Inflation + Crash, where will multi-family go?

[Kevin Danikowski]

There is a stockpile of reasons to suggest troubling times are ahead:

1. levels of forbearance on mortgages

2. high unemployment

3. the fed pumping trillions prop up the market for months

4. The expected massive jump in property taxes to pay for high local government COVID deficits 

5. Stagnant salaries

...other factors

Where could multi family (particularly D-B class) be headed?

It's known that during a down turn with high levels of forbearance there will be high numbers of foreclosures, downsizing of families from homes to rentals, and a reduction in A class tenancy. But there is little insight on what significant levels of inflation, such as that caused by COVID, do to these trends during economic depression/recession in the united states. 

It's not hard to find data supporting the flux of families from A and B class homes to B and C class rental apartments, respectively. It's also not hard to understand that inflation tends to lead to an increase in rental values, as they are tangible assets. But, could the mix of strong inflation, increased unemployment, and all time high rents actually lead to a downward trend in D-B class multi-family rental values? And what does this mean for the impending values of multi family in the commercial realm (5+ units) which are based off cash flow? Could rents actually go down because people can't afford the rent?

Some insights can be found from Argentina (https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Latin-America/Argentina/Price-History) which is going through a terrible economic crises with astronomical inflation paired with a crash and the worst financial year they've experienced in history in 2019 (non-covid related). Although in some areas (specifically buenos aires) where real estate increased by 20%, after adjusting for inflation, the real value reduced by over 20%. 

There isn't great data on how these strong factors intersect because inflation has never been as high as it's expected to be, all thoughts are welcome.

Some additional data:

In 2008, a real estate crash without rampant inflation, properties of all varieties suffered, including foreclosures on commercial multi-family despite what many people may expect considering rents tend to increase during a crash (https://www.chicagofed.org/~/m...). 

There is a proven positive relationship between inflation increasing real estate, however, the opposite relationship is present for loan interest rates and real estate pricing (https://www.um.edu.mo/fba/irer/papers/current/vol18n2_pdf/03.pdf and https://web.stanford.edu/~piazzesi/inflationAP.pdf).

Fed pumped 2.3 trillion into market by end of April (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/29/federal-reserve-has-pumped-23-trillion-into-us-economy-its-just-getting-started/). Further trillions were proposed (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/13/coronavirus-update-here-is-everything-the-fed-has-done-to-save-the-economy.html). 

In Summary, what do you expect to happen to D-B class multi family?