would only further inflate prices for our most vulnerable.
Millions of Americans are undeniably desperate for relief. In New York City, for example, rent grew seven times faster than wages last year, and it is showing little signs of falling, with newly-released July data demonstrating that rent prices in the Northeast are still increasing.
Harris did acknowledge that government needs to make it easier for developers to build new apartment units, which is true. Zoning laws and other building restrictions are perhaps the most significant cause of the current housing affordability crisis, studies show.
These limitations on housing construction have reduced supply, increasing the demand for existing rental units tremendously and inflating costs. Addressing these construction roadblocks is where government action is most urgently required.
Instead, however, the Harris housing plan focuses on creating new regulations that would derail this much-needed building surge from ever occurring — and adding subsidies that would only inflate housing costs.
On Wednesday, Harris displayed her economic illiteracy on this score. “My administration will provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home,” she promised in a post on X.
Elon Musk, among others,tried to set her straight: “Unless you increase the supply of new homes, this just raises the price by $25k,” he retorted.
Harris claimed that a federal rent cap, another of her housing proposals, would get prices down quicker, and that she would seek to ban algorithms and software that landlords use to help determine their asking prices — just another way of implementing the price control she desires.
This month the Harris-Biden administration’s Department of Justice even filed a lawsuit against this algorithmic technology. Never mind that the government itself uses similar software.
Meanwhile, New York City’s current experience with a rent cap demonstrates just how damaging Harris’ rent control proposal would be for America’s working class.
Over the last half decade, the city’s price cap has drastically inflated the cost of non-rent-controlled apartments, reduced housing quality and created more government wealth transfers to wealthy residents at the minority communities’ expense, according to the Manhattan Institute.
As liberal economist Paul Krugman put it years ago, 93% of economists don’t support rent control — and for good reason.
“Nothing brings out unity in economists and land use scholars like the folly of rent control,” Krugman wrote, because both Democratic and Republican experts understand such policies only lead to higher rents on uncontrolled apartments, giving “desperate renters nowhere to go because new apartment construction becomes virtually nonexistent.”
So, it’s safe to predict that more construction won’t happen if the federal government implements a price control or bans landlords’ pricing software.
What will happen, though, is a spike in income inequality.
Again, New York serves as an illustrative example: The only people who seem to benefit from New York City’s current rent control policy (sans the few working-class families that have lucked into a hard-to-find rent-controlled apartment) are the well-connected professionals who tend to get their hands on these scarce properties first.
Some of the wealthy elites who have nabbed these units already own additional property worth north of $1 million. The goal of housing policy should not be to help the rich keep getting richer.
Should Harris’ proposal become law, local and state governments would be stuck with this policy and all the negative effects that come with it for generations — unless a future Congress finds the courage to rescind the measure.
While most Democrats and Republicans should agree that further erosion of local political control is counterproductive, Harris doesn’t seem to concur.
From food to housing to energy, she wants to remove most of our statehouses’ power and increase federal authority over just about every facet of our lives, irrespective of the consequences. And that’s not just wrong — it’s dangerous.
Unfortunately, the goal of massive federal housing overreach is not just a Harris problem. It’s become a systemic problem taking over the Democratic Party, as a glance at the platform the party adopted last week will confirm.
Add this to the long list of reasons that voters can’t let the House of Representatives or the White House turn blue come November.
Lee Zeldin (R) represented Suffolk County in the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2023 and ran for New York governor in 2022.
After tumbling in April, and rebounding modestly in June, analysts expected a continued gain in pending home sales in July, but it wasn't meant to be: moments ago the NAR reported that in July, Pending Home Sales tumbled 5.5% MoM, a huge miss to the 0.2% expected gain (and down from a 4.8% increase in June), and also slumped 4.6% YoY, a modest improvement from the 7.8% plunged in June but also missing expectations of a -2.0% drop.
That dragged the Pending home sales index to 70.2%, a fresh record low.
"A sales recovery did not occur in midsummer. The positive impact of job growth and higher inventory could not overcome affordability challenges and some degree of wait-and-see related to the upcoming U.S. presidential election," NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.
Sales decreased in all four US regions, especially in the Midwest and South. The Northeast registered the smallest decline last month, and Yun noted the New England region has performed better than others recently.
The Northeast PHSI waned 1.4% from last month to 64.6, an increase of 2.4% from July 2023. The Midwest index reduced 7.8% to 67.8 in July, down 11.4% from one year ago.
