The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 80.2% of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by May 6 in its survey of 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country. This is a 1.5-percentage point decrease in the share who paid rent through May 6, 2019 and compares to 78.0% that had paid by April 6, 2020.
“Despite the fact that over twenty million people lost their jobs in April, for the second month in a row, we are seeing evidence that apartment renters who can pay rent are stepping up and doing so,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. “We expect May to largely mirror April, when the payment rate increased throughout the month as financial assistance worked its way to people’s bank accounts.”
“However, we are in uncharted waters and will be watching this closely over the course of the month as millions of households will not be able to access unemployment benefits, and those who have may find that they are not enough to cover rent plus all the other financial pressures caused by this crisis,” said Bibby. “Those benefits will also likely fall short in high-cost areas. That’s why we are calling on Congress to include $100 billion in direct renter assistance in the next pandemic relief package.”
