Why is unpaid rent so high?

[Nathan Gesner]

I've read news reports that say up to 20% of rent has gone unpaid in the last couple of months. I manage 350 units and all but one has paid (we extended grace far longer than normal but now we're in the process of eviction). I network with hundreds of property managers around the country and almost all of them are in the same boat as me.

My only thought is that the higher percentage of unpaid rent must be with private Landlords. Maybe they don't run a tight ship and Tenants are taking advantage of the situation?

What's your experience? What are you hearing in your market?

And do you expect it to get better now that COVID restrictions are being lifted, or will it continue to worsen?

[Corby Goade]

I manage around 100 units in my market. When the quarantine hit, we proactively reached out to every tenant and listed all kinds of community resources, everything from food pantries to childcare help to rent assistance. We asked any tenants who were expecting to have trouble paying rent in May to contact us and work on a plan together. We had about 10 do so, and we came up with payment plans for each, and we had a couple meals delivered to those tenants as well. Every one of them paid ahead of the agreed upon schedule. So- we had about 10% pay late, but nothing went unpaid. 

I am wondering if either lower income pockets were hit especially hard or if HUD basically giving a pass to all subsidized housing skewed the numbers that way.