A report from Habitat. "The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) implemented measures in March to ensure that millions of homeowners weren’t put out on the street in the middle of a pandemic. Protections include a moratorium on foreclosures for anyone with a mortgage backed by the federal government and up to one year of mortgage forbearance for homeowners suffering financial hardship."

"But the moratorium set to expire on Aug. 31, and mortgage-delinquency rates are jumping as the pandemic rages on, showing that any lapse in government policy could cause a minor housing crash, Curbed reports. This data shows that if not for the FHFA’s actions, a serious foreclosure crisis would already be under way. If at any point the protections are rescinded – as they were with supplemental unemployment benefits and the eviction moratorium – that problem could still materialize."

From Market Watch. "'The Ginnie Mae segment tends to have more lower-income families and communities of color than the conventional market,' said Ed Demarco, president of the Housing Policy Council, a trade organization. 'And these groups have been disproportionately harmed financially by the pandemic and its related shutdowns.'"

"If a homeowner reaches the end of forbearance and cannot afford the repayment options their servicer offers even after a loan modification, they do not need to lose their home to foreclosure. 'If you’re a borrower and can’t make a payment at the end of forbearance, you have the option of just selling your home and buying a less expensive home or renting,' said Karan Kaul, senior research associate at the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center."

From Forbes. "The Terner Center partnered with the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals to conduct a survey of its membership, a group of housing providers that are mostly small businesses that serve as few as 20 residents."

"'The results of the survey are sobering . . . The majority of survey respondents—more than 80% of who own or manage buildings with fewer than 20 units—reported a decline in their rental income compared to the first quarter of the year. We should all be worried that one in four landlords have already borrowed funds to make ends meet and almost two in five lack confidence in their ability to make ends meet over the next 90 days.'"

"The full results make the story clear: without some help soon, many smaller housing providers will go under. 'If these properties fail, a cascade of negative outcomes ensue. The impacts to the renters themselves—including concerns of evictions and lack of basic upkeep and maintenance of their units—are dire. These properties also often represent a toehold into economic stability for mom and pop landlords.'"

The Real Deal on Florida. "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ latest extension of the ban on residential foreclosures and evictions is expected to flood the courts with new filings once it is lifted, as layoffs continue to mount and federal funding runs out, real estate attorneys told The Real Deal. 'Mortgage lenders are getting nervous that the people they’re lending money to are no longer getting paid,' said Victor Petrescu, a partner at Miami-based Levine Kellogg Lehman Schneider + Grossman. The CARES Act expired on Friday, ending the additional $600 in weekly jobless benefits."

"DeSantis extended the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures to Sept. 1 last week, just two days before the order was set to expire. The state’s ban on both evictions and foreclosures is meant to keep people in their homes during the pandemic, as the number of positive Covid-19 cases continues to rise in Florida. It does not provide financial relief. In fact, all payments are due when the borrower or tenant is 'no longer adversely affected' by coronavirus."

"'I can’t imagine what these people are going through. It must be like a rollercoaster ride,' Petrescu said. 'It’s better than nothing, but it’s only deferring the inevitable.'"

"The inevitable will likely be a deluge of residential evictions and foreclosures once the stay is lifted, similar to the cluttered court dockets seen in the last recession. Judges will likely be overwhelmed with cases, experts say. Said Matthew Kramer, an attorney at Miami-based Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial, 'each month the order gets extended, it becomes that much more difficult determining how to proceed.'"

From Statehouse News on Massachusetts. "More than 315,000 Massachusetts tenants have little to no confidence that they will be able to pay rent in August, according to survey data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, a figure that one group said indicates as many as one in three renter households could soon face eviction. Many renters have relied on sources of funding other than income or savings to make ends meet, a practice that MIT researcher Ben Walker described as 'unsustainable.'"

"The data indicating tenants may not be able to cover rent also created concerns for Greater Boston Real Estate Board CEO Greg Vasil, who said all parties involved need to strive for a solution 'from both perspectives.' 'Depending on how long this thing goes, we're going to need to have relief,' Vasil said. 'Something has to be done for the property owners. We're the party that's going to get the least amount of sympathy, but we're also providing the housing. (Leaders have) done something for the tenants, but there are owners who are hurting, and you've got to find a way to keep them whole or else you're going to end up in foreclosure.'"

"Keeping the moratorium in place for much longer, he said, would create an 'armageddon' of landlords going bankrupt, Vasil warned."

The World Property Journal. "Zillow is reporting that as 32 million Americans received unemployment benefits in late June 2020, more renters were late on their July 2020 payments than any other time during the coronavirus pandemic. Boosted government unemployment aid has expired, meaning those numbers are likely to rise even further in coming months. Those missed rent payments could cause a wave of housing insecurity and have the potential for deep impacts not only for renters, but also for rental owners who owe common costs of property ownership and other workers in the industry."

"'This is an incredibly stressful time for so many, especially when it comes to people's homes, the place we go to be safe,' said Rachel Briseño Bruno, a San Antonio-based Realtor who also owns rental properties and a property management company. 'Many landlords we work with own one or two properties as an investment for retirement or a child's college fund, and they are on the hook for mortgage payments on those homes. Losing just one tenant who may have lost a job and moved back home or in with a friend can have an enormous impact.'"

