3 Reasons Multifamily Needs to Prepare for September 1

During these first few months of the COVID-19 crisis, the two things that multifamily operators are most concerned about are rent collections and leasing volumes. So far the results have been more than a little bit interesting (and to many people counter-intuitive).
On the leasing side, we saw a massive drop in demand in the first three weeks. Overall, leasing was down more than 50%, and some urban coastal markets were down 80-90%. Since then, however, leasing has recovered such that most secondary and tertiary markets are now at or above prior year volume while the urban coastal markets are generally within 20-25% of prior year volumes.
Meanwhile, rent collections were a topic of great angst, first for April 1; then, when April numbers came in generally off only 4-6 points from prior year, there was a great concern that May 1 could be a disaster. Based on data from NMHC, May appears to be coming in slightly better than April.
Candidly, we’ve been surprised by leasing resilience though obviously very glad to see it. However, we were not surprised by rent collections. Very early on, we realized that most hourly workers were going to receive more in unemployment benefits than they were earning working, thanks to the $600 per week federal boost. We were concerned that timing (i.e., cash flow) could be an issue since state unemployment offices were inundated with filings and likely to be delayed in approving claims and issuing checks. If states got behind in March and early April bu……