A report from Market Watch. "Wall Street’s foray back into lending to homeowners with spotty credit isn’t looking great during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s still early days, but delinquencies on residential mortgages bundled into private bond deals, or without government backing, have shot up to about 18% as of July from a low of about 4% in January, according to Goldman Sachs. The Goldman chart breaks out the performance of loans in 'non-QM' bond deals from those pegged as 'prime,' a category that unsurprisingly has reported far lower delinquencies of 30-days or more."

"Prime borrowers typically have credit scores of 670 or higher, with those in the subprime category closer to an 580 to 669 range, according to Experian. 'While housing market prospects appear favorable, the outlook for residential credit exposure remains somewhat cloudy,' wrote a team led by Marty Young."

From Bloomberg. "Almost twice the percentage of Ginnie Mae borrowers have demanded forbearance compared to conventional ones, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association report. Ginnie Mae is known to cater to homeowners of lower credit quality, and the forbearance numbers highlight the difference."

From The Real Deal. "Almost 11 million households were behind on rent or mortgage payments during the first three months of the pandemic. Nearly 6 million of those households were renters, who reported either missing, delaying or paying reduced rent during the second quarter of the year, according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Just over 5 million households were homeowners that missed or deferred at least one mortgage payment."

"The effect on multifamily property owners and mortgage lenders was in the billions, the report found. Unpaid rent cost landlords about $9.1 billion in revenue, while missed mortgage payments totaled an estimated $16.3 billion."

From Fox 5 Vegas in Nevada. "Governor Steve Sisolak described being hopeful that funding for rental assistance and unemployment benefits will come to Nevadans by the October 15 deadline. Landlord Jason Trindade expresses his doubts. 'I'm not confident in any kind of government assistance programs right now, at all,' he said. The owner of Desert Moon Motel and Towne and Country Motel has 15 tenants at risk of eviction. Most have not received unemployment aid or rental assistance, despite months of waiting."

"Trindade has lost $70,000 in expenses. The Payroll Protection Program and a grant from the City of Las Vegas has helped recoup $16,000 in funds. He is still waiting for CHAP funding from the CARES Act for landlords. 'If I close my doors here, I'm not going to be able to provide free housing either,' he said."

From King 5 in Washington. "A group of landlords is suing the city of Seattle over rules set up to protect renters from evictions. 'I’m being forced to act as a welfare agency,' said Scott Dolfay, one of the plaintiffs, who owns and rents out a one-bedroom house near Fauntleroy Park in Seattle. Dolfay said the current tenants of his house owe him about $5,000. Dolfay said the extra financial burden he’s under may force him to sell his rental house next year."

"'This is only going to allow for corporations to be landlords in the future because everyone like me will just sell and get out,' he said."

From News Channel 20 in Illinois. "Stella Dean is a Springfield landlord that owns several properties. She says the move to extend the eviction ban is financially devastating. Dean estimates at least half of Springfield landlords are single-location property owners. 'The domino effect for non-payment of a rental property will be eventually, the owner of the property will file for bankruptcy,' Dean said."

From Real Estate Weekly. "New York City landlords are proposing a rent forgiveness program and reintroduction of preferential rents to help them – and their tenants – survive the COVID crisis. The Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) said today that tenants are fleeing the city at alarming rates and, with no federal help in sight, it was time for the city to act and avert a real crisis. In its latest survey of rent regulated properties in the city, CHIP found that vacancy has risen to 12.55 percent and more that 17 percent of renters were behind on their rent."

"Members reported that they are offering concessions averaging a net effect of 1.4 months of free rent to tenants (either through dropping the asking rent or giving a month or two of the lease term rent free) in order to be more competitive on the rental market and combat the growing number of vacant units. 'For a sixth straight month, housing providers have borne a huge financial burden due to the COVID-19 emergency with little help from the government. We need solutions now. We can no longer wait for the federal government to bail us out,' said Jay Martin, executive director of CHIP."

From Barron's on New York. "A penthouse in a prewar co-op building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side has chopped one-third, or $5 million, off its listing price—from $15 million to $10 million—due to a slow market caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. 'It’s a dramatic price cut, reflective of the current slow market due to the Covid-19 pandemic,' said Maria Serena Torresy of Brown Harris Stevens."

The Miami Herald in Florida. "Ibrahim Al-Rashid bought his neighbor’s Hibiscus Island home for about $6.3 million on Friday. The owner, Jessica Molly Snyder, placed the house on the market about a year ago, but Al-Rashid said the original listing price of $8 million was too high."

From Forbes on California. "Not even a celebrity name is immune to a price reduction in the softening market of San Francisco. As one of the most expensive real estate markets in America, the city might be on the cusp of seeing something it hasn’t seen in a very long time: a buyers’ market. By the end of August almost 25% of homes on the market in San Francisco had come down in price, according to the Redfin Data Center, and the number of listings that entered the market during August was 75% higher compared to one year earlier (during the four weeks ending August 23rd)."

"Robin Williams’ house is just one of the many homes seeing a price cut across the city. The 6,500-square-foot contemporary first entered the market last November for $7.25 million, but now it has come back on the market for $5.99 million."

The Los Angeles Times in California. "'Flip or Flop' star Tarek El Moussa and his fiancée just grabbed something a bit closer to the ocean. The newly engaged couple have paid $3.125 million for a place in Newport Beach, records show. It appears the pair got a decent deal on the place; the property last sold in 2018 for $3.839 million, records show."

From Capital and Main on California. "'COVID-19 has impacted everyone in California – but some bear much more of the burden than others, especially tenants struggling to stitch together the monthly rent,' California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement, 'and they deserve protection from eviction.' Both moratoriums left unresolved the mountain of debt that await 40 million tenants across the U.S., including 17 million in hard-hit California."

"'This is literally like the Great Depression, and you need a New Deal-style relief program,' says Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu. 'The time for austere measures is over. This is when government needs to step up, when nobody else can do it.'"

"Any landlords motivated by the prospect of raising rents following evictions from their units may be in for disappointment. Despite soaring rents from before the outbreak, a new windfall is unlikely as mass evictions, mass vacancies and increased homelessness potentially lead only to lower rents and falling property values. Rent in Manhattan is already down an average of 6 percent in the wake of COVID-19, with vacancies more than twice what they were a year before. San Francisco rents have fallen nearly 12 percent during the same period."