A report from Seattle PI in Washington. "Seattle condos are breaking records – well, it is not necessarily a good thing. Politics, protesting, poor city governance and the Coronavirus-epidemic have all contributed to a 130% increase in Seattle condos for sale in the Downtown core. We now how the most inventory of condos for sale since 2010. For those of you living in Seattle, 2009, 2010 and 2011 were tough times for condo sellers. There just wasn’t buyer demand because of the post recession hangover, an over-supply of new construction and an enormous number of short sales and defaults that slowed the progression of monthly sales. It is an incredible opportunity for buyers to take advantage of current conditions and to a negotiate a great price."

From American University Radio. "Denis Tercero has lived in the Tivoli Gardens Apartments in Columbia Heights for 20 years. He hasn’t paid his rent since April, after he lost his job at a D.C. hotel. Tercero and about 30 others recently gathered outside the building owner’s home in Georgetown to ask that he cancel their rent. 'The bigger the group, the stronger you are,' Tercero said."

"The day before, about 20 residents of the Woodner — one of D.C.’s largest apartment buildings, where up to 150 of about 2,000 tenants aren’t paying rent — marched to the building manager’s house. They demanded he cancel their rent and address issues with maintenance and operations. Another rent strike in the Southern Towers apartment complex in Alexandria has been growing since March, with hundreds of tenants withholding rent."

"The ongoing protests against systemic racism have also helped frame some tenant protests around the ways racist policies and discrimination have contributed to housing segregation and gentrification. 'The movements are all interconnected,' says Citlalli Velasquez, an organizer with the Latino Economic Development Center. 'We’re definitely trying to bridge the connection between ‘defunding the police’ and canceling rents.'"

"'Certainly some buildings have really bad conditions,' says Amanda Huron, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia who studies affordable housing and works as an organizer with the Tenants Union. 'But in many cases, the tenants aren’t saying, ‘Conditions are bad, therefore we’re withholding rent, we’ll pay you when you get the conditions fixed.’ Tenants are saying, ‘We actually can’t pay rent at all. Ever.'"

From Curbed New York. "To the delight of the city’s rat population (and the dismay of the rest of us), garbage was not getting picked up as quickly as usual this summer. Facing a sudden budget shortfall resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council cut $106 million from the Department of Sanitation’s budget in June, leading to reduced trash collection."

"The New York Times estimates that roughly 5 percent of New York City residents left town this spring and summer. This is evident in Manhattan’s housing market, where vacancies are rising, rents are falling, and sales prices are (finally) in decline. Seeing their work dry up, some moved to places where rent is cheaper to wait out the crisis."

"The longer it takes for these people to return (or be replaced by other high-earning professionals), the more damage the city’s budget will endure — damage that could lead to drastic cuts to services like trash pickup and the subway system. Those cuts, in turn, could incentivize more New Yorkers to leave the city (either temporarily or permanently), creating yet more holes in the budget — a vicious cycle. In the worst-case scenario, this cycle spirals out of control, ushering in a new depression rivaling the mid-1970s crisis that almost led New York City to bankruptcy."

From Bisnow on New York. "When Natalie Minuto started browsing through rental properties this summer, it was more out of idle interest than a serious search. But the hunt became real when she started seeing apartments offering monthly discounts worth hundreds of dollars and months of free rent. Now, Minuto is the proud renter of a one-bedroom apartment in the 70s on the Upper East Side for a price that works out to less than $2K a month. For the first time in her four years in New York, she doesn't have a roommate. 'I realized I’d better jump on this; these rents are amazing,' she said. 'And when ever has the power been in the hands of the renter, not the landlord?'"

"'It’s the way the pendulum swings,' said Joy Construction principal Eli Weiss, whose company owns multifamily properties in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. 'Right now, if you’re a tenant, you’re the one who has all the power.'"

"In September alone, asking rents have dropped 12% during what is typically the most active time for new leases, according to Sid Gandotra, a Manhattan residential broker for The Corcoran Group. 'It’s at a point where, as a broker, it is hard for me to even believe,' he said. Last month, Manhattan had the largest market share of landlord concessions in nearly a decade of tracking, per Miller Samuel. 'All of Manhattan is on fire in terms of concessions,' Gandotra said."

