The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 89.0 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by June 13 in its survey of 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.
This is a 0.1-percentage point increase from the share who paid rent through June 13, 2019 and compares to 87.7 percent that had paid by May 13, 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.
“Once again, it appears that residents of professionally managed apartments were able to largely pay their rent,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. “However, there is a growing realization that renters outside of this universe are experiencing profound hardships as the nation continues to grapple with historic unemployment and economic dislocation.
“In the midst of a pandemic and a recession, it is critical that those on the front lines are safely and securely housed. Accordingly, we urge lawmakers to take swift action to create a Rental Assistance Fund and extend unemployment benefits so we can avoid future eviction-related problems and don’t undermine the initial recovery.”
The NMHC Rent Payment Tracker metric provides insight into changes in resident rent payment behavior over the course of each month, and, as the dataset ages, between months. While the tracker is intended to serve as an indicator of resident financial challenges, it is also intended to track the recovery as well, including the effectiveness of government stimulus and subsidies.
However, noteworthy technical issues may make historical comparisons imprecise. For example, factors such as varying days of the week on which data are collected; individual companies’ differing payment collection policies; shelter-in-place orders’ effects on residents’ ability to deliver payments in person or by mail; the closure of leasing offices, which may delay operators’ payment processing; and other factors can affect how and when rent data is processed and recorded.
Find more information, including the methodology, on the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker here.
The NMHC Rent Payment Tracker FAQ can be found here.
