A report from the Sonoma County Gazette in California. "Some communities have established Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO) Exclusion Zones to keep housing and their neighborhoods protected from commercial use of residential homes, while others have tried and failed to to establish Exclusion Zones. It’s a complicated process, requires entire neighborhood agreement, and costs fees many cannot afford. In Sonoma and Marin Counties, some residential neighborhoods have more VRBOs than residents."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "The average asking rent for an apartment in Los Angeles County fell last month from a year earlier, according to RealPage. The 3.3% decrease to an average of $2,254 for units of all sizes followed a 0.8% drop in April and reflects how the coronavirus-related economic downturn is sweeping through the rental housing market."

"Some landlords and property managers said they’re giving concessions such as a month of free rent or dropping their asking price to get units filled as concern over the economy grows. According to RealPage’s data, the last time rents declined was in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession. 'We’ve had a big dropoff in overall demand,' Greg Willett, the company’s chief economist, said, citing the coronavirus."

"In addition, RealPage’s numbers cover professionally managed apartments and thus leave out many mom-and-pop landlords who charge lower rent. The RealPage data showed declines were focused on the middle and high end of the market. As president of property management firm Eberly Co., Chuck Eberly manages about 2,700 units in the Los Angeles area across the market spectrum, from high-end properties to working-class apartments."

"Eberly said he’s had to offer a couple of weeks of free rent and in some cases dropped rent outright, mostly for his more expensive properties. Although he called the rent declines 'small adjustments,' he expects he’ll be forced to make more cuts down the road. 'I see a lot of product right now and just not a lot of lookers,' he said."

From 6 Sq Ft in New York. "The summer months are typically the busiest when it comes to real estate in New York City, especially the rental market. But with the city still not out of the woods of the coronavirus crisis, and with so many facing job and financial uncertainty, the idea of signing or renewing a lease becomes increasingly complicated."

"It’s also important to note that rental listings are in high supply right now, so by many accounts, it’s a renters’ market. As was previously reported, 'Listings website CityRealty saw 7,793 rental listings in early January. Buy mid-April that number had grown to 8,244 and as of May 15, it was 10,641.' However, as Douglas Elliman agent Eleonora Srugo noted in a recent email, this could all change come the fall: 'The seasonal rental market has been impacted by the pandemic with large discounts and incentives being offered on all new leases.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC said it is acquiring a business that manages nearly 130,000 housing units, a deal that extends Greystar’s position as the country’s largest operator of rental apartments. The Charleston, S.C.-based firm is buying the business from Alliance Residential Co., the country’s fourth-largest apartment manager."

"'This is how consolidation is happening in this industry,' Greystar Chief Executive Bob Faith said. 'A lot of real-estate owners that own and manage their properties look up one day and say, ‘I’m not making a lot of money [at management]. I’m going to give it to Greystar.'"

The Real Estate Journals. "Just look at the most expensive rental market in the United States, San Francisco. Zumper reported that one-bedroom rents in San Francisco are down 9.2 percent this June when compared to the same month a year earlier. That median monthly rent is still high at $3,360. But that figure is the lowest median rent for one-bedroom apartments in this city since March of 2017.The next three most expensive rental markets in the country — New York City, Boston and San Jose — also saw one-bedroom median rents fall on a year-over-year basis."

"In the Midwest, Milwaukee saw a big drop in its median one-bedroom rent, falling 4.7 percent on a year-over-year basis to $1,010. Chicago, not surprisingly, ranked as the most expensive Midwest rental market, with the median one-bedroom rent coming in at $1,510 in June and the median two-bedroom rent hitting $1,810. The one-bedroom rent was down 3.8 percent from a year earlier, while two-bedroom median rents in Chicago were down 4.6 percent."

From Mortgage Professional America. "According to a new report by Lease Lock, first day rent payments in June saw a 2% drop in total rent collected compared to May and April, and a 6% drop compared to the pre-COVID average. 'This decline is a foreshadowing of what’s to come if we don’t see some more government intervention,' said Rochelle Bailis, vice president of marketing at LeaseLock. 'This issue will progress without more comprehensive relief.'"

"According to the report, rent payments at Class C properties continue to decrease, which Bailis warns could trigger a ripple effect. Traditionally, Class C properties house working class residents, who were more greatly impacted by recent service industry lay-offs and after slipping downward for the last two months, Class C properties saw another 3% drop in first-of-the-month rent payments."

