A report from Mortgage Professional America. "A survey by Apartment List, an online listing marketplace found that renters and homeowners that were able to make a full payment on their rent or mortgage in the first week of May was around 69%, which is down from 76% in April. In fact, 22% of rent and 22% of mortgage bills went entirely unpaid, compared to just 12% in April. 'We found that even out of those who paid their rent or mortgage on time in April, 16% of those people made no payment in May so far,' said Chris Salviati, housing economist with Apartment List. 'April may not have been as bad as we initially expected but there's definitely signals that things are worsening in May.'"

"Government assistance also played a less crucial role in helping Americans make their rent and mortgage payments, according to the survey. Among renters who received their stimulus checks, 71% paid their May rent in full, compared to 64% of those who did not receive one. For homeowners, Apartment List found delinquency rates were nearly identical when comparing those who received aid and those who didn’t."

"In major markets across the country, Salviati said a lot of the new rental inventory is targeted toward the higher end of the market and filling those vacancies may become increasingly difficult as we emerge out of this crisis. The other trend that may come out of the COVID-19 pandemic could be a sprawl from the major downtown cores. 'Companies coming back might start to question whether or not they need expensive downtown office space and workers may question if they need to be living in that expensive condo just to be close to the office,' he said."

From Bloomberg. "U.S. homeowners hurt by coronavirus were told they could delay their mortgage payments without facing consequences. Now, some are learning they’re at risk of being shut out of the housing market. The law didn’t address long-standing policies that restrict consumers from getting new loans for a year after their forbearances end. For instance, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the government-controlled companies that facilitate nearly half of U.S. home lending -- won’t buy such mortgages."

"Some borrowers who took advantage of the relief lawmakers provided are now being told that they will have to wait before they can refinance or obtain a fresh mortgage to purchase a home. That’s true even for those who ultimately make their payments on time, as the forbearances are still being noted on some consumers’ credit reports."

"St. Louis-based lender F&B Financial Group has fielded calls from several customers wanting to refinance their loans who didn’t know their recent forbearance requests had made them ineligible for mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie, said owner Chris Fox. Fox said he discovered himself that servicers were leaving borrowers in the dark after calling the company that handles his mortgage."

"'I went through the process with them, and pointedly asked twice, ‘So there are no negative impacts from doing this?’ and I was told, ‘No, sir, go ahead and do it,’ he said."

The Real Deal on New York. "Manhattan home buyers and sellers are living in different worlds. The number of contracts signed in the borough last week hit a new low for the pandemic while new listings ticked up for the second consecutive week, a report by data firm UrbanDigs shows. Last week, seven weeks into the shutdown, only 31 contracts were signed in Manhattan, down 87 percent from the same week in 2019. It’s the lowest number since the shutdown order."

"Noah Rosenblatt, CEO of UrbanDigs and author of the report, said, 'Buyers, sidelined by stay-at-home orders, remain firmly in a wait-and-see mode.'"

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. "Sales of single-family homes plunged 19 percent in April, ending a nine-month string of year-over-year gains as Houston-area buyers and sellers hunkered down despite real estate transactions being considered an essential part of the economy. 'We were bracing for a rough report and we got it,' said John Nugent, chairman of the Houston Association of Realtors."

"The downward slide is expected to continue. In addition to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Houston is contending with a severe oil bust, which is resulting in thousands of jobs cuts. Pending sales, an indication of futures closings, fell 17.6 percent in April, according to HAR, which tracks property sales handled through its Multiple Listing Service. Homes in every pricing category suffered losses, with the steepest declines at the low and high ends of the market."

From KOAA in Colorado. "Your lender can't foreclose on you if you are in trouble until May 18. That's the end of a 60-day moratorium. And even then, you have a right to request a 'forbearance' (or suspension of payments) for up to 180 days, and an extension beyond that for another 180-days. So you essentially can get a year off from making payments."

"And if you don't have a federally backed mortgage, if you have a conventional loan, you may still have relief options through that lender, although that's a tougher road. If that fails, Banker Michael Van Norstrand with the Independent Bankers of Colorado said you could attempt to 'refinance' with either your current company, or though a 'community' bank, a smaller local bank that may give you better terms. 'Depending on your balance sheet, your employment situation, those kinds of things, I think a community bank is going to be more nimble, more accepting to your situation, because they don't have to fit your underwriting criteria in a box,' Norstrand said."

"And what happens if you can't find a lender that will help you? Colorado still has a tight housing supply and a growing population. A lot of people have seen a huge run-up in the value of their homes. So you could 'sell' to improve your cash position. You will first need to find a place to go. You'll have to make some concessions, but in this difficult economy, it's is all about creating options for yourself."