The South PHSI sank 6.5% to 83.5 in July, falling 11.5% from the prior year. The West index shrunk 3.8% in July to 56.2, down 6.0% from July 2023.
"In terms of home sales and prices, the New England region has performed relatively better than other regions in recent months," added Yun. "Current lower, falling mortgage rates will no doubt bring buyers into market."
The previously owned home market has been hamstrung by high borrowing costs and collapsing inventory for nearly two years. While mortgage rates have declined this month to the lowest in over a year, high prices and limited inventory are deterring prospective buyers who might still be holding out for cheaper rates.
“Falling mortgage rates will no doubt bring buyers into market,” Yun said, although we have yet to actually see modestly lower rates translate into more buying.
The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is now below 6.5% in the wake of recent comments from Jerome Powell, who said last week “the time has come” for the central bank to cut interest rates.
Lower borrowing costs would help ease one the least affordable housing markets in history. An index of US home prices by S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller hit a fresh record on Tuesday, with prices up 5.4% in the year through June.
Pending-sales figures tend to be a leading indicator of sales of previously owned homes, because houses typically go under contract a month or two before they’re sold.
LOS ANGELES—On a recent summer morning, a caravan of unmarked state police vehicles and white hazmat trucks crept past strip malls and wide intersections, making its way toward a pair of modest homes in a remote suburb north of Los Angeles.
A command came from the officers in the front of the black-and-white: “Seat belts off—in case we start taking fire.”
But there was no shootout. Just a tense half hour as a phalanx of two dozen state police—agents from the Department of Cannabis Control (DCC)—kept snipers trained on the house, waiting for the second of two suspects to emerge.
When she finally did, petite and barefoot in a black dress, the effect was mercifully anticlimactic.
Illegal cannabis cultivation operations, or “grows,” are a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry in California, dominated by a mix of transnational criminal organizations that authorities believe are symbiotic, if adversarial.
When agents serve a warrant, they often find human trafficking victims, automatic weapons, booby traps and, increasingly, banned toxic pesticides smuggled from China.
This particular raid, in Lancaster, netted around 1,020 plants—a modest haul compared with the herculean grows that have become common across California’s booming black market.
But such mild suburban tableaus belie a sleeping, sinister threat.
“What we have right now is organized criminal enterprises literally destroying the city building by building as they modify them for illegal cultivation,” Mike Katz, a Lancaster code enforcement officer who heads the city’s cannabis unit, told The Epoch Times.
“They’re endangering the families who will occupy those buildings in the future, they are lowering the value of neighboring properties and dragging the whole community down,” he said.
‘Super Toxic’
Buildings contaminated by illegal grows are dangerous because the harsh pesticides growers use permeate every surface—ceilings, walls, floors, vents and drywall.
Toxic black mold blooms in the 75 percent humidity needed to grow marijuana. The massive amounts of water and electricity required to sustain an operation can result in structural damage to vents and sunken floors, overloaded transformers and corroded wiring just itching for a fire.
Katz, whom the city’s chief of police refers to as the department’s “Swiss Army knife,” has been a firefighter, reserve police officer, and now, an unarmed code enforcement official. He approaches the job with a certain zeal, devouring scientific studies and how-to books on cultivation, and generally making it his mission to stop grow houses from slipping through the cracks.
Owners can often get away with making cosmetic fixes—“candy coating,” as one inspector puts it—if local governments don’t intervene before they start concealing the damage.
Police officers arrest people while raiding an illegal cannabis site in Lancaster, Calif., on Aug. 14, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times
Working and middle-class families migrate to bedroom communities like Lancaster, where you can still find a single-family home with a backyard for around $500,000—about half the median price in Los Angeles, according to Redfin. You may find one for even less if a grower has been busted and is offloading at a discount.
The injustice of it rankles Katz. He imagines families struggling to buy a home, and their toddlers probing surfaces tainted with insecticides—potent carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, nerve agents and others no one even knows how to identify.
“They are super toxic, but very effective,” he said. “One we just learned of last week has a 14-year half-life. We did a search warrant back in January and didn’t get test results until this week. I’m having to tell all the detectives and everyone involved that we were exposed to these chemicals.”
Low-cost housing also attracts sophisticated criminal enterprises looking for ways to launder money and turn a profit. Often, illegal growers can do that after just one harvest. Typically, an operation can turn four to six harvests a year.
Wholesale value for the plants seized in the modest raid we accompanied—they were days away from a second harvest—is more than $540,000.
To avoid detection and stay a step ahead of authorities, growers are continually adapting.
