Follow up to aggressive landlord story

Others in the property management business weigh in as does Olmsted County

Story in a live report.

Corona stinger tonight the good guys are weighing in.

Last week we told you about the aggressive messaging of a rochester landlord during this pandemic.

Tonight, though, we hear from some more compassionate voices.

Live kimt news three's george mallet joins us in northeast rochester with the story.

And katie i'm once again here at opportunity realty llc.

They are a property management operation with a lot of tenants.

On april first brenda tomas lipkie of opportunity realty sent a bold white on black missive to tenants making sure they knew the rent was due pandemic or not.

She followed that up later in the month with a similar message refrencing stimulus checks the company knew tenants had received.

I'm here tonight to let you know not everyone does business like brenda thomas liepke.

Tom hill is the ceo and owner of matik management.

He knows his property owners have to pay their mortgages during this pandemic.

A lot of times the cash flow, the amount between what your expenses are and your rental income is, it's very slim.

And so, to be able to say oh don't worry about rent or concession this or that, it's not always an option.

Still matik management never entertained sending out the sort of bold, white on black, texts and emails opportunity realty did.

Quite the opposite.

We can make payment plans.

There's no late fees.

We want to do anything we can.

Some owners were reducing rents.

There's no increases etc.

We're just looking for anyway we can try and work through this with our tenants.

Olmsted housing director dave dunn believes that's the way to do business.

Afterall the governor has been very clear on how landlords and property managers need to operate during this difficult time.

Evictions are suspended until further notice, so while we encourage everyone to pay their rent, if you can't pay your rent, talk to your landlord.

There's nothing right now that can force you to do that.

Eviction is not an option for landlords, so we really encourage people to have those proactive conversations and to be able to reach out and just be honest, have the tough conversation and you'll all last week we told you that opportunity realty tenants were more than a little intimidated by the messages from brenda thomas lipkie.

I reached out to her again this afternoon to get a comment.

She did not return my call.

We're live in northeast rochester tonight.

George mallet kimt news three.

Tom hill with matik (mat?ick) realty told george he's gratified by how cooperative and generous his property owners have