The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 87.6 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by July 13 in its survey of 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.
This is a 2.5-percentage point decrease from the share who paid rent through July 13, 2019 and compares to 89.0 percent that had paid by June 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.
“The government support, including unemployment benefits, that has proven so important to so many apartment residents expires at the end of the month,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. “Lawmakers need to continue to protect the individuals and families that call an apartment home. If action isn’t taken now we risk making the nation’s housing affordability challenges far worse, rolling back the initial economic recovery and putting tens of millions at risk of greater health and financial distress.”
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.
Total unit counts may change as units are leased or vacated and survey methodology is refined.
Find more information, including the methodology, on the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker here.
