The NMHC reports Fewer People Paying their Mortgage.
The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 77.4 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by July 6 in its survey of 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.
This is a 2.3-percentage point decrease from the share who paid rent through July 6, 2019 and compares to 80.8 percent that had paid by June 6, 2020. These data encompass a wide variety of market-rate rental properties across the United States, which can vary by size, type and average rental price.
“It is clear that state and federal unemployment assistance benefits have served as a lifeline for renters, making it possible for them to pay their rent,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. “Unfortunately, there is a looming July 31 deadline when that aid ends. Without an extension or a direct renter assistance program, that NMHC has been calling for since the start of the pandemic, the U.S. could be headed toward historic dislocations of renters and business failures among apartment firms, exacerbating both unemployment and homelessness.”
This is hardly surprising but the information is incomplete.
Questions Abound
- How many made a partial payment?
- How many normally make partial payments?
- Will there be an extension on July 31?
Unemployment Claims
Continued claims are a disaster as noted in Unemployment is Much Worse Than it Looks.
Tomorrow we have more claims data and I will update my charts.
Mish
Not everyone is getting absolved against paying rent. There was a story on NPR the other day about people getting evicted in South Carolina.
When the govt dole / forbearance / moratorium ends … lenders / landlords get nervous. Very.
Most people are selfish and irresponsible. As soon as you tell them they do not have to pay their rent, they will develop a sense of entitlement and begin to believe they deserve free rent. This creates a nightmare for landlords who are often heavily leveraged on these rental properties. This makes rentals a much less desirable investment, as most landlords expect their rentals to be a semi passive investment. Evictions are incredibly expensive and unpleasant, and they will drive many landlords to reconsider whether the investment is worth keeping. If landlords begin to dump rental property the resulting downward pressure on values will make residential real estate an even less attractive investment. Bottom line is you will see less rental properties, and more pressure on renters to find shared housing or other alternatives….
Surprise, surprise. Futures are not off to the races this morning. I am guessing today’s claims number is not so good. Can’t keep pushing out fantasy data forever. The one thing that has been consistent about this Trump administration is market front running ahead of any positive economic news.
Market front running positive news a Trump phenonema? Really?
smart move by renters. this doesn’t mean they don’t have money. with evictions on hold, they might as well stop paying rent. there’s a lot of talk of rent forgiveness, and it seems like not paying rent is a smart move. again, this doesn’t mean the renter couldn’t afford rent. it just means they chose to not pay.
When things are uncertain as now, people need to conserve cash. Holding off on paying rent as long as they can, is more likely than not to net them at a minimum a concession, long before their deadbolted door is kicked down and they are physically removed from their place.
Doubly so of if the evicting cops are met with a hailstorm of Molotovs and riots on their way to “do their job,” and picketers outside the courts hearing the cases. Which is not unlikely, if the numbers of people evicted increases enough for it to cause outrage.
America is Argentina now. Has been for awhile. Covid is our Corralito. The American experiment, like Peron’s failed, as all dalliances in progressivism, financialization money printing, faith in Dear Leaders and big government do. There is no light at the end of this, nor any, tunnel.
And, like in Argentina, unless you are part of the ever shrinking inner circle orbiting government; the way only to get by is to adopt a fully feral mindset: Anything anyone wants from you, they’ll have to pry out of your cold, dead hands. Make it hard, and expensive, enough to squeeze anything out of you, and they’ll eventually give up and go look for easier marks.
We see these stories daily but the true reality of what is happening is yet to set in.
Most humans have a somewhat short timeframe they look at life. When we start looking off into the future at the path we are on things are not good.
We are looking at 8.6 million rental evictions @ 20% eviction rate. That’s 30 million people homeless.
Christmas is not going to be very festive for many many Americans this year even putting covid aside.
That’s not quite the way it works. There are always about 15% of people who do not pay their rent on time, but will pay it late. The numbers that are out now do not mean all of them will be evicted. Most of them will in time pay before court happens.
