The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) introduced a new tool, the Rent Payment Tracker, which collects weekly data from 13.4 million apartments about when rent payments have been made. They report a 12 percentage-point decrease since last month in the share of renter households in these homes that had paid rent by the fifth of the month. By March 5, 81% of renter households had paid rent; by April 5, 69% of renter households had paid rent. The tracker also provides a year-to-year comparison: in April of 2019, 82% of renter households had paid rent by this point. The Tracker will be updated with new data every Wednesday.
The weekly data in the Tracker are collected through each Sunday night. They are gathered from five apartment property management systems. Student, military, and subsidized affordable homes are excluded from the Tracker. NMHC notes that this week’s drop may reflect the days of the week included: March 5, 2020 fell on a Thursday, while April 5 fell on a Sunday (when many property management offices are closed). NMHC will host weekly webinars to discuss the data releases.
The NMHC Rent Payment Tracker can be accessed at: https://bit.ly/2Rox0DG