A report from The Real Deal on New York. "Exactly one year ago, New York’s real estate industry was facing a crisis. The legislature had just agreed to a tenant-friendly upheaval of rent regulation. 'It used to be that investors clamored for the rent-stabilized units in a building because of the upside they offered,' said Daniel Parker, managing director at brokerage Hodges Ward Elliott, referring to the potential to significantly raise rents under the old system. 'Now, most investors look at those units as no upside and no opportunity. It’s a big change.'"

"Timothy King, managing partner of brokerage SVN CPEX Real Estate, offered a more withering assessment of the impact on the multifamily market. 'This wasn’t just killing the golden goose,' said King. 'This was stomping the poor goose to death and scattering the ashes across the five boroughs.'"

"'Loan-to-value ratios are shifting, and now the borrower can borrow less,' said King. 'For those looking to refinance who don’t have enough equity, there may not be any for them to take out of the property.'"

From Forbes. "Apartment operators are concerned about the slow leasing activity, which, in a normal year, picks up in the spring, and growing rent cuts and concessions. 'The issue at hand right now is not so much collections, but more that there is a general roll down in rent,' said Jeff Adler, vice president of multifamily asset information firm Yardi Matrix. 'We are seeing an ongoing reduction in asking rents, so these are rents for new leases. That reduction is fairly meaningful.'"

"Adler said that rent prices dropped as much as 12% on an annual basis in cities such as San Jose, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston and Seattle, among others. 'That means that operators are responding to market conditions, which shows weakness in demand,' he said. 'They're having to reduce prices in an attempt to garner the remaining demand.'"

From KHOU in Texas. "If you’re shopping for a new place to live, St. Andrie at Buffalo Heights, which is perched atop an H-E-B, is among many complexes currently sweetening deals. 'You can get two months free rent on a two-bedroom apartment,' said general manager Veronika Jackson. She said showings and new leases went way down during the last few months."

"According to ApartmentData, Houston rents went down 1.2 percent in a generally busy time of year. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s the lowest point in a while. 'We’ve got a lot of demand pressure on rents, on occupancy levels,' said Houston Apartment Association board president-elect John Boriack. Boriack said, in a normal year, 2,000 to 4,000 units would lease across the city in the month of May."

"Negative 200 were leased this May, according to the new data. That means, for the first time in over a decade, more people left apartments than signed new leases."

From Bisnow on California. "The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles filed the lawsuit Thursday on behalf of its 10,000 members. 'The eviction ban is being challenged now because there’s no apparent end in sight on if or when the city, mayor or the city council will lift the local emergency declaration,' Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles Executive Director Dan Yukelson said to Bisnow. 'The moratorium allows residents to not pay rent for an entire year after the emergency ban is lifted and waives interest and late fees without any documentation requirements evidencing need for these interest-free loans.'"

"Yukelson said while tenants are protected, many apartment owners in the city are also suffering from financial hardships but see no reprieve from lenders. Yukelson said many apartment owners may soon face foreclosure. 'The city’s housing providers are predominantly smaller 'mom-and-pop' owners who, like renters, already struggled financially and lived month-to-month before the onset of the pandemic,' Yukelson said."

The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report in Louisiana. "In yet another sign that the Baton Rouge economy is beginning to resume activity after the six-week pandemic shutdown, the Downtown Development District today announced the ground breaking of a new multifamily complex on one side of downtown. Though the Baton Rouge multifamily sector currently has a glut of inventory that has driven up marketwide vacancy rates to nearly 10%, there’s still a lot of demand for quality affordable housing and very little supply, says Wesley Moore, an appraiser with Cook, Moore, Davenport & Associates. "

"'There’s an oversupply of apartments on the macro level,' he says. 'But when you’re talking about affordable housing it’s a different question and the first two phases of the Elysian have done quite well.'"

From The Day. "A majority of home builders offered incentives during the month of May in an effort to improve sales or forestall cancellations during the economic slowdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index survey. However, NAHB says this share was less pronounced than in the previous year or during the 2007-2008 housing crash."

"Fifty-two percent of builders said they were offering some sort of incentive. The most common incentives were paying closing costs and fees or offering options and upgrades for reduced or no cost. Nineteen percent of respondents said they were offering these incentives in an effort to shore up sales of their newly constructed homes."

"Builders offering incentives were also likely to reduce their home prices or margins. Eighteen percent said they were doing so."

The Herald Tribune in Florida. "New residential construction slumped in the Sarasota-Manatee region as the economic shutdown took hold, but not as badly as nationwide. Employment in the construction sector fell by 7% from March to April across Southwest Florida, one of the highest rates of job losses in a state hammered by the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic."

"'It appears that the first quarter of 2020 will be the high water mark for economic growth and housing activity in the U.S., including the Sarasota market,' said David Cobb, regional director with Metrostudy. 'The economy falls fast, as it has, but the recovery will be gradual, and not a quick bounce back. It could be very similar to what we saw in the housing market between the years 2009 and 2019 — a big crash with a slow, steady recovery.'"

From Honolulu Civil Beat in Hawaii."Greg Kugle, a Honolulu lawyer who frequently represents vacation rental owners, has sent letters to the mayors of four counties threatening to sue if the officials don’t let owners of legal vacation rentals rent their properties to tourists. 'The result of preventing these rentals statewide equates to damages of approximately $100 million per month, and the collective impact on property values is easily $1 billion,' Kugle wrote."

"For property owners like Ted Vivatson, the orders shutting down tourism and vacation rentals have been devastating. A brewery owner from California, Vivatson acquired a beachfront property near Hilo in the hopes of retiring there some day. In the meantime, he was renting the place to cover his mortgage, taxes, maintenance and other costs. But that’s not happening any more. Instead, he’s paying for two homes."

"'It’s devastating,' he said, citing the long list of costs and fees, especially the maintenance costs for a house near the ocean. 'It’s like living on a boat,' he said. 'Things just rot away.'"