COVID-19: Staying Ahead in a Crisis with Analytics (Webcast Summary)

To support the multifamily community through the current COVID-19 crisis, we’ve launched a series of discussions centered around its impact on the rental housing industry with the latest data, expert insights and actionable measures stakeholders can take to minimize fallout. Register for upcoming webcasts and watch previous episodes on demand at the COVID-19: Resource Center.  This is a condensed summary from the webcast, COVID-19: Staying Ahead in a Crisis with Analytics, broadcast on April 14, featuring RealPage® Deputy Chief Economist/VP Jay Parsons and Industry Principal Andrew Bowen with special guest Miguel Gutierrez, Chief Operating Officer at CAPREIT. LATEST APARTMENT DATA: TRAFFIC & LEASING ACTIVITY Highlights from the latest assessment of key leasing traffic indicators, sourced from RealPage systems using rolling 7-day counts on a same-store basis, showed that property website traffic was down 6%, guest cards were down 23.4% and executed new leases were down 31.7%.  However, the trends in both website traffic and new lease signings did improve over drastic declines in the prior week, while guest cards held flat week-over-week but were up compared to the low point two weeks ago.  We also continue to see strong indicators that social distancing plus economic uncertainty is driving retention rates even higher with 54.1% of expiring leases renewed in March.  Historically, retention rates usually peak in February before slightly easing in March. From 2011 to 2019, there was an average 90 bps seasonal decline in retention between February and March. The opposite has occurred this year, with retention inching up 30 bps month-over-month. Correlated with this trend was a huge spike in rescinded non-renewal notices with an indication of very high retention numbers for April. Payments (or collections) fared better than many executives expected, given the backdrop of 17 million jobs lost in three weeks, with 69% of convent...