A weekend topic starting with KPIX in California. "Rent collection has dropped from 80.4% nationally at this time last year to 75.4% at the start of December. Meanwhile tenants are fleeing urban centers left and right. 'I’ve even seen properties where they’ve dropped the rent 50% and they still can’t fill up the units,' said Sid Lakireddy a small landlord and the President of the California Rental Housing association said. 'San Francisco has a very big problem now.'"

From KRON 4 in California. "We’re seeing major changes in the last month for San Francisco rentals in what were very popular areas. There are hundreds of listings less than $2,000 for a studio and in the once-coveted neighborhoods, like North Beach, Marina, and Lower Pacific Heights, they’re seeing listings below low as $1,500 literally slashed by half since this time last year. The eastern side seeing the biggest annual drop and just for more perspective on how wild this is, this time last year, we did a report on what was called PodShares that was a bunk bed in the Tenderloin for $1,200."

From SF Bay in California. "'For Rent.' Vanessa Khaleel sees that sign more and more from her office in Hayes Valley. And that’s not something the deputy director of the San Francisco Apartment Association wants to see. Khaleel said: 'Our owners are seeing vacancies at about 20 percent higher and then they’re seeing their market rents come down anywhere from 20 to 25 percent so those two things are creating a financial hit to the property owners.'"

"Thomas Bannon, CEO of the California Apartment Association, supported the moratorium but thinks it’s time for the moratorium to be lifted. said: 'You’ve got to figure out a way that the landlord can either be made whole or pretty close to it. If not, they will probably sell their single family rental units and walk away.'"

From Socket Site in California. "Despite the fact that the average asking rent for an apartment in San Francisco has dropped 24 percent since the end of February and the average asking rent for a one-bedroom is back under $2,700 a month for the first time since 2012, listing activity for available units continues to tick up. In fact, there are now over three (3) times as many apartments listed for rent in San Francisco than there were at the same time last year with vacancy rates on the rise."

From Travel Weekly. "As California looks to combat rising Covid-19 cases with strict stay-at-home mandates, hoteliers across the state are bracing for a bleak holiday season. 'We already have a number of our hotels that are at risk of having distressed loans,' said Pete Hillan, a spokesman for the California Hotel & Lodging Association, citing a recent American Hotel & Lodging Association member survey that showed that 59% of hotel owners are in danger of foreclosure by their commercial real estate debt lenders."

From Bisnow Washington DC. "Several malls in the area have already been foreclosed on, and more pain is on the way. Regional malls backed by CMBS loans that have received new appraisals during the pandemic have experienced an average loss in value of 40%, according to DBRS Morningstar. As of last month, DBRS Morningstar found 93 delinquent CMBS loans on mall properties totaling roughly $9.65B in debt. Lerner Enterprises last month sold the Dulles Town Center mall. The mall's value in October was listed at $55M, compared to $184M just two years ago and $300M in 2008."

From Bisnow New York. "The New York City hospitality world has been poleaxed by the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, and a new survey shows just how gloomy the outlook remains. A Hotel Association of New York City survey of more than 100 hotel owners pointed to an industry grappling with empty rooms, vast jobs losses and plunging revenue. In the first half of 2020, 4 out of every 5 hotels surveyed experienced a more than 80% drop in net operating income, which 'devastated' cash reserves, according to that survey."

"In March, when the pandemic hit the city, there were 18,840 full-time hotel employee in the city. But by September, that figure had fallen to 3,329, an 82% drop. Hotels across the five boroughs represent around 9% of the city's employment, per the report."

The Brooklyn Eagle in New York. "Even before COVID-19, Montague Street, the central shopping district in Brooklyn Heights, suffered from a high rate of commercial vacancies and turnover. Now, amid the pandemic, empty storefronts are proliferating. The unofficial 'Main Street' of New York’s first historic district should be a dream location for popular retail stores and restaurants, but the shopping strip has been plagued by vacancies for decades. Now, amid COVID-19, the bottom is falling out."

The Daily Mail on New York. "The median rental price in Manhattan is now the lowest in a decade after dropping 22 percent last month to $2,743. In order to entice tenants to Manhattan, landlords offered incentives on 57 percent of all new leases last month, according to the report. The number of unrented apartments has nearly tripled to 15,000 - the third highest total on record. Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel said there is a 'shadow inventory' of unlisted empty apartments, which means the vacancy rate could be as high as 18 percent in Manhattan. 'It's going to be an upward slog,' Samuel said."

From Seattle Met in Washington. "Inventory has climbed a bit in Seattle thanks to a struggling condo market, which posted 61 percent more active listings in November than a year prior. 'If someone is looking for a deal on a condo, they’re probably going to be able to have their pick of the litter, and they’re likely going to be able to get concessions from the sellers,' says Brad Davis the Keller Williams Greater Seattle agent."

The Western Investor in Canada. "The Vancouver-based CEO of the Landlord Credit Bureau says hundreds of small landlords, such as homeowners renting a basement suite, are bailing out of Vancouver’s rental market due to a provincially-mandated rental freeze and difficulties in evicting scofflaw tenants. Larger landlords, meanwhile, are facing a 'trifecta' of challenges that are driving rents down and persuading many landlords to offer incentives for the first time in years, he said."

"'B.C.’s rental regulation is having an unintended consequence of actually reducing the number of rental units available,' Zac Killam told Western Investor. 'The reason is that it has essentially taken the financial impact that tenants are facing due to COVID and placed it on the back of small landlords.'"

"In a survey of Craigslist Vancouver rental listings on December 10, Western Investor counted more than 110 ads offering free rent, from one month to three months, including multiple units in new purpose-built rental buildings. 'Some landlords are also offering reduced damage deposits, of say $200, instead of a full month’s rent,' Killam said. Killam, who is a landlord himself, said he 'hoped' the rental market would improve in 2021 once the pandemic is ended, but noted that a similar trend of rental incentives is being seen in downtown Toronto. 'There is simply less demand for rental units.'"