What Does the Rental Market's Future Hold?

The rental housing market predicted a sharp decline of tenants paying rent at the beginning of the pandemic. But tenants continued to pay, creating the general consensus that rental housing is in a better place than commercial real estate, but will that continue? Forbes says that a new report gathering predictions from top real estate executives places rental housing in a “late stable” to “early downturn” status. The industry executives see apartments struggling next year, but a large percentage simply cannot predict the industry’s future. The uncertainty comes down to Class-B and Class-C and whether middle-class tenants will continue to pay rent.

So far, so good for the apartment business, but there’s a yellow flag on the track. Everybody thought that when forbearance came up, a lot of tenants would stop paying their rent. Well, tenants kept paying their rent—so far. But some of the artificial supports are about to be taken away, and the apartment business will have to stand on its own.

What are the top executives in the real estate industry thinking about the next 12 months? A survey of C-suite and other top real estate executives is included in a new report by RCLCO, which I coauthored.

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