A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Forbearance allows homeowners to suspend their monthly payments when they experience a virus-related hardship without the usual consequences of delinquency or even foreclosure. The flood of requests have mortgage servicers working overtime and homeowners waiting hours on the phone. Michael Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association said his group has seen 'a lot of extension activity' and he predicts even more to come as the crisis continues. While the share of loans in forbearance has consistently declined since April, more than half of the borrowers in forbearance are already in an extension, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association."

"'People are either not back to work or they still haven’t recovered income, because their hours were cut or their income was reduced. That hasn’t turned around,' he said. 'I think the extension [activity] is saying you have a lot of homeowners out there who are not stable yet.'"

From CNBC on New York. "The number of signed contracts for co-ops and condos in Manhattan — the best real-time measure of activity — dropped 57% in July compared with a year ago, according to Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman. The high-end of the market is getting especially hard hit, with co-ops priced at $4 million to $10 million down over 75%. As deals dry up, the number of apartments listed for sale is surging. The number of unsold apartments is now at the highest level in almost a decade, according to Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel. At the current sales rate, there is more than a 17-month supply of apartments for sale."

"On Wednesday, the Getty Residences — a glamorous new condo building in downtown Manhattan designed by Peter Marino — announced price cuts of more than 50% on some units. One full-floor unit, with more than 3,800 square feet, had once been offered for over $20 million and is now listed for $10.5 million."

From Bloomberg on New York. "Manhattan’s super-high-end rental market, comprising apartments that start at $22,000 for a month’s rent, has slowed to a trickle as wealthy foreign and domestic renters refuse to return to New York. Most of broker Bill Kowalczuk's clients rent an apartment for $30,000 a month rather than buy a $6 million apartment, he says, 'are in finance. They can make their millions grow faster in the market than if the money is sitting in real estate.'"

"Even lower prices might not be enough. Kowalczuk says he had some listings in that price range, but he removed them. 'People were making really dumb offers,' he says. 'I had a whole townhouse listed for $24,000, and I was getting offers between $12,000 and $15,000.' He decided, he says, 'to take it off the market. We decided to wait until there are actually bodies back that really need to move.'"

From Realtor.com on Florida. "We’d love to recommend the Miami Beach, Florida, mansion of Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza. The legendary slugger has slashed the price of his Miami waterfront mansion again in hopes of enticing a buyer onto the field. He initially listed his home for $18.5 million back in 2017. In 2018, the asking price dropped to $16.9 million."

"At that point, the listing agent, Jill Herzberg, alluded to the fact that Piazza was pricing to sell. The price was dropped to $14.75 million in late June, and the home was recently taken off-market yet again. A deal may be in the offing."

From Roll Call. "Advocates and landlords say the now-expired federal $600 a week add-on to state unemployment payments probably helped the most vulnerable of rural tenants in USDA-financed rental units — those who don’t receive federal rental assistance — to stay mostly current with payments. In turn, property owners were able to pay expenses such as mortgages. 'Now we’re back to where we were in March,' said Colleen M. Fisher, executive director for the Council for Affordable and Rural Housing whose members build, finance, manage or own rural housing. Fisher said the uncertainty over a possible deal on federal unemployment payments leaves her members up in the air."

"Tom Collishaw, CEO of the nonprofit Self-Help Enterprises in Visalia, Calif. said rent collections have remained high, and he thinks it’s largely because federal stimulus checks and jobless benefits for those able to claim them kept tenants afloat. But he said tenants are taking longer to pay the rent. Self-Help Enterprises also has begun an assistance program for about 400 tenant households that provides an average of $300 to $500 for food and other needs. 'We know the stress is there,' Collishaw said."

"Chris Potterpin, vice president of family-run PK Development Group LLC in Okemos, Mich., said the tenants he most worries about in his units are those earning $12 to $15 an hour with no federal or state help to pay rent. The company has 125 properties in six states and 65% of its mortgages are backed by the USDA."

"When it comes to additional weekly unemployment payments, Potterpin said he doesn’t know what the best number is. 'I don’t think $200 would do it. Certainly it would help, but if you’re talking about folks who spend 50% of their income on housing and they’ve got $500, $700 a month left for the rest of their bills … it’s so tight. I’m not sure that’s the right number,' he said."

"In June, USDA extended a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions for homeowners until Aug. 31. Bob Rapoza, legislative director for the National Rural Housing Coalition, said homeowners had defied his fears that many would fall behind in loan payments. 'That may yet come,' Rapoza said."

The Colorado Real Estate Journal. "Our Denver multifamily team did complete one transaction that was marketed on a limited basis in April and closed in June. There were three conclusions that we were able to draw from this particular deal. One, buyers still are underwriting to pre-COVID-19 yield requirements. What has changed is how buyers are underwriting assets, most notably in years one and two of their hold period. Buyers are increasing physical vacancy slightly, increasing bad debt, underwriting two to four weeks of concessions, and assuming zero market rent growth for the first two years."

"Second, these changes to underwriting while keeping yield requirements the same is resulting in a pricing decrease of roughly 4% in metro Denver compared to six months ago."

