[Survey] Rent Payment and Eviction Trends - November 2020

In mid-November, we sent a survey to over 70,000 active TurboTenant landlords and renters to gain insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their rental process, specifically regarding rent payments, evictions, mortgage payments, debt and income, communication trends, as well as tenant screening criteria. This is our fifth survey in our series on COVID-related landlord and tenant topics. We will continue to publish insights and data through the end of 2020 and into 2021. This survey was conducted between November 12th – November 17th. Our key takeaways and insights from both landlords and tenants for our November survey are highlighted below. You can read our October analysis.

Landlord and Renter Demographics

Below we have outlined high-level demographic information for landlord and renter respondents related to location, unit size, forbearance, annual household income, and savings.

Landlords

Key Data Points:

• 58% of landlords own rental property in cities or urban areas.
• 44% of landlords have a mortgage on all their properties, 26% have a mortgage on some of their rental properties and 30% have no mortgage.
• 5% of landlords are currently in forbearance.
• Unit size breakdown: 1-4 Units – 62%, 5-10 Units – 18%, 11-20 Units – 10%, 21+ Units – 10%.
• 32% of landlords reported having to dip into their savings to cover their rental mortgage.

Renters

Key Data Points:

• 58% of renters live in cities or urban areas.
• 56% of renters have an annual household income of less than $50,000.
• 20% of renters had to take on additional debt to cover rent expenses.
• 26% of renters had to dip into their savings or emergency fund to cover rent.

Rent Payments

Breakdown by State, Unit, and Community Type

Key Takeaways: 

• 59% of landlords received full rent payments in November, down eight percentage points from October.
• Colorado received the most full payments at 79%, California, Florida, and New York were all hit the hardest with 13% of landlords reporting receiving no rent payments.
• Independent landlords with 1-4 units received the most full rent payments at 68%, and the most missed payments at 14%.
• Landlords in suburban communities received the most full payments at 67%, and landlords in cities, urban, and suburban communities both reported the same number of non-payments of rent at 10%.
• 37% of landlords who did not receive full rent set up a payment plan with their tenants.

Renter Data

Key Takeaways:

• 73% of renters living in urban areas paid their rent in-full.
• 86% of tenants are confident they can pay their full rent amount in December, and 84% are confident they can pay in January.   
• 10% of tenants paid their rent with a credit card, and 14% paid using a combination of both cash and credit.
• 18% of tenants with household incomes of less than $50,000 were unable to pay their rent.
• 21% of tenants reported spending more than 50% of their income on rent.
• 16% of tenants reported communication with their landlord has increased, and 54% said text messages were their primary means of communication.

Tenant Screening Criteria

Key Takeaways:

• 25% of landlords have made their tenant screening criteria more stringent, 7% have made it less stringent.
• Nearly 60% of landlords require a credit score of 600 or more; 9% require a credit score of 700 or more.
• 40% of landlords reported they had to lower their monthly rent amount in order to fill a vacancy.

We will continue to update this data every month. If you have data requirements that are outside the scope of this article, please email [email protected]. We have ongoing data collection and are happy to supply another data set if it is available. Check out all of our COVID-19 landlord resources.

If you are in the process of filling your properties, TurboTenant can help streamline your rental process with easy and free online rental applications as well as thorough tenant screening so you can find the best renter for your property.