"'When service workers get laid off, the industry suffers and executives begin losing their jobs as well, affecting Class B and Class A residents as well,' she said. 'If renters can't pay their rent, then owners can't pay their mortgage, that affects the banks and that's really what the multifamily industry is trying to stop. We are trying to prevent those dominoes from falling.'"

From Multi-Housing News. "With June’s rent payments now due, a voice in the wilderness is questioning whether statistics showing how many residents made their April and May rents are accurate—or if this month’s numbers will be, too. Jonas Bordo, the founder of Dwellsy, a 15-month-old rental search engine, doesn’t think so. Bordo bases his claim on an admittedly random, unscientific poll he took on May 21 and 22 in which he asked renters on Twitter if they will have difficulty paying their rents this month."

"More than 4,600 responded. 'I was shocked,' Bordo said in a phone interview. 'It clearly caught people’s attention.' More stunning, perhaps, is that less than half—48.5 percent—said they were not confident they’d be able to meet their June obligations. That compares to the 87.7 percent who paid their rent in May, according to the National Multi-Housing Council, and the 89.9 percent NMHC says paid in May 2019."

"Bordo decided to query renters because he couldn’t square the fact that 38 million people are out of work and that 39 percent of all households don’t have $400 on hand to cover an emergency with the NMHC’s rental figures. 'How on earth is it possible that more than 38 million Americans, many of whom had little to no emergency funds, all lost their jobs and were still able to pay their rent?' he wondered."

"The Dwellsy founder doesn’t doubt the NMHC’s figures. But he doesn’t believe they tell the entire story. He supposes that because of the way they are sourced—from five property management software companies that serve the largest management companies, Bordo says—they are skewed toward luxury properties."

"'The apartment communities that those property managers operate are overwhelmingly higher-end properties,' he said. 'As a result, this data is representative of the more affluent end of the market, where apartment dwellers are far more likely to be working from home than unemployed.'"

"What the database does not include are the millions of rentals owned and operated by Mom and Pop investors who don’t use sophisticated software. Bordo pointed out that according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 75 percent or so of the U.S. rental market is comprised of properties owned by individual investors who only have just one to four units."

The Houston Chronicle in Texas. "In May, 7.15 percent of commercial mortgages that had been bundled into securities were at least 30 days delinquent, up 481 basis points from the month before, according to securities data company Trepp. That's the biggest month-over-month increase Trepp has recorded since it began tracking the metric during the Great Recession in 2009. Another 7.6 percent of commercial mortgages that back securities missed May payments, but were less than 30 days delinquent. Even more are in forbearance."

"'Everybody who invests in commercial real estate has felt the pinch in one way or another,' said Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp. 'Texas has a double whammy of COVID and the oil and gas issue, where the price of oil dropped so sharply that firms in Houston are pulling back in terms of their space needs and the number of employees.'"

"Commercial real estate investors are confronting issues similar to those faced by investors in residential real estate in the years leading up to the housing bust of more than a decade ago. As with homes, most commercial properties are purchased with mortgages, which are then bundled into securities and sold to investors, whose returns depend on property owners making their monthly payments."

"Cash-strapped commercial tenants are missing lease payments and their landlords missing mortgage payments, undermining the value of the mortgage-backed securities. If the debt goes bad, it could blow a hole in the balance sheets of investors, dry up the capital needed to revive the commercial real estate market and hurt the returns of institutions, such as pension funds, on which millions of Americans depend."

"The most heavily hit sector, according to Trepp data, was lodging. Nearly 20 percent of hotel loans packaged into securities were at least 30 days delinquent as of May, and Clancy said he expected that number to rise in June. Lodging was followed by retail, which had a 10 percent delinquency rate, multifamily with 3.3 percent and office with 2.4 percent. In February, before the pandemic became strongly felt in the United States, the overall delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities was 2.04 percent."

"Investors who own commercial mortgage-backed securities have seen the value of their holdings fall. Banks that had agreed, pre-COVID, to make commercial loans that would be packaged into securities and sold to investors are facing significant losses."

"For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Credit Suise Group AG and Macquarie Group Ltd. agreed to lend more than $7 billion to Eldorado Resorts, a casino business, before the need to social distance, according to a Bloomberg report. The sudden change in the company’s financial stability made it difficult to find investors who were willing to take the debt off of the banks’ hands, meaning they may have to offer the debt at a discount or even come up with the cash themselves."