As state and local governments grapple with allocating limited funds to the public health crisis, disaster relief efforts and struggling businesses, private equity funds and real estate investors are poised to gorge themselves on bargains not seen since the last time the economy imploded.

“Once January comes, that’s when the carnage will come,” EasyKnock Inc. CEO Jarred Kessler  told the Wall Street journal last September. Kessler’s company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars with the intention of purchasing homes and renting them back to their previous owners once eviction moratoria, some of which have been extended since he was quoted, expire.

While lower interest rates have created new homeownership opportunities for some, many communities that had yet to recover from the previous financial crisis continue to be disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Oregon’s statewide foreclosure moratorium expired on New Year’s Eve 2020, and advocates for homeowners say they’re concerned the state could experience a wave of foreclosures without renewed protections and adequate aid. President Joe Biden has extended the federal CARES Act foreclosure moratorium, which covers the approximately 70% of home loans that are federally backed, until the end of March.

https://www.streetroots.org/news/2021/01/27/lenders-poised-pounce-homeowners-fighting-foreclosure