NMHC Rent Payment Tracker

Powered by:
Entrata, MRI Software, RealPage,
ResMan, and Yardi

NMHC Rent Payment Tracker Finds 90.8 Percent of Apartment Households Paid Rent as of May 20

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 90.8 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by May 20 in its survey of 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.

This is a 2.2-percentage point decrease in the share who paid rent through May 20, 2019 and compares to 89.2 percent that had paid by April 20, 2020. These data encompass a wide variety of market-rate rental properties across the United States, which can vary by size, type and average rental price.

“Each week we see new evidence that Americans are prioritizing rent and that the work apartment firms did to create flexible payment plans is paying dividends,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. “However, the hardships caused by the outbreak are not ending anytime soon. Accordingly, it is critical that lawmakers come together to support America’s 43 million renter households with a national rental assistance fund as was included in the House-passed HEROES Act, and to protect our housing providers with expanded mortgage forbearance.”

Explore the Data

**Unit counts may change to reflect refinements to the methodologies and changing occupancy levels due to move in-move out activity.

* These figures are as initially reported; these are calendar days, so the specific day of the week can have an affect on these reported figures, as leasing offices can have reduced hours or be closed on those days, creating potential delays for payment processing.

Download the data from this chart.

Rent Payment Tracker Webinar Series

After release of the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker data, experts from the five leading property management data companies will provide additional detail on the week's data at a live webinar.

Past webinars:

Resources from our PMS Providers

(Includes some regional data)

ENTRATA

MRI SOFTWARE

The Impact of COVID-19 on Multifamily in North America | Report - Download Here

REALPAGE

YARDI

May Update: COVID-19's Impact on Multifamily Real Estate | 5/6/20 Webinar Recording

Methodology

Data are collected weekly, with the first data collection happening the 1st through the 6th, and all data collections following will be cumulative, for example, the second collection will be the 1st through the 13th, the third will be the 1st through the 20th and so on for the remainder of each month.

When establishing the initial dates for the Rent Payment Tracker, NMHC wanted to track when rent was officially "late" and used the close of business on the 5th as that date. After consultation with property managers and data providers we were informed that a variety of dates are used to determine when rent is considered late, with some saying rent isn't late until as late as the 10th. In addition, those that use the 5th as their deadline reported that many people pay on the last day possible and that some of those payments aren't posted until the 6th. Based on this information, NMHC adjusted its methodology to make the close of business on the 6th the deadline for the first week. Moving this date also moved all other reporting dates by one day.

Partial payments are counted only once monthly, and the payment is captured in the first time period in which it occurs. For example, if an apartment household pays a quarter of their rent during the week of April 1, it would be captured in the first week. Subsequent payments that month would not be captured in the data to avoid double counting.

The percentages are based on the total occupied units, excluding vacant units, purpose-built student housing, privatized military housing, and subsidized affordable units. The number of total occupied units will change for many of the property management software (PMS) providers as new units are leased or units are vacated; as such, the total number of units in the dataset will fluctuate.

Release Date	Number of Units	NMHC Press Release
April 8, 2020	13.4 million	Press Release - April 8
April 15, 2020	11.5 million	Press Release - April 15
April 22, 2020	11.5 million	Press Release - April 22
April 29, 2020	11.5 million	None Issued
May 8, 2020	11.4 million	Press Release - May 8
May 15, 2020	11.4 million	Press Release - May 15
May 22, 2020	11.4 million	Press Release - May 22