According to new data by the National Multifamily Housing Council and a variety of real-estate data providers, nearly a third of apartment renters in the U.S. did not pay their rent the first week of April. Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel discusses.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: But right now, we know for a fact that people are getting hurt in this downturn. And this is news that's coming from the organization that-- it's the National Multifamily Housing Council and also real estate data providers. Nearly one third of renters in the United States were unable to pay their rent the first week of April. That's down. It was something like 69% paid their rent compared to 81% in the first week of March and 82% in April of 2019.

Let's discuss what this means. And as we go forward, I want to bring in the panel. We've got Julia La Roche, we've got Akiko Fujita, and also Julie Hyman. Julie, what jumps out at you about this?

JULIE HYMAN: Well, there are a lot of questions around these numbers because we have had certain municipalities that have said they are not going to initiate any eviction proceedings at this time. That's true of New York City, but it's not universal. So it's not clear now whether this will have a ripple effect and affect some families.

Keep in mind, there are a lot of other numbers to consider as we're talking about all of this housing data. We got mortgage applications this morning that fell by nearly 18%, so we know people are not looking at buying homes right now, which is not surprising. We also learned over the past couple of days that there has been a 2,000% surge in the number of people asking for forbearance on their mortgages. In other words, asking not to have to pay their mortgages right now.

And so obviously there are a lot of people looking for some kind of relief here. The renters, some of the renters are just not doing it. I'm sure there are some folks who are just not paying their mortgages either. And then there's the question of how forgiving will landlords and banks be at this point in time.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, Julie, to add it to your point, I think we want to look several months down the line. Because right now what we've got are more forgiving rules in place, whether it is cities that are banning any kind of eviction, both on the commercial front as well as on the residential front, but we're talking about a two-month to three-month window right now. So what happens at the end of it?

A lot of these renters, for example, you know, they're not just choosing not to pay rent. They're doing it because they can't, because they potentially have been cut from their jobs. And so if that job, if the hiring doesn't pick up, if they don't get their jobs back, we're going to be looking at a much worse situation several months down the line when that rent is going to be due. And then what happens?

And as you point out, it is a ripple effect, because landlords who are freezing their rent are doing so because they don't have to pay their mortgage right now. When renters come back three months later and say they can't do it, then you're looking at a much more significant sum.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Yeah, and to Akiko's point, I think you hit it right there on-- the nail on the head, especially when it comes to the ripple effect. And guys, I think this just goes beyond just the residential. Because when you think about it, a lot of folks now have gone three weeks without a paycheck. Look at the initial claims number, within two weeks hitting 10 million.

It's expected-- we have the report coming out tomorrow-- that's expected to rise. Well, maybe not rise again, but another several million, at least that's what some of the projections are. So it's a pretty dire picture, and especially when you think about folks who can't even get to the other $400 in an emergency.

I had a conversation with Howard Schultz two days ago, the former CEO of Starbucks, and our conversation did kind of talk about commercial real estate. At some point, you're going to have to see the government work with landlords to have some sort of facility to have a backstop here. And going back to this specific report, residential, they did point out just a significant number did pay their mortgage, which is also telling, just given the severity of the times that we are in.

ADAM SHAPIRO: All right. And just one thing about this, because we're going to keep an eye on this data, is that it was roughly 13.4 million investment grade units with incomes-- the tenants had incomes-- that skew higher. It did not include single-family houses that are being rented, nor did it include subsidized housing.