“There are probably a lot more growing indoors that we don’t know about,” Jennifer Morris, a code enforcement officer with Riverside County and former head of its cannabis unit, told The Epoch Times. “But they’re pretty good at keeping themselves looking very nondescript.”
From the outside, the houses look normal, and it typically takes a fire, robbery, or neighbors reporting electrical theft to tip off law or code enforcement, Morris said. Growers also build walls to conceal grow rooms, and sometimes install a resident worker or a dog to give the appearance of normality.
Because the entire industry is clandestine, no one can accurately estimate the extent of the problem. Many communities might not even be aware it’s happening.
“I’ve talked to cities where they say, ‘We don’t have a problem,’” said David Welch, an attorney who contracts as a special counsel with cities in Los Angeles County that want “a more aggressive” approach to narcotics enforcement. “Then law enforcement will hit a grow in that city.”
Police officers wear protective gear while raiding an illegal cannabis site in Lancaster. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times
Where there is one, there are likely more. But perpetrators are opportunistic, itinerant.
“We have seen the same owners of properties in different counties that have had illegal cultivation on them,” Morris said.
Wilson Linares, who leads the Department of Cannabis Control’s Los Angeles County law enforcement unit, said it’s hard to pinpoint which players are tied to which territories. “They’re just everywhere. It doesn’t really stay in that area, they just go wherever they can master operations.”
Growers, he said, “do a good job of layering their operation. I don’t think they even know they’re working for the same organization sometimes.”
That makes it difficult to go after the few bigger fish, to which, some insiders say, all these operations are ultimately “funneling up.”
Those caught at the grows are inevitably low-level employees, if not forced labor, and are typically interviewed and released. Illegal cultivation—anything more than six plants per person, whether it’s 10 or 10,000—is a misdemeanor in California.
“Sometimes our investigations do a good job at digging to make sure we’re eradicating the problem,” Linares said. “But sometimes they cut losses and move on and go somewhere else. We have to follow and chase them. It takes a lot of effort and time to conduct these investigations.”
Like meth houses of decades past, there are residential grows too damaged to flip.
But it’s the moderate ones, the ones that are at risk of selling at a discount to families, that keep Katz up at night.
While they can’t prevent the sale, or in many cases, habitation, building inspectors and code enforcement officers use “red tagging” and other methods to compel compliance—like creating liens to cloud the title, or disconnecting utilities. And in some cases, those costs and headaches transfer to new owners.
California law gives local government broad authority to abate “public nuisances”—which include dangerous and contaminated buildings, Katz said. But enforcing compliance can often depend on a municipality’s ability to pay for things like civil lawsuits.
If public safety officials don’t discover a grow before property owners start hiding the damage, it’s often too late.
“There is no roadmap,” Katz said. “These sociopaths are buying and selling these houses.”
‘I Didn’t Know Anything’
There were signs. Two dozen large bags of what Virginia Aceres thought was ordinary grass fertilizer and canisters of chemicals bearing designs of spiders and worms that the previous owner left behind. He offered to pay her $500 to get rid of them.
In two months, a $10,000 electricity bill.
Aceres said she moved from Los Angeles to the Antelope Valley because she didn’t want her kids hanging out with people who use drugs. She nabbed a five-bedroom house for $535,000, $15,000 below asking. “It’s super big—we thought, oh wow, this is perfect.”
But she found out after moving in that it had been used by the previous owners to grow weed.
“Every afternoon the upstairs smells of marijuana and it gives me a raging headache,” she told The Epoch Times. When a city inspector came by and pointed out a convertor wired to steal electricity and stains on the bathroom ceilings from burned chemicals, she said, “Now I understand.”
The five bedrooms were originally three, she discovered; the previous owner had added two and it was up to her to register the additions with the city.
When property owners obtain permits to modify buildings but don’t follow up to call for a final inspection of the work, this can tip off code enforcement and form part of the basis for a warrant. So too can electrical fires or electricity theft.
But Aceres said she bought her house without any compliance obligations that would arise from a pre-sale code enforcement; inspectors came after she moved in and pointed out the damage.
The fuses at Aceres’ house are constantly blowing, especially if electronics are running at the same time, and electricians tell her she has to completely redo the wiring.
“My daughter relies on a machine to help her breathe,” Aceres said, referring to a nebulizer that delivers oxygen and liquid steroids. “We had to buy a generator. She’s 9; she can’t ride a bike, can’t walk more than 20 minutes, can’t run. At night she has panic attacks, she comes to my door in pain, she can’t breathe, so I connect the machine and give her medicine.”
