Rent

Abandoned Apartment Building

I am not seeing any effects from the pandemic, other than less traffic on the highway, lower gas prices and more pedestrians out wandering around. Okay, there's a queue to get into Home Depot, there's sneeze shields in front of the cashier at ACE Hardware, and you can only get carry-out at Skyline Restaurant. But if the rumors are true and many businesses have shut down, then those businesses are unlikely to be able to pay their rent. Likewise all those people who have been laid off and who don't have six months pay saved, which is most everyone (if rumors are to be believed), then they aren't going to be able to pay their rent either. Which means something bad is going to happen to the real estate market. Landlords / mortgage companies are within their rights to evict people who aren't paying the rent, but it they do that, where are they going to find new tenants? Downtown Portland was having trouble renting store fronts before this happened.

If large numbers of people default on their mortgage / rent because of this pandemic, it is going to crash the commercial and low end residential real-estate markets. We are liable to see some weird stuff happening, like nationalizing apartment buildings, or mandating rent forgiveness or something. I expect landlords, if they aren't freaking out yet, will be soon. I know a negative income tax sounds a lot like socialism, but it might be a way to keep cities of homes from turning into cities of homeless.