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About 750,000 renter households will likely lose their homes this year after the Supreme Court blocked the federal eviction moratorium, according to Goldman Sachs economists, Politico reported. Analysts at the investment bank estimate that tenants owe between $12 billion and $17 billion to landlords as COVID-19 cases surge, with about 2.5 million to 3.5 million households behind on rent. The findings that Goldman released late Sunday mark one of the first comprehensive estimates of what could happen in the absence of the eviction moratorium, which was stopped as state and local governments continued to experience bottlenecks in the delivery of $46.5 billion in federal rental assistance. Given the slow pace of rental aid disbursement, Goldman's analysts expect that between 1 million and 2 million households will remain without support and at risk of eviction when the remaining state and local eviction bans expire at the end of September. The economists based their findings on rent delinquency data from real estate companies, the National Multifamily Housing Council and the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Department of Education has canceled more than $9 billion in student loan debt since President Biden has come into office with moves that will affect more than 563,000 borrowers, The Hill reported. The agency confirmed the new top-line figure upon its recent announcement detailing its cancellation of $1.1 billion in debt for 115,000 borrowers that attended ITT Technical Institute, which is now defunct. The department said borrowers receiving relief attended ITT during a period in which the institution misrepresented its finances and misled students about “unaffordable private loans that were allegedly portrayed as grant aid.” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said ITT, which closed permanently in 2016, "hid its true financial state from borrowers" for years "while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school." Cardona extended the window for relief to March 31, 2008, after a review by the agency into events that led to the closure of the institution, as well as filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the company’s bankruptcy court proceedings.

Would-be home buyers priced out of the sales market are finding little consolation when they turn instead to the single-family rental market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Prices are soaring there as well. Asking rents for houses rose nearly 13% for the year to date through July, the highest annual increase in the past five years as tracked by real estate data company Yardi Matrix, which analyzed professionally managed properties. The sharp rise partly reflects increasing demand from people who can’t afford to buy homes as well as city-dwellers who moved to the suburbs to rent during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the supply of new houses also continues to trail historical levels relative to population growth, and builders in some places remain constrained by zoning laws and available land.

The clock is now ticking for millions of Americans who are set to face a series of stinging financial hardships in a matter of days, with the loss of federal protections against eviction and looming cuts to their weekly unemployment checks, the Washington Post reported. The two developments arrive at a moment of great tension in Washington, where the White House and Congress have grappled over the state of the country’s pandemic aid — and confronted their limited ability to authorize more of it — even as the economy shows potential signs of strain in the face of a resurgent coronavirus. The first blow arrived Friday, as landlords now can more easily begin removing tenants who have fallen behind on their monthly payments. The potential wave of evictions comes after the Supreme Court found the Biden administration’s recent eviction moratorium to be unconstitutional, leaving the White House powerless to issue its own new directive protecting as many as 6.4 million households that are not current on their rents, according to federal survey data. Many Americans also have struggled to obtain federal rental aid from state and local programs that were allocated tens of billions of dollars in past stimulus packages. Some of those same families could face additional financial peril as enhanced unemployment insurance benefits are set to lapse. Congress repeatedly has extended these weekly checks, but President Biden and some of his congressional allies have not sought to renew them ahead of their planned expiration Sept. 6. That could threaten 7.5 million people with the loss of much-needed income, according to a recent estimate from the Century Foundation. Read more. 

In related news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is throwing support behind legislation aiming to expedite federal rental aid to tenants and landlords, The Hill reported. Pelosi yesterday lauded the efforts by House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in seeking to reform the nationwide emergency rental assistance program, as state and local governments have been slow to distribute federal aid amid a housing crisis that has worsened amid the pandemic. Pelosi said that Waters was working on building a "consensus" behind the rental aid bill, which like many Democratic priorities will require compromise to overcome likely Republican resistance. In a Dear Colleague letter last week, Waters said the legislation she is working on — and plans to present for mark up on Sept. 13 — would require grantees “to accept the self-attestation of a tenant and to provide assistance directly to tenants in certain circumstances.” Waters said that the forthcoming bill would also allow landlords to “directly apply for back rent after providing notice to their tenants that they intend to apply” and instruct the Treasury Department and “grantees to conduct additional outreach to prospective tenants and landlords,” while also providing the Treasury with an additional $25 million to do so. Read more.

