A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Mark Calabria, who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is resisting pleas for help from lenders seeking relief as millions of Americans stop payments on their home loans, sending tremors through the $11 trillion mortgage market. He has said he is willing to stand aside even if some of the mortgage lenders fail, and he says there is plenty of capacity to move business out of failing firms and into healthy ones, if necessary. Mr. Calabria says his first priority is to ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are themselves strong enough to withstand the downturn. 'Just like on an airplane, you’ve got to put your own oxygen mask on first,' Mr. Calabria said."

From National Public Radio. "More than 3.4 million homeowners are temporarily skipping their mortgage payments because they've lost income during the pandemic. Jasmine Esposito-Gullo lost most of the income she makes arranging concert tours for musicians. The coronavirus pandemic has shut down those tours. Like many other homeowners, she says her lender told her that if she skips mortgage payments on her Long Island, N.Y., home — as Congress says she can — the consequences will be punishing."

"Esposito-Gullo's husband, Frank Gullo, works for the Long Island Rail Road, which cut back his hours. 'They told me, yes, you can skip three months' payments,' Gullo says. 'But then they told me there was a balloon payment at the end of it." He was told that after three months, they'd have to come up with all the money for those skipped payments. So they'd suddenly owe four months of mortgage payments all at once — $14,000. '$14,000 in one shot!' he says. 'It's impossible,' Esposito-Gullo says. 'This pile of money is just going to magically appear from somewhere?'"

"Lynn Daniels, a massage therapist in Brighton, Colo., says she and her husband both have lost basically all of their income. And she says her mortgage company, which is called Mr. Cooper, told her much the same thing about the balloon payment. 'It took my breath away,' says Daniels, 'that this was so unhelpful being unemployed. Where would I come up with that kind of money?'"

From CBS Bay Area in California. "'I mean, who wants to move now? Nobody,' said Patrick Carlisle, Chief Market Analyst for Compass Real Estate. He’s been watching as sales and new home listings have come to what he describes as 'a screeching halt.' Carlisle points out the housing market is usually about three to six weeks behind the stock market so the impacts are just starting to show. 'It seems pretty clear that our up-cycle has come to an end,' Carlisle said."

From MSN Money on California. "Southern California tenants, long burdened by steadily rising rents, may get a breather as apartment rates show signs of leveling off and vacancies increase. And that began before the full impact of the coronavirus outbreak hit the market. Some landlords and analysts say the pandemic will weaken the rental market further as tenants losing their incomes double-up with friends or family. 'Rents have already started to go down, and vacancies are very difficult to fill right now,' said Larry Rubenstein, who owns more than 300 apartments in 20 buildings in the San Gabriel Valley and on the West Side of Los Angeles. 'Rents had already peaked before this (pandemic) started.'"

"Fred Wolf, who has 1,200 apartments in the San Fernando Valley and on the West Side, thinks rents won’t just level off but will go down. 'People can’t afford it. They were struggling before,' Wolf said. 'When the demand isn’t there, and there are vacancies, the rents are going to go down.'"

The Quad City Metro in North Carolina. "Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, is forecasting a temporary glut of high-end apartment units in Charlotte, especially in Uptown, NoDa and SouthEnd. Vacancy rates, he said, may reach 12% for a time. 'I think construction is going to ramp down pretty quickly after that,' Vitner said. 'The big problem is we’re not going to have as much net job growth for the next couple of years, so there’s not going to be a lot of absorption.' In other words, fewer people moving here."

From KSNV in Nevada. "The Nevada State Apartment Association says that trend might be on pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. 'We're anticipating an increase in vacancy,' said Suzy Vasquez, director of the association. As summer picks up and new construction continues to rise, apartments will need to start filling units. 'Where you'll start seeing a lot of 'two weeks free' or discounts, $500 off your rent, [those kinds] of deals out there, versus actually decreasing the amount of monthly rent that you pay,' she said."

From Oan News in Alabama. "The city of Auburn issued a moratorium on new student housing earlier this year. COVID-19 would seem to make that glut of student housing worse. The city’s student housing task force has found 44,000 beds in the city designated for students — about 7,000 more than the city previously estimated — and only about 30,400 students. 'Obviously, the owners depend on their money, and we don’t get paid if we don’t collect any rent. It could have a snowball effect,' noted Auburn Realty owner Ray Huff."