What is concerning is the increase in late payers, 15% though were always late.
I guess we shall see if that first 15% you mentioned have any money to make that “late” rent payment. I would bet that many will not.
Few of them will get evicted quickly, if that many are late.
Just as bad, if not worse, though, is that in Dystopia; renters not paying won’t, as it would in a free country and free market, cause cascading bankruptcies, mortgage defaults, fire sales and hence more realistically priced housing, as well as lowered systemic debt levels.
Instead, as usual: Other people, taxpayers and still-manage-to-stay-productive third parties, will be forced to, at gunpoint, pick up the tab. In order to “save the system” or some other utterly destructive nonsense. Hence rendering America even more of an undifferentiated uncompettive basket case than it already is. All in order to ensure the class of parasitic leeches get to keep leeching undisturbed, no matter the cost to the country.
Well, that does it… time to start squatting in my rental.
Ex-rental, now a habitual abode challenged by greedy capitalist boomer financialised monopolists and their fascist cohorts ?
I thought we built a wall for this?? oh wait never mind
Mexico border towns try to stop Americans crossing amid Covid-19 fears
Townspeople block road to beach resort popular with US tourists as cases surge in states including Arizona link to theguardian.com
Soon Mexico will be ready to pay for the wall.
Right, the Wall is not to keep the economic asylum seekers out, that would be the Mexicans, but the insane asylum seekers in (that would be the USA Trump fans, not wearing their masks).
Isn’t all of this exactly what you would expect to see in a slow-motion socio/economic collapse?
And how very convenient, that there happens to be a virus pandemic to blame it all on.
More fairy tales coming tomorrow when the claims data is released.
Looks like we’re in a depression not a recession, and a global one at that.
At this point, Dow 50 million is getting to be my base case.
The market loves this.
The worse the economy and pandemic get, the more the bailout firehoses open up … cha-ching!
I certainly hope everyone is trying their best in this situation. It takes years and decades to build a life, a home, and a family and nobody wants to see that sort of status quo ruined.
As we’ve seen from this latest round of bailouts, our society definitely does not have the best of intentions.
It’s not necessarily that the Fed and the bankers want to destroy the American dream, they just want to enrich the top fraction of a percent. If that precipitates the impoverishment of much of the American populace, so be it.
” If that precipitates the impoverishment of much of the American populace.”
There’s no “if” about it.
The money spent enriching themselves, has to come from somewhere. And sitting idly on ones rear, too dumb to understand even basic arithmetic, while The Fed is handing you money stolen by debasement from others, sure isn’t how any new wealth is created.
But have a care for the rich. If they can’t perpetually aquire money at ever faster rates, how are they to survive?
Indeed, they have their yacht payments just like the rest of us. /s
There’s nothing particularly wrong about being rich. As long as society is free, there is no other way to obtain wealth, than to create something of sufficient value that others are willing to pay for it.
Rather, the problems is, now virtually none who are rich ever created anything at all. Instead, just like in the Soviet Union back in the day, all wealth anyone has, has simply been stolen from more productive people by government, The Fed and entirely arbitrary courts, and handed to it’s current owners.
When that is how society is organized, the only way “the rich” obtained what they have, is by crass theft. Pretty much none of them, have earned any of what they have at all. Nor do they have the remotest clue how to do so, seing as all they have ever been, is recipients of welfare distributions by The Fed. And theft, there is something particularly wrong with.
“stolen from more productive people by government” I think you might mean stolen by the billionaire class, the government is broke!
“The billionaire class” is not in a position to steal anything. Neither do they have the competence to do anything , even if they tried. They’re just welfare recipients after all. No more, no less, no different from anyone else on welfare.
Instead, the government steals on their behalf. And then hands it to them. That’s what governments do. That’s all they do: Rob the competent and productive, in order to hand ever more loot to the incompetent and idle but connected.