A report from Mansion Global. "New York native David Kramer, president of Hudson Companies. What has the Covid-19 experience been like for the company? It’s a better time to be a buyer than a seller, a tenant than a landlord. Every now and then New York City prices get out of hand; construction prices, too. We’ll be aggressive looking for new deals, and we’re finding some great ones. We recently got something at a quarter off."

The New York Post. "Amid intensifying calls to convert some older Manhattan office buildings to residential comes even more grim news about the pandemic-battered market. CBRE’s latest activity report found that year-to-date leasing of 11.87 million square feet was down 58 percent over last year. Things took an even darker turn in November, when leasing totaled a mere 482,000 square feet — a staggering 78 percent below the five-year monthly average of 2.16 million square feet."

"The pitiably puny numbers broke the record for lowest monthly leasing for the third time this year. 'I wouldn’t say it’s free-fall, but it’s a lot worse than just an adjustment,' said a broker who wisely didn’t want to be named."

The Boston Globe in Massachusetts. "Rents have fallen sharply in Boston this year. If building owners believe an apartment can be filled quickly, they may move faster to evict a tenant struggling to keep up with payments, said Doug Quattrochi, executive director of Mass Landlords. By contrast, a soft market where vacancies might linger could inspire flexibility on the part of landlords."

"'Think about it from a landlord’s perspective,' he said. 'If rents in Worcester are going up, presumably there are other tenants out there. Whereas in Boston and Cambridge, there are lots of vacancies and the big landlords are giving good concessions to fill apartments. It’s harder.'"

"In Springfield, where the unemployment rate in October was 11.9 percent, second only to Lawrence among Massachusetts cities and towns. Rose Webster-Smith, lead organizer with the tenants rights group Springfield No One Leaves, said pervasive joblessness, along with backlogs for state rental aid, have led to a steep rise in evictions. Some landlords are refusing to accept state rental assistance, she said, emptying units with no plans to fill them any time soon."

"'The job market is so bad out there,' Webster-Smith said. 'There are some landlords, they’d rather see the apartment vacant than agree to take a tenant who might not be able to pay again for six months.'"

The Review Journal in Nevada. "Susy Vasquez, the executive director of the Nevada State Apartment Association, worries that the new moratorium will force smaller landlords to foreclose. 'We were very surprised to hear the moratorium extending to March 31,' she said. 'Small landlords will definitely be impacted the most.'"

"Pamela Pierce and many other Nevada renters are protected from being evicted at the state level once again. 'I feel better with (the moratorium) because where am I going to go at 65?' Pierce said. 'They want you to stay in, but nobody’s going to pay your rent or take care of you. There’s no money.'"

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. "The biggest drops are in San Francisco, where the median rent on a one-bedroom apartment has fallen more than 27% during the last year. In New York City, apartments are down almost 19% year-over-year in November. There are double-digit percentage rent declines in Seattle, Chicago and the District of Columbia, too."

"'The rent trends we are seeing in the market right now are a reflection very much of what’s going on and impacting the broader housing market,' said Danielle Hale, chief economist with Realtor.com. 'Rents are falling in big cities and growing elsewhere — particularly in areas that have benefited from people coming in fleeing those large cities and seeking more affordable rent.'"

"Dallas-Fort Worth apartment rents are basically flat, when you don’t count incentives offered by landlords to lure renters. With the number of giveaways growing, renters can still find bargains in North Texas."

From San Jose Inside in California. "In mid-March, California’s economy came to a screeching halt. In a matter of weeks, the demand for unemployment benefits in California reached record numbers. Over the years, Todd Rothbard, an eviction attorney of 45 years, has represented both tenants and landlords. Due to the ever-changing pandemic rules around evictions, he doubts there will be an eviction wave in early 2021. 'Right now there's a lot of vacancies out there, and landlords don’t like vacancies,' Rothbard said. 'The last thing they want to do is add to those vacancies.'"

From Bisnow California. "For some Southern California multifamily owners, a lot of the uncertainty comes from not knowing whether local eviction moratoriums will be extended or for how long. 'We’re looking for more open markets without the sort of left-wing restrictions that have plagued the Los Angeles market more than any other place,' said Universe Holdings CEO Henry Manoucheri."

"George Smith Partners Managing Director and principal Bryan Shaffer said that from the lending side, he sees a desire to get capital invested in middle-of-the-road, working-class properties and limited appetite for high-end projects, many of which were mixed-use and included a retail component. 'There just aren’t lenders out there willing to provide capital for those type of projects today,' Schaffer said."

"Although looking forward to the next year is a business necessity, it is clear the effects of 2020 will be long-lasting. 'There’s hope that we can get back to normal, but the question is, what did we lose between January 2020 and January 2021?' Shaffer said."

From CBC News in Canada. "When Anna Blackwell and her husband bought a two-bedroom downtown condo in 2016, the Wilfrid Laurier University political science grad had no intention of becoming a landlord. But after one of the pair was offered a transfer to Portland, Ore., the couple decided to rent out their Toronto home — at least until they knew if the move stateside was going well. In September their tenant gave notice and, at the end of November, moved out."

"'We were quite shocked when we found out how much lower we'd have to list to get our place rented in this competitive market,' Blackwell said.. The property that had been earning $3,150 a month was now generating $2,600."

"Falling rents have been good for tenants. And though the decline hurt, it was by no means devastating for Blackwell, who bought four years ago in a sharply rising market. But as the business news service Bloomberg pointed out last week, property investors taking possession of condos they signed up to buy when the market looked hot, are now caught in a bind — having to accept losses on rent or a loss when they sell."

"Carl Gomez, Canadian chief economist for the U.S. real estate data giant CoStar, says inner-city markets like Toronto have seen a glut of what he calls 'shoe box condos' favoured by investors — not to live in or even necessarily to rent, but because they have been steadily increasing in value. 'I question whether that demand is going to be there in the long run,' he said."

"Economist Moshe Lander is one of those willing to say some of the things that people in the property business would just as soon leave unsaid. Lander worries the pandemic could signal a demographic turning point in the market. 'No matter how much immigration we have, there's not enough incoming demand for housing in whatever form,' said Lander, citing Canada's aging population and low birth rate. 'It's just not the great investment that it used to be.'"

"And he warns that today's attractive interest rates, now as low as one per cent, may end up having a distorting effect because there is no way they can last over the life of the mortgage. '[Home-buyers] could find themselves very quickly sitting in a situation where the real value of their debt hasn't been eroded by inflation,' said Lander, 'and they are now facing higher interest rates with very little equity built up in the home, especially if house prices don't rise the way they used to.'"