"'We’ve never seen anything like this,' said Safdie Realty Group CEO Joseph Safdie, whose brokerage represents apartment tenants and landlords throughout the city. Landlords are seeing enormous vacancies with not nearly enough inbound migration to fill the gaps, he said. The most dramatic loss of demand has been in the luxury sector, Safdie said: His brokerage saw an 18% to 23% year-over-year reduction in rent prices for high-end product."

"'In Manhattan, there is blood on the streets,' said Nelson Management Group President Robert Nelson, who owns rental properties across the five boroughs. 'It’s really, really bad in Manhattan.' He has offered rent deferrals and offered to work with tenants who lost their jobs, but collecting rents has not been his biggest concern. 'We’ve seen a number of people start to move out, and I think that is the thing that troubles me,' he said. 'We are talking to our tenants, they are all leaving for the same reason: Most of them are leaving because they lost their job, and they just don’t know when that job is coming back.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "Overall, about 10% of Manhattan office workers were back as of Sept. 18, according to CBRE Group Inc. That represents only a modest uptick from the 6% to 8% who were back in July. The tech-heavy San Francisco region is also struggling, with office occupancy in the 15% range. New Yorkers’ slow return to the workplace is the latest blow to the nation’s biggest city, which has also suffered from homeowners fleeing Manhattan for larger spaces, rises in murders and homelessness, and the shutting or partial closings of Broadway theaters, museums and other popular attractions."

"The dearth of employees at their desks could also have long-term consequences for the city’s economy and tax base. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which relies heavily on commuter revenue, faces a $12 billion shortfall by the end of 2021 and is considering crippling service cuts. Manhattan’s low office turnout also has contributed to a $9 billion drop in sales tax and other revenue the city government is projecting for its fiscal year that started July 1."

"About two million people worked daily in Manhattan’s central office districts before the pandemic, mostly white-collar workers but also employees of bars, restaurants, stores and other businesses. A number of once-thriving outlets that depend on office workers for business have already called it quits. That has helped push the city’s unemployment rate during the summer to 20%, the highest rate in more than 40 years."

"Café Metro, a quick-service restaurant down the block from the MetLife building in Midtown, is closing early next month. On Thursday at the start of lunchtime, the previously bustling restaurant was nearly empty with just one dining customer and another placing an order."

"'Ninety percent of our revenue depends on office workers and another 10% depends on tourists,' said Edison Castillo, the eatery’s manager. 'We have lost both ways. I used to have 55 employees between both morning and night shifts. Right now we are down to six.'"

From CBS San Francisco in California. "The steady drop in San Francisco monthly rents triggered by the economic chaos triggered by COVID pandemic in mid-March continued in the month of September, according to apartmentlist.com. The listing service said rents in San Francisco decreased by 5.2% month-over-month in September and are down by 17.8% since the start of the pandemic in March — the fastest decline among the nation’s 100 largest cities."

"Moving vans have become a common sight on San Francisco streets. Among those who has left the city is William Hauser, who originally came to San Francisco to pursue his digital dreams. Hauser talked with KPIX 5 as he loaded a moving van ready to begin his exodus to his childhood hometown in Ohio. 'Honestly, I started being a software engineer, I got into computers, because it’s convenient to be able to work remotely,' he said. 'Now that everyone has been working remote, and policies aren’t cemented at least until next year, there’s no reason to stay here when I could go back to family and work remotely there.'"

From KCRW in California. "Who’s leaving LA because they can live more affordably elsewhere while doing the same job? KCRW speaks with Ben Bergman, senior reporter for dot.LA. Why are some Angelenos leaving LA right now? Is it too expensive? Are there too many fires? Is it climate change? Ben Bergman: It's really all of the above. But it's mostly that it's too expensive. I talked to a lot of people who are fleeing LA because of the housing prices. More people are leaving LA. Over 10,000 people left in July alone. I would also say that there has been this net outflow of residents from LA for quite some time, but that's been offset to a certain extent by immigration. And right now you're seeing barely any immigration."