The Oregonian. "The layoffs Airbnb announced last week hit the company’s Portland office especially hard. The vacation rental listing service laid off 1,900 employees last week, a quarter of its global workforce, to address the steep decline in travel triggered by the coronavirus outbreak. Airbnb said it expects revenue this year to be half what it was in 2019. The Portland layoffs numbered at least 150 and, according to laid-off employees, may have been twice that number. It’s clear Airbnb laid off a far higher share of its Portland workers than its 25% global layoff rate."

"Oregon has few homegrown tech companies of any size. Economists have worried for years that the state’s outpost economy left it vulnerable in a downturn, when large companies might make more significant cuts to satellite offices than at their core sites. More than 380,000 Oregon workers have filed jobless claims during the coronavirus outbreak, nearly a fifth of the state’s total workforce."

From WMBB in Florida. "Chris Jennings, realtor, is also a short-term rental owner in Panama City Beach. One question often asked is why short-term rental owners affected by the short-term rental ban don’t change their operations to accommodate long-term residents."

"'Most of these beachfront condos have huge mortgage payments and in addition to that, there’s a lot of added costs with that,' Jennings said. 'Most of these building don’t include electric in their HOA fees and then they’re HOA fee is anywhere between $400 to $100 a month so it wouldn’t really be affordable for a beachfront condo owner to rent on a long term and it wouldn’t be affordable housing because when you add all those costs together it would be $2000 or $3000 a month, easily.'"

"Jennings owns a studio unit in the Fontainebleau, which he recently renovated for about $20,000. Although it is on the smaller side, he said, 'I wouldn’t be interested in renting a place like this for less than $1,800 to $2,000.'"

From Honolulu Civil Beat in Hawaii. "A proposed property tax hike on wealthy homes to help balance Hawaii County’s budget during the COVID-19 pandemic has left some people feeling unfairly targeted. They say it shouldn’t be up to owners of second homes or residential investment properties to fill the financial shortfall created by a quarantine that has hampered nearly every industry across the state. But Hawaii County officials are pitching just that. They contend they have no other options during an economically dire time."

"'Any passive observer can see the position we’ve been put in,' Hawaii County Council Chairman Aaron Chung, who proposed the measure along with Mayor Harry Kim’s administration, told Civil Beat. 'We have to find resources from somewhere.' A chunk of that 'somewhere' is slated to come from luxury class homes."

"It’s also the only proposed property tax increase in the entire plan, which is partly why opponents say it’s unfair. 'Almost everyone, even wealthy people, have been negatively impacted by COVID-19 in many ways,' said Tomoko Matsumoto, owner of Hapuna Realty. 'You could not choose a worse time for anyone to worry about a tax hike.'"

"Hapuna Realty specializes in luxury homes and condos on Hawaii’s Kona-Kohala Coast, the pristine section of western coastline that hosts sprawling estates and multimillion-dollar residences. The secondary home market drives the economy in the area, not only for real estate agents but for everyone in the restaurant and hospitality industry that relies on it, Matsumoto said. She’s concerned that asking those homeowners to pitch in more than they already do could ultimately drive them away."

"Her worry is one shared by others. Cindy Wild, principal broker and owner of Premiere Island Properties, agrees that the request could prove a tipping point for investors to begin investing elsewhere. Secondary homeowners are still homeowners, she pointed out, who already pay property taxes yet use a fraction of county services compared to primary homeowners. In the case of tourists, she added, they don’t pay property taxes at all yet use plenty of the island’s resources."

"'They’re going to have to raise everyone’s taxes at some point, I don’t know why they have to single people out,' she said."

From Bisnow. "CoStar Group is acquiring a digital auction platform that was founded during the Great Recession to liquidate distressed assets, just as the economy enters another downturn. The D.C.-based commercial real estate data giant announced Wednesday it reached an agreement to acquire Ten-X in a $190M all-cash deal. CoStar expects the deal to close later this year."

"CoStar CEO Andy Florance told Bisnow he has known Ten-X’s executives for years, but he called them just two weeks ago to begin discussions for the acquisition. He said his interest in acquiring the company is a direct response to the current economic crisis creating more distressed assets. 'We are in this COVID recession — hopefully it's just a recession — and it's clear there is going to be a lot of distressed real estate over the next four to five years,' Florance said. 'The question is: How can we be relevant and how can we help our brokerage customers and banking customers and GSEs deal with the volume of distressed properties that are likely coming?'"