From Boston Magazine in Massachusetts. "This year, September is a few weeks away and the rental market is almost unrecognizable: Vacant apartments abound, rents are dropping, and landlords are willing to waive fees, allow pets, grant lease flexibility, and do pretty much anything to secure a paying tenant."

"Zumper shows that one-bedroom rents in Boston have had a 6% year-over-year decrease, a decline the city hasn’t seen since 2016. It’s yet another symptom of the pandemic: San Francisco and New York, the other top rental markets in the country, have followed suit with reductions of 11% and 7%, respectively. As for inventory, 'when comparing available one-bedroom Boston listings in July 2019 to July 2020, the number of available units has doubled,' says Crystal Chen, an analyst at Zumper. To put it plainly: There are more units than interested tenants, and the traditional power dynamic has flipped."

"Beyond lower rates, landlords are piling on other incentives to sweeten the pot and lure occupants inside. John Puma, COO of Boston-based real estate agency Places for Less, has been keeping a close eye on the rental market. He’s seen market-rate apartments offering a month of free rent and luxury buildings shelling out two or even three gratis months. 'They’d rather take a reduced rent for the remainder of the year than have it go vacant for who knows how long,' he explains. He’s seen property manager flexibility extend to credit scores, income bracket, and even employment status: 'Landlords have accepted tenants based on just their unemployment income right now.'"

The San Francisco Chronicle in California. "Three months of 20 percent off rent for a house in the Excelsior District. Nine hundred dollars off per month for a condo in Hayes Valley. A 16 percent reduction in base rent, six weeks free and a $2,500 bonus for a luxury apartment in Jack London Square. Just a few months ago, deals like these would have read like Bay Area rental fan fiction. But in a local housing market hit hard by the fallout of COVID-19, the price of rent is increasingly up for negotiation."

"Other Bay Area residents, however, are motivated to negotiate not by dire financial straits, but a desire to take advantage of a rental market that has finally tipped the scales in their favor. 'I've lived in San Francisco since 2013 and I have had a really stressful time finding reasonably priced housing. I was really excited to turn the tables,' said one resident. She was able to negotiate four percent off of an already-discounted property as well as secure more favorable terms in her lease. 'It gives me a feeling of getting ‘revenge’ for all of those years.'"

"Of course, not all landlords are on board with negotiating, but as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, that may very well change. 'I've negotiated with several landlords, but I find 99% of the landlords I speak with to be misinformed … [they] really, really want to believe they will still have tens of thousands of students coming into town, desperate for housing and willing to pay astronomical rental prices,' said one recent graduate of UC Berkeley. 'The funny thing is that, at rentals where landlords denied my request for a modest $100 or $200 per month [off], those units are still vacant months later.'"

The Los Angeles Times in California. "The news landed just after 9 p.m.: The investment chief at California’s massive state pension fund was abruptly stepping down. Before dawn the next day, Sacramento was abuzz — and a sense of crisis was descending over the mighty California Public Employees’ Retirement System. Wednesday night’s shock departure of Ben Meng reverberated through the state capital and then across Wall Street on Thursday, where the $400-billion CalPERS is a powerful player in everything from the stock market to private equity. Meng said in an interview that he’d left to focus on his health and family."

"But a statement from the state controller pointed to something else: an unspecified lapse in judgment that breached conflict-of-interest rules and, even more, hinted at wider oversight problems inside the organization. The controller, Betty Yee, has called for an emergency board meeting to review the funds’ policies. The suggestion that CalPERS — a frequent advocate of good corporate governance — might have fallen short of its own conflict-of-interest rules set tongues wagging in the financial industry."

From Voice of America. "Commercial landlords across Europe are bracing for prolonged repercussions from the coronavirus. While they argue offices will remain just as important after the pandemic as before, corporate bosses are starting to rethink their office space needs and many white-collar employees say they would prefer to continue to work largely from home."

"The pandemic may have kicked off a revolution in working practices — and that could spell trouble, economists say, for pensions funds, which have billions of dollars invested in commercial property, seen before the pandemic as a safe long-term bet. Across the world millions of tenants and not only in financial districts have stopped, or are delaying, paying their rent to landlords as economies have been left reeling. Hotels and restaurants as well as retail and warehousing businesses have all been struck hard by the pandemic, many will go bankrupt, leaving commercial landlords with considerable losses on their hands, say analysts."

"The same commercial property slump is being seen outside Europe as well. In the United States commercial landlords have seen rent collection fall by half, according to research firm Remit Consulting. The US commercial real estate market is coming under increased stress, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based research firm that monitors the commercial real estate investment market. It reported last month that transactions fell 68% in the second quarter of 2020 across all property types compared with 2019. Many investors have been waiting on the sidelines to see what unfolds. The firm warned the market was paralyzed because the worth of assets is now unclear."

"Australia, too, is seeing the same problem when it comes to rents and a paralyzed commercial property market. Last week the World Bank said that the 2008 financial crisis reduced the value of global pension assets by 23%. 'The magnitude of the pandemic is expected to be higher,' it warned."