The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 86.8 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by October 13 in its survey of 11.5 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.
This is a 2.4-percentage point, or 271,000-household decrease from the share who paid rent through October 13, 2019 and compares to 86.2 percent that had paid by September 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.
“While the broader multifamily industry continues to show its resilience at a national level, other metrics in the industry are beginning to highlight the growing localized financial distress due to inaction by political leaders in Washington,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President.
“NMHC calls on policymakers in both parties and on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to work together to break the current stalemate and pass meaningful legislation to support the tens of millions of Americans who rent an apartment home and to ensure the stability of the rental housing sector. Perceived quick fixes like eviction moratoriums do nothing to solve the underlying economic problems residents are facing and could jeopardize the stability of the housing market and the financial health of our communities. Congress and the administration must act to avert a future housing crisis.”
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.
