The Real Estate Roundtable on June 8 urged Congress to develop a policy solution that assists residential and business tenants, economically harmed by the pandemic, with meeting their due and owing rent obligations.  The letter sent was submitted for the record of a June 10 virtual hearing on “The Rent is Still Due: America’s Renters, COVID-19, and an Unprecedented Eviction Crisis” by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development. 

• The Roundtable emphasizes in the letter that a specific rent assistance program for both residential and business tenants is needed to:
  
  
  • Keep workers housed and employed;
  • Maintain property taxes for state and local budgets that pay for essential community services;
  • Safeguard Americans’ retirement savings; and
  • Avoid a cascade of mortgage foreclosures.
    
    
• The letter explains that tenants’ rental revenues are the foundational link in an “obligation chain” that supports local government property taxes to pay for essential community services, provides the revenue to pay the salaries and benefits of real estate industry workers, maintains the stability of the mortgage system, and supports Americans’ pension and retirement savings.  

• Articles and studies cited in an attachment to the letter describe drastic declines in rent collections since April, especially from businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors.  A cited article published in the Washington Post on June 3 – “The next big problem for the economy: Businesses can’t pay their rent” – reports:
  
  
  • “The problem for the broader U.S. economy is that when businesses … stop paying rent, it sets off an alarming chain reaction. Landlords are now at risk of bankruptcy, too. Commercial real estate prices are falling. Jobs at property management companies and landscapers face cuts. Banks and private investors are unwilling to lend to most commercial real estate projects anymore, and cash-strapped city and local governments are realizing the property taxes they usually rely on from business properties are unlikely to be paid this summer and fall”

• Additionally, the letter cites CoStar Risk Analytics, which reports the commercial real estate market can expect to see borrowers default on more than 13,000 loans totaling $148 billion in value.

• The New York Times on June 5 also reported in “Tenants’ Troubles Put Stress on Commercial Real Estate” that landlords have begun to fall behind on the loans used to acquire or build properties, citing hotel and retail property data from Trepp.

• The Wall Street Journal this week reports that disputes between landlords and retail tenants over missed rent payments are now increasingly headed to court. (WSJ, June 9,  “Landlords’ New Credo for Late-Paying Retail Tenants: I’ll See You in Court”)

• The depressed state of business rent collections is a foreboding sign of diminishing commercial real estate asset values, which translates to lower property tax revenues for state and local governments to pay for infrastructure and essential health care and first-responder services. 

• The letter’s proposes that “Congress should strengthen the ‘obligation chain’ with a robust rental assistance program specifically designed to help business and residential tenants through the current crisis.”  General assistance criteria for business and residential tenants to qualify for emergency rent support are suggested in The Roundtable’s June 8 letter.

• The House subcommittee also heard from a coalition of national housing associations that submitted a letter focusing on the need for a residential rent assistance program.  “It is a top priority for the rental housing industry that Congress establish an emergency rental assistance program,” the groups wrote in their June 9 letter.  “We expect a significant number of residents will continue to be negatively affected by the pandemic, inhibiting their ability to pay their rent, even with the assistance provided in the CARES Act.”    

The need for policies to preserve the “rental obligation chain” and sustain economic recovery from the fallout of Covid-19 was a central topic during The Roundtable’s June 11-12 Virtual Annual Meeting.

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