A neighbor warned her the previous owner had installed multiple, massive air conditioners and there were fires. People cruise by the house. Someone showed up looking to collect on a debt. The IRS, the police and city inspectors have all visited.
“For all this, I’d like to move—because they’re going to confuse us and they’re going to think that we sell drugs or have something to do with all that. But we haven’t been able to sell the house because of all these problems,” she said. “If a buyer asks questions we’re obligated to tell them the truth.”
The state of California could soon pass a law that will make illegal aliens eligible to receive as much as $150,000 in taxpayer-funded loans to purchase new homes.
According to Fox News, the “California Dream for All” act is likely to pass through the overwhelmingly Democrat-controlled state legislature.
The bill would implement a statewide program that provides 20% in down payment assistance, as high as $150,000, for illegals who seek to buy homes in the state.
The only requirements to apply are that one must be a first-time homebuyer and a first-generation homebuyer; the program will also require income levels to be below a certain limit relevant to the county where the applicant lives.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) has not yet said whether or not he will sign the bill into law.
A spokesman for his office said that the governor “doesn’t typically comment on pending legislation,” but that “if the bill reaches his desk, the Governor will evaluate it on its merits.”
Democrats in the state have defended the bill, claiming that it simply promotes equality and gives the same opportunities to illegals that American citizens would have.
Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula (D-Calif.), the author of the bill, has claimed that the legislation would still require applicants to meet federal requirements, which includes providing either taxpayer identification or a Social Security number, both of which are things that illegals are generally not supposed to have.
“We simply wanted to be as inclusive as possible within our policies so that all who are paying taxes here in our state were able to qualify,” said Arambula.
“Without the intentional law that we are introducing, we felt that there were complexities and questions that many in the immigrant community would have.”
A similar effort is ongoing in the state of Oregon, being carried out by a taxpayer-funded organization called Hacienda CDC, which is offering handouts of up to $30,000 exclusively to illegal aliens as down payment assistance in buying new homes.
Los Angeles Realtor to the stars John Woodward says squatters have taken over a multi-million dollar mansion across the street from LeBron James.
Soon after listing the property at 1316 Beverly Grove Place in Beverly Hills, Woodward got a call from the pool boy letting him know that someone had shown up with a U-Haul to move in. Given that he hadn't sold the house yet, he drove down to see what was going on - and ended up calling the police to report an active crime; these people were breaking into the house.
According to the Daily Caller, when the police showed up, the squatters produced a fake lease, which the cops of course accepted as proof, and told Woodword to pound sand - forcing him to pursue justice through the backlogged and ideologically biased LA court system.
"These guys are professional squatters," he told the Caller. "They know what they’re doing, they know they’re going to eventually be kicked out of there, but they get a free place in a nice neighborhood before the legal system kicks in."
And boy did the squatters enjoy their time. The quiet, affluent neighborhood turned into the biggest party street in Los Angeles. For months, the squatters hosted all-night raves filled with hundreds of people, illicit drug use and thumping dance music that lasted into the morning. They even allegedly sold entry to the parties, making thousands off the stolen property.
It was so brazen, you would think the police would shut it down after one night — especially in a ritzy neighborhood like Beverly Hills. That’s all we hear from the media these days; the police only care about helping rich white people. -Daily Caller
One neighbor, Fran Solomon, was forced to flee her dream home after police refused to do anything about the parties.
"They were loud, they were disruptive. The fire trucks would come in, the police would come in. The neighbors would be calling the police and nothing was able to be done about this," Solomon explained to the Caller.
"We realized that they were squatters," she continued, "and squatters, I guess, have rights."
After months of media attention, the squatters were finally evicted.
One California handyman has found a way to get rid of squatters...
As the Epoch Times reports, Squatting is a widespread problem, says Flash Shelton, a handyman and anti-squatting activist from Northern California. But he says he’s found a solution.
Shelton said he successfully got his mother’s house back from a group of squatters in 2019. He has since turned his experience into a career, helping others facing similar situations.
Shelton said on a recent episode of EpochTV’s “California Insider” that in 2019 after his father passed away, he moved his mother into his home. However, when they tried to sell her house, he discovered that a group of people had broken in and taken over.
After contacting law enforcement, he quickly learned that since the squatters had moved in with furniture to make it appear they lived there, it was considered a civil matter rather than a criminal one, leaving the authorities unable to act.
