Is Ammegendon ahead for Boston Real Estate Landlords and Tenants? With enhanced unemployment benefits set to expire this month, 87.6 percent of tenants paid some rent through July 13, according to a national survey of market-rate units.
$600 Unemployment Benefit Helps Both Tenants and Landlords
The number of renters paying at least some of the month’s rent was only slightly lower than the 90.1 percent during the same period a year ago. It was also a bit shy of the month-ago figure, 89 percent.
The numbers suggest that actions by Congress and the Federal Reserve to inject trillions of dollars into Americans’ pockets have largely offset the effects of the pandemic on residential rent collection nationwide. However, the federal unemployment benefit supplement of $600 per week will end July 31 unless lawmakers vote to extend it.
The rent tracker, prepared by the National Multifamily Housing Council, surveys rental payments in 11.5 million market-rate, professionally managed apartments. The survey excludes low-income housing, subsidized units, single-family rentals, privatized military housing, and student housing, where rent collection appears to have suffered more during the pandemic, according to industry reports.
Doug Bibby, the housing council’s president, wrote that the enhanced unemployment benefits that will expire at the end of this month have been crucial to allowing renters to pay their bills.
