In the affordable housing segment, rent collections in April 2021 surpassed April 2020 levels, reflecting widespread improvement in jobs, incomes, household savings and consumer spending. Nationally, affordable housing operators collected 86.9% of rent due in April by the end of the month. That’s up 50 basis points (bps) from April 2020. We’re still off 2.8 percentage points from 2019, which is consistent with recent trends. Also, it’s critical to remember that 100% of rent is never collected even in the best of times. In 2019, for example, collections hovered in the 88-89% range for affordable housing. In other words, that means most renter distress is structural (existed pre-pandemic), and remarkably, distress increased only modestly after COVID-19 hit. The data shown here are from actuals (not surveys). It’s produced in partnership with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for their research group. It includes only apartment units attached to an affordable housing program such as HUD, Tax Credit, LIHTC, or Rural Housing Tax Credit.