Although squatting or trespassing on a vacant property is illegal in California, the situation becomes complicated when law enforcement are unable to determine whether people are trespassers or have a legitimate claim to the space.
The presence of furniture and personal belongings can create the appearance of a tenant-like situation, which may force the property owner to follow formal eviction procedures rather than having the squatters removed as trespassers.
Instead of enduring the lengthy eviction process, Shelton found a “backdoor” solution: becoming a squatter in his mother’s house to oust the squatters.
“I figured that if I could become their squatter and switch places with them, that I would assume those rights,” he told the show’s host, Siyamak Khorrami.
He asked his mother to sign a lease granting him legal rights to the property. He then returned to the house and set himself up as the new “tenant.”
“As soon as they left the driveway, I went into the house, secured the back door, put up cameras, set up an alarm system, and then when they arrived back, I told them I have possession of the house,” he said.
The squatters eventually left.
Vulnerable Seniors
His story later went viral online, leading other homeowners facing similar situations to reach out to him for help.
“I’m running into people that have been squatting for years, and elderly people that have been living with squatters for multiple years because they don’t have the resources or the family to help them,” Shelton said.
Flash Shelton, a handyman and anti-squatting activist from Northern California, interviews with EpochTV's "California Insider" show. Taras Dubenets/The Epoch Times
He said many seniors are vulnerable to squatters, because individuals can exploit the seniors’ need for live-in caregivers and move into a home legally.
Shelton highlighted the case of an 88-year-old woman in Culver City who initially thought a caregiver was moving into her home, but the woman did not provide any caregiving.
The elderly woman contacted the caregiver’s employer to have her removed but was told they had fired the caregiver and could not help remove her from the house.
Shelton said these cases often leave homeowners with no choice but to seek legal assistance, which can be both daunting and expensive.
He cited another case where a family returned from a two-week vacation to find their home occupied by a squatter. They spent $138,000 and endured a year-long legal battle to reclaim their property, all while continuing to pay their mortgage.
“There’s a misconception that if you own a home, you have money,” Shelton said. “But people that own a home will argue that just because you own a home, you own a mortgage, you don’t own a bank account.”
Shelton also noted other types of squatters, including those who sign a lease and pay only the first month’s rent before stopping payments, and individuals who turn Airbnb units into party venues, charging admission or offering rentals on properties they do not own.
Calling himself the “Squatter Hunter,” Shelton now owns a business that helps homeowners nationwide remove squatters in a legal and safe way.
According to his website, Shelton first consults with the clients via Zoom. Then his team signs a month-to-month lease with the homeowner and moves in with the squatters, similar to his approach in his mother’s case. He also coordinates with law enforcement beforehand to ensure safety during the process.
Don’t Turn Off the Lights
He advises property owners not to turn off utilities, as this can lead to legal issues. In California, shutting off utilities as a “self-help” eviction tactic is illegal.
“Not only is it against the law, but if you turn off the utilities on a squatter, it gives them the option to turn the utilities on in their name,” he said. “If they have the utilities, they will have more proof that they live there.”
He also recommends homeowners install cameras and alarm system to document break-ins or trespassing, allowing them to report incidents to law enforcement promptly.
Additionally, he advises using locking mailboxes to prevent squatters from accessing any mail sent to the property.
“It could be as easy as them starting to send mail to the address and then finding one time that you’re not home and they get to the mail first,” he said. “They pull out things with their name on the mail and keep it with them.”
“Now they break into your home when you’re on vacation. All they needed was a [piece of] mail to show law enforcement that they live there.”
Solving the Root Problem
Most importantly, Shelton said, laws must be changed to protect homeowners.
“The lines between tenants and squatters are blurred. Right now, squatters are taking advantage of the fact that California is a very tenant-friendly state,” he said.
The rise in squatting is due to a lack of consequences, according to Shelton. He said that introducing jail time or penalties would greatly deter people from squatting.
“If we can change the laws so that squatting is actually a criminal offense instead of a civil one, it’s going to prevent squatting,” Shelton said. “[We can] make a clear distinction between squatters and tenants, giving tenants all the rights they deserve, but making that threshold higher.”
He added that his goal is not to evict needy individuals but to hold accountable those who exploit legal loopholes.
“Homeless people have more pride than squatters,” Shelton said. “I have a heart for the homeless. My family and I were homeless when I was a kid.
“It’s the career squatter ... that intentionally harms others. Those are the ones that are not safe. I’m going to do everything I can to get your home back and get those squatters out where they belong.”
