The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 80.4 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by November 6 in its survey of 11.5 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.
This is a 1.1 percentage point, or 131,712 household decrease from the share who paid rent through November 6, 2019 and compares to 79.4 percent that had paid by October 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.
“November’s opening rent payment figures show that the additional support apartment residents received over the summer, coupled with generous, innovative approaches put into place by property owners and managers, continue to provide renters with some degree of security against the economic distress facing communities throughout the country,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President.
“As the results from last week’s elections come into focus, NMHC calls on policymakers in both parties and on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to put aside partisanship and instead focus on delivering a comprehensive COVID relief package that helps apartment residents meet their housing obligations, keeps them safely housed and protects the stability of the nation’s rental housing sector.”
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.