From OU Daily in Oklahoma. "The president of the nonprofit entity that owns Cross Village sent a letter Friday calling on interim OU President Joseph Harroz to make the luxury housing complex available to freshmen for the 2020-2021 academic year. In response to a request for comment from The Daily on the letter, a university spokesperson sent the following statement: 'As for Mr. Hicks, his letter and actions are deplorable. He is attempting to use the crisis that faces us all as a litigation tool to line his own pockets – to relieve him of the debt he incurred while making millions for himself and his family members. This is consistent with his earlier tactic of hiring lobbyists to try to apply pressure to cause the University to pay money for his failed enterprise.'"

The Real Deal. "Dan Michaels, of the Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm Stockdale Capital Partners, had a gut feeling late last year that it was time to launch a commingled distressed debt fund. Older rental properties with lower-income tenants are 'absolutely going to get hit,' he noted. While the hospitality and retail sectors have already cratered, after tourism ground to a halt and many stores and restaurants shut their doors amid widespread stay-at-home orders, apartment building owners are beginning to feel the pressure as well."

"Jerry Waxenberg, a multifamily landlord whose family firm owns 2,000 rent-stabilized units in the Bronx, Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn, said his collections in April were about 60 percent their normal level. If not for his Section 8 units, which are federally subsidized, and apartments rented by the city’s Department of Social Services for us as homeless shelters, the landlord estimated that his collections would have been 40 percent."

"Waxenberg told TRD that his lender, JPMorgan Chase, and Freddie Mac were initially receptive — and even proactive — about entering into a forbearance agreement. But they have since gone quiet, leaving the financial future of his portfolio, which his family has managed for decades, uncertain. 'I have learned very quickly two words in the English language that have the opposite meaning: forbearance and forgiveness,' said Waxenberg. 'I can’t forgive my rents this month, because no one is forgiving my mortgage payments.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "For years, Cheryl Dopp considered the ding on her phone from a new Airbnb Inc. booking to be the sound of what she called 'magical money.' A property she rented out in Jersey City, N.J., on Airbnb could gross more than $8,000 a month, she said, double what long-term tenants would pay. Now, Ms. Dopp associates the dings with cancellations and financial misery."

"The 54-year-old information-technology contractor said she had about $10,000 in bookings evaporate overnight in March. She has $22,000 in monthly expenses for a largely Airbnb portfolio, she said, that included another Jersey City home and a house in Miami. In her mind, the promise of more rental income offset the growing debt, she said. 'I made a bargain with the devil.'"

"'Hosts should’ve always been prepared for this income to go away,' said Gina Marotta, a principal at Argentia Group Inc., which does credit-risk analysis for real-estate loans. 'Instead, they built an expensive lifestyle feeding off of it.'"

"Jennifer Kelleher-Hazlett of Clawson, Mich., spent about $380,000 to buy two Michigan properties in 2018. She said she and her husband cashed out their financial investments and borrowed $100,000 from employers to furnish them. Before the virus struck, the couple was considering buying more homes. Now, they can’t make mortgage payments because no one is booking, she said. 'We’re either borrowing more or defaulting.'"

"Ms. Dopp, the IT contractor, bought two Jersey City properties in 2015 each with multiple apartments. She also bought a Miami house that she listed on Airbnb and other short-term rental sites under a pseudonym and used the anticipated revenue from the properties to support a six-figure loan for maintenance, she said. When states began locking down, Ms. Dopp said, 'I thought, 'Holy God. We’re about to lose everything.'"

"Though some of her properties had long-term tenants, she lost most Airbnb bookings through spring, she said, and can’t cover April’s mortgages, property taxes and insurance. A family rented her Miami home at a discounted rate on Airbnb, she said, providing some relief. She also plans to apply for a small-business loan, seek forbearance from banks, find long-term tenants independently of Airbnb and sell one property. She has begun shutting down her Airbnb account, she said. 'I don’t want to bargain with the devil any more.'"