Last week, Fitch Ratings predicted that delinquent rent payments in American multifamily properties could lead to an increased number of evictions when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s moratorium on evictions expires at the end of the year.
Despite multifamily mortgage delinquencies remaining at a low level – Fitch says they are only “slightly” elevated from pre-pandemic levels for both affordable housing and market-rate housing loans in commercial mortgage backed securities – the slowing of the U.S. economy in the fourth quarter of 2020 could lead to “sustained high unemployment” that sees delinquencies and, ultimately, evictions rise sharply.