The Park Record in Utah. "Some Summit County families find themselves in housing limbo after a federal eviction moratorium expired late last month but people cannot be removed from their homes until late August, a situation one nonprofit leader referred to as a 'window of vulnerability.' Many families owe a few rent payments, said Diego Zegarra, community impact director for the Park City Community Foundation, with a total that might hit the low thousands of dollars. The impacts of an eviction, though, are often far-reaching."

"'The most worrying thing is how does someone with $4,000 in debt from renting get into another rental property? I don’t think they can,' Zegarra said."

From KCRA in California. "Landlords said they feel stuck and abandoned because of California’s temporary eviction moratorium, which was put into place to help people who may be struggling to pay rent due the novel coronavirus outbreak and the resulting public health restrictions. Diana and Michael Polyakov said they are at the mercy of the state’s eviction moratorium. They recently purchased their dream home in Granite Bay and temporarily rented it out. But they said now, the renters aren’t paying and aren’t leaving."

"'School starts and my kids don't have a permanent house, right now,' Diana Polyakov said. 'So, I have chills. I'm going to start crying. I don't know what to do.' Her husband, Michael Polyakov, feels helpless. 'We are currently $20,000 down from what we’re supposed to get for all these months that we didn’t receive the payments,' he said."

"The Polyakovs said his issue with the eviction ban is not just the financial ramifications, but more importantly, the legal ones. He wants to see government officials help landlords when renters may be taking advantage of the eviction moratorium. 'You take away the legal rights for me to protect my dream,' Michael Polyakov said. 'This is my dream we're talking about — and you took it away. This is not right.'"

From Hometown Station in California. "A realtor in Santa Clarita who offers free foreclosure defense services to the public is calling on elected officials to stop banks from foreclosing on houses during the coronavirus pandemic. 'Governor Newsom said — and I wrote it down because I wanted to make sure I got it right –, that everyone is going to have to make sacrifices, but a place to live shouldn’t be one of them,' said Richard Szerman of Alta Realty Group. 'What is foreclosing on someone’s home during a pandemic if not denying them their place to live?'"

"The actions currently being taken in response to the pandemic and the sheer number of foreclosures going into the market at once are 'creating a bubble, which will burst,' according to Szerman. 'When it does, it is going to hurt all of us,' he said. 'If you thought the crash of 2008 was problematic, wait until you see this. We have absolutely got to take some action. We need to do it now. If you allow the banks to continue to foreclose, we are writing our own financial death warrant when it comes to the housing market in California.'"

The Broadsheet on New York. "Lower Manhattan’s W Hotel, a 56-story trophy building erected amid the wave of giddy real estate speculation that followed the terrorists attack of September 11, 2001, then was nearly shuttered by the economic downturn of 2008, has succumbed to the latest recession. The upscale lodging accommodation, which closed temporarily at the outset of the pandemic coronavirus, has announced that it will never reopen, according to legal notices."

"This is the latest in a wave of hotel implosions in Lower Manhattan in recent months. Even before the national and local economies stalled, as a result of quarantine measures, the hotel business in Lower Manhattan had begun to show signs of impending trouble. Even after the health crisis recedes, however, a significant (and prolonged) financial downturn is widely expected to follow. If this contraction jolts the hospitality industry as similar episodes have in decades past, at least some of the dozens of hotels recently built in Lower Manhattan may not reopen their doors. And others, currently under construction, may never open to welcome their first guests."

"Today, there are 37 hotels operating in the square mile below Chambers Street, offering more than 7,900 rooms, according to the 2019 Lower Manhattan Real Estate Year in Review, a report from the Downtown Alliance. The same analysis indicates that another 15 hotels, containing an additional 2,000 rooms, are currently under construction or in the planning stages. That represents more than one-fourth of the 56 hotels currently being built or planned in all of Manhattan."

"What might become of these structures remains unclear. It is possible (although expensive) to convert hotels into apartment buildings, but an accompanying glut of residential development is also cresting in Lower Manhattan at the same time. What does seem clear is that the hundreds of homeowners who purchased condominium apartments in the tower above the W Hotel face a difficult and uncertain future."

"As with the Ritz-Carlton (now Wagner) in Battery Park City, they bought homes in the expectation that the value of their property would be bolstered by association with a renowned, prestigious brand. Also paralleling the plight of residents at the former Ritz-Carlton building is the prospect that whoever buys the W Hotel space may choose to convert the first 22 floors of the building (which housed the lodging facility) into apartments."

"This glut of supply would further depress values in the W Residences (which occupy the upper 34 stories of the building), while more than a year of demolition and construction would seriously undermine their quality of life. (A similar drama has unfolded at the Wagner Hotel, where the operator has repeatedly sought to obtain permission to close the hotel and convert the facility into apartments, while condominium owners in the tower above have opposed these moves.)"

"The year before the W Hotel’s 2010 opening, the developer defaulted on $25 million in debt. The hotel debuted and sales launched for the apartments in the tower above just as the recession triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis swamped New York real estate. Within months of the facility’s opening, multiple condominium buyers sued the developer, when the values of their new apartments fell even before they moved in, and brokers were unable to sell even a third of the units. By 2015, the hotel business was sufficiently distressed that Moinian sought (and received) permission to convert four floors of erstwhile lodging space into additional condominium units."