A report from the Wall Street Journal. "The new coronavirus epidemic in New York obliterated the spring selling season, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Apartment sales were down 54% in the second quarter compared with the same quarter in 2019. That was the lowest total since 2005, the first full year the city made available data for all co-ops and condo sales. And, according to Brown Harris Stevens, a real-estate brokerage, 90% of those sales were in the works before the virus hit. The median price of a Manhattan apartment was $1.01 million, down 21% compared with the second quarter in 2019."

"Donna Olshan, a broker who closely follows the luxury market, said there was no way to predict where the market will go in the middle of a pandemic. 'There is no data that tells me this is a positive situation,' she said."

The New York Post. "Grammy Award-winning musician DJ Khaled has sold his South Florida home for just under $5 million. The producer was in contract to sell his three-story home at 3914 Island Estates Drive in Aventura in March. But the New York buyer fell sick with the coronavirus and decided not to close, sources said."

"Then the price dropped. Originally asking $7.99 million in 2018, the home was last asking $5.5 million and will close for around $4.87 million. Khaled bought the five-bedroom home for $3.84 million in 2015, then spent $2.5 million on 'extras.'"

The Real Deal on Florida. "Eastdil Secured founder Benjamin Lambert sold his Fisher Island condo at a loss. Lambert and his wife, Linda, sold their three-bedroom, 3,592-square-foot condo at Oceanside in Fisher Island for $4.85 million, property records show. Lambert and his wife bought their Fisher Island condo for $5.4 million in 2014, $550,000 more than what they sold it for."

From Good Day Sacramento in California. "For the last few months, bills have been piling up for Sonia Rodriguez. 'We can’t pay the rent. We can’t pay our car payment. We can’t pay our bills,' Rodriguez said. 'It’s just too much, we’re going to be back-paying for years to come. I went from potentially buying a home to — I’m at a standstill.'"

"If landlords and property owners don’t receive rent, some can’t pay their mortgages. Experts, like Joshua Howard with the California Apartment Association, say this could lead to dire economic consequences. 'When rent goes unpaid that creates a domino effect, that can ultimately lead to them losing that rental property to foreclosure,' Howard said."

From KQED in California. "San Francisco's temporary eviction ban is under threat. On Monday morning, just two days before rent checks are due, landlord and realtor groups filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court to suspend the city's temporary eviction moratorium. 'This law, along with the closure of the court system, would allow renters to live rent-free from March 2020 to potentially September and beyond,' said Noni Richen, president of the Small Property Owners of San Francisco Institute. 'Property owners would have no legal recourse to recoup unpaid rent. Small owners are particularly hard hit by renters who cannot pay.'"

From Nevada Business. "April was set to be yet another busy month for sales of apartment complexes in Nevada, one of the hottest multifamily markets in the country. And then, all of sudden, it wasn’t. In Reno and Sparks, new uncertainty meant that only one multifamily transaction closed during April, reports Ben Galles, a vice president with Logic Commercial Real Estate. Every other deal under contract was pulled from the table."

In Las Vegas, many pending acquisitions didn’t close, says Art Carll-Tangora, a principal and multifamily specialist with the brokerage firm of Avison Young. Litigation is following in the wake of some of the collapsed deals, he says, and many sellers have taken multifamily properties off the market until the dust settles."

"The upshot of slow rent payments and higher operating costs: Landlords are worried. 'The market continues to remain stable. However, we cannot continue to sustain losses in rent for much longer,' says Susy Vasquez, executive director of the apartment association."

"Investors are keeping a close eye on the arrival of thousands of newly constructed apartment units at the same time that thousands of residents lost their jobs. In the first months of this year, more than 10,000 apartment units were planned or under construction in the Reno-Sparks market. That means that new apartments will be hitting the market even though the jobless rate in the Reno area reached nearly 20 percent."

"There had been signs, however, that Nevada’s white-hot multifamily market was cooling even before the pandemic shock. 'The data suggest that construction had nearly caught up when the COVID-19 recession hit us and sent us into a lockdown of the economy,' says Stephen Miller, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Rents were softening as newly constructed units came on the market. The median monthly rent of $1,050 in Las Vegas was down 5.7 percent from a year ago, while Reno’s median rent of $1,191 was down 3.4 percent."

The Real Deal on Illinois. "Downtown landlords have had to cut rents to fill apartments, but the situation isn’t as disastrous as some had predicted. 'It kind of looked like the car was headed off to the ditch,' Integra Realty Resources’ Ron DeVries told Crain’s. 'We hit the brakes, and it looks like we’re not going to get into a big wreck.'"

"The average rent for Class-A downtown apartment buildings fell to $3.01 a foot by mid-May, a drop of 7.7 percent from Q1 2019 and the biggest quarterly drop since 2001, according to Integra’s analysis. Occupancy for Class A buildings also fell to 91.8 percent, down from 94.3 percent a year earlier, Integra data shows. It’s the lowest rate since the end of 2017. Absorption also totaled just 325 units, the lowest quarterly number since 2012."

"Other property managers and investors, like Tony Rossi Sr. aren’t as bullish. Rossi is concerned about the high job losses and the nation’s prospects for flattening the curve –— many tenants aren’t renewing leases, especially graduate students in downtown apartments. 'We did OK in May, we did OK in June,' he told Crain’s. 'But I just don’t like where we’re headed.'"

The Hartford Courant in Connecticut. "The 100 new apartments at the prominent corner of Pearl and Trumbull streets in downtown Hartford leased at dizzying pace last year, filling up in just four months. So when another 160 rentals in the building next door were ready for tenants this spring, expectations of a six-month lease up were high. But no one saw a global pandemic creeping toward Hartford."

"'Did I expect to be further along?' Jeffrey D. Ravetz, a New York developer who partnered in the conversion of the two vacant office buildings to apartments, said. 'Of course. My leasing should have gone as well or better.'"

"Pearl Street also will soon have more competition for tenants looking to move into brand new downtown apartments. Two other conversions of former commercial space into rentals, at 103 Allyn St. and nearby at 28 High St. will soon bring 100 more units. Martin J. Kenny, a developer active in downtown Hartford for decades and a partner in the mixed-use Pratt Street project, said there is no way to sugar-coat it: apartment leasing downtown has lost some of its momentum."

"'Short-term is not great,' Kenny said. 'There’s no kidding about it. It’s a little depressing right now. You don’t see any people going to work so it’s desolate. The foot traffic is really slow, and people look kind of creepy in those masks.'"

From The M Report. "The housing affordability crisis, which had worsened prior to the virus, has only escalated as more than 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment due to the pandemic. More than 4 million people have entered into forbearance plans to either defer or pay reduced amounts on their mortgages. This growing population of homeowners electing to forgo and make reduced payments is causing banks to grow wary. Information by the Mortgage Bankers Association revealed mortgage credit availability has fallen by more than 35% since the virus spread."

"In March, riskier borrowers 'could get a mortgage but just pay a higher price than other people,' wrote Michael Neal, a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute Housing Finance Policy Center. 'Now, some people are just not going to get mortgages.'"

"JPMorgan Chase & Co. tightened its standards in May, requiring borrowers to have minimum credit scores of 700 and to make down payments of 20% of the home price on most mortgages, including refinances if the bank didn’t already manage the loan. Wells Fargo & Co. increased its minimum credit score to 680 for government loans that it buys from smaller lenders before aggregating them into mortgage bonds."