Congress is under new pressure to keep millions of Americans in their homes after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s latest eviction moratorium, The Hill reported. The court said in its 6-3 ruling late Thursday night that it is up to Congress to authorize a freeze on evictions, but lawmakers have been unable to make that happen. Members of Congress are urging state and local governments to quickly get federal rental assistance funds into the hands of eligible recipients. They are also weighing additional legislative action to extend the moratorium and speed up the delivery of rental aid. Democrats narrowly control both the House and the Senate, making congressional action challenging on divisive issues like the eviction ban. But they say they want to prevent a wave of evictions at a time when coronavirus cases have increased due in part to the highly contagious delta variant and the number of unvaccinated Americans.

America’s tribal lands, home to more than a million people, are often credit deserts, lacking the access to capital necessary to make homeownership a reality for the Native Americans who desire to live on them, the Wall Street Journal reported. Traditional mortgages in the U.S. are secured by two valuable pieces of collateral: the home itself and the land on which it sits. But in Indian Country, swaths of land are held in trust, preventing lenders from staking a claim if the homeowner stops paying. There is a workaround, but it is complicated. Obtaining the necessary approvals can take years, even for borrowers working with experienced lenders like Mr. Burnette. It is one reason Native Americans are less likely to be homeowners: Some 57% of Native Americans owned homes in 2019, versus 72% of whites, according to the Minneapolis Fed’s Center for Indian Country Development. Still, there is some optimism in Indian Country that change is afoot. Deb Haaland this year became the first Native American to lead the U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Marcia Fudge, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, spoke about mortgage access on reservations during her confirmation hearing. Two senators introduced legislation in June to expand mortgage credit on reservations through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Getting credit flowing is a tall task. Last year, lenders packaged up and sold less than $900 million of loans through the federal program that supports American Indian home buyers, a tiny fraction of the $4-trillion-plus U.S. mortgage market, according to industry research firm Inside Mortgage Finance.

Growth in U.S. consumer spending slowed in July to a modest increase of 0.3% as infections from the delta variant spread, while inflation over the past 12 months hit its fastest pace in three decades, the Associated Press reported. Last month’s spending was not even a third of the 1.1% rise in June, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. It was the clearest signal yet that the surge in the delta variant of the coronavirus has had an impact on consumer spending, the driving force in the economy. Consumer prices over the past 12 months have risen 4.2%, the biggest 12-month gain since a 4.5% increase for the 12 months ending in January 1991. This price index tied to consumer spending is the inflation gauge preferred by the Federal Reserve. The 4.2% increase over the past year is well above the Fed’s annual inflation target of 2% but so far Fed officials view the jump in inflation as transitory and have not changed their easy-money policies in the belief that rising infections could become a threat to future growth.

A divided Supreme Court has ended a national moratorium on evictions in parts of the country ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, removing protections for millions of Americans who have not been able to make rent payments, the Washington Post reported. A coalition of landlords and real estate trade groups in Alabama and Georgia challenged the latest extension of a moratorium imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued Aug. 3 and intended to run through Oct. 3. In an unsigned opinion released last night, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed that the federal agency did not have the power to order such a ban. “It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant,” the majority’s eight-page opinion said. “But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends. . . . It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.” The court’s three liberal justices dissented and said the majority’s rush to end the moratorium was inappropriate and untimely. “The public interest strongly favors respecting the CDC’s judgment at this moment, when over 90% of counties are experiencing high transmission rates,” wrote Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The National Association of Realtors said the court’s action was correct “from both a legal standpoint and a matter of fairness. It brings to an end an unlawful policy that places financial hardship solely on the shoulders of mom-and-pop housing providers, who provide nearly half of all rental housing in America, and it restores property rights in America.” The moratorium had already been considered once by the high court. A district judge in D.C., and several other courts around the country, said in a series of rulings that powers granted to the CDC to protect public health during a pandemic did not include a ban on evictions for those who fell behind on their payments. But U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich stayed her most recent order so that the administration could appeal.