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ndoubtedly, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a tremendous effect on the renter community since its emergence in 2020 in the United States. The Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey revealed that one in almost five renter households were behind on rent as of December 2020. Fast-forward to 2021, the rent arrears crisis sprang up as a result of the pandemic amounts to about $57B. Yet, no one knows how the rental property owners are faring in this financial constraint period. We seem bothered by the renters but forget that the landlords are also affected because without rents, their means of livelihood is cut short. From February to April this year, a survey was conducted by the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, and the Housing Initiative at Penn, with over 2,500 respondents.
How Have Landlords Survived During the Pandemic neighborhoods and communities. These neighborhoods are primarily the abode of people of color and the Hispanics. Nearly 40% of properties in these neighborhoods had 10% rental shortfalls or more compared to 30% of the properties in higher-income areas. The share of landlords that granted rental extensions increased from 15% to 48%, while those that deferred property maintenance rose from 5% to 31%. Other things landlords did to manage their portfolios during the pandemic include forgiving a portion of back rent and decreasing monthly rent. Generally, landlords of all sizes struggled to collect rent in 2020. As the number of rental units in one’s portfolio increases, so are the chances of at least one unit falling behind in rent. It isn’t that the renters are refusing to pay their rents intentionally, the financial strain caused by the
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RENT COLLECTIONS WAS DOWN IN 2020 COMPARED TO 2019 The researchers discovered that the number of landlords who collected 90% or more of their charged rent per year fell from 89% to 62%. Additionally, only about 9% of landlords collected less than half of their yearly rent in 2020. This implies that the amount of rent they collected dropped massively in 2020 due to the pandemic. Non-rental payment rose disproportionately in lower-income 16 l
THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2021