%1

Eviction filings nationwide have steadily risen in recent months and are approaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many cities and states. That’s in stark contrast to the pandemic, when state and federal moratoriums on evictions, combined with $46.5 billion in f ederal Emergency Rental Assistance, kept millions of families housed, the Associated Press reported. “I really think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Shannon MacKenzie, executive director of Colorado Poverty Law Project, said of June filings in Denver, which were about 24% higher than the same time three years ago. “Our numbers of evictions are increasing every month at an astonishing rate, and I just don’t see that abating any time soon.” According to The Eviction Lab, several cities are running far above historic averages, with Minneapolis-St. Paul 91% higher in June, Las Vegas up 56%, Hartford, Connecticut, up 32%, and Jacksonville, Florida, up 17%. In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, eviction filings in July were the highest in 13 years, officials said. Some legal advocates said the sharp increase in housing prices due to inflation is partly to blame. Rental prices nationwide are up nearly 15% from a year ago and almost 25% from 2019, according to the real estate company Zillow. Rental vacancy rates, meanwhile, have declined to a 35-year low of 5.8%, according to the Census Bureau.

Americans are starting to see an end for the relentless rise in US home prices. Consumers surveyed last month said they expect home prices to rise by about 3.5% in the coming year, down from an expected change of 4.4% a month earlier and 6% at the start of 2022, data from the New York Federal Reserve showed yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. The drop was reflected across education and income groups, marking the third-straight decline and the lowest expected growth rate since November 2020. Home prices have surged over the last couple of years, fueled through much of that time by ultra-low mortgage rates and a pandemic-fueled rush for more spacious properties. While price increases remain extremely high, recent data have shown a slight deceleration as higher borrowing costs deter prospective buyers and inventory picks up. The average on a 30-year loan is hovering just under 5%, Freddie Mac data show, up from roughly 3% at the end of last year.

American Dream, the $5 billion mall and entertainment complex in New Jersey’s Meadowlands, failed to make an interest payment that was due Monday on municipal bonds sold to help finance the venture, Bloomberg News reported. The more than 3 million-square-foot destination mall, which features an indoor ski slope, amusement park and water park, did not make an $8.8 million payment that was due, according to a regulatory filing. “The trustee has not received any revenues for payment of the August 1 debt service, and the reserve account does not have sufficient funds to make such payment,” the filing said. About $290 million of muni debt issued for American Dream is backed by New Jersey economic development grants based on sales-tax collections. As of early July, New Jersey’s Economic Development Authority hadn’t approved documents certifying project expenditures by the developer Triple Five Group. Those documents are needed to release the grants. Failure to make a payment on the so-called grant-revenue bonds doesn’t constitute a default nor does it require the borrower to pay back the loan immediately, according to bond documents. Bonds maturing in 2027 with a 6.25% coupon traded at about 91 cents on the dollar June 30, while debt with a 6.75% coupon maturing in 2031 traded at about 82.4 cents.

After more than a year of record run-ups in apartment rents, growth is starting to cool off, a trend that could help housing affordability and ease the rise in overall inflation, according to several market measures, the Wall Street Journal reported. Nationally, average apartment rents rose 9.4% in the second quarter of 2022 compared with the same quarter in 2021, according to data firm CoStar Group. While that is high by historical standards, it is down from the more than 11% annual increases seen the previous two quarters, CoStar said. The decline also comes at the time of year when the rental market is typically at its strongest. The slowing of the growth rate in the second quarter is “a really ominous sign,” said Jay Lybik, national director of multifamily analytics at CoStar. “It’s retreating quickly.” CoStar projects that rent growth will continue to slow in the coming months, finishing the year 6.2% higher than last year. The firm is projecting a 4.9% increase for 2023. The rental markets that are slowing fastest include many of the cities that saw some of the country’s fastest-growing rents during the pandemic, such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Tampa, Fla. In Phoenix, asking rent grew 10.1% in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, according to CoStar, down from the 18.4% annual increase in the first quarter of this year and the 21.3% rise in the fourth quarter of 2021. In Palm Beach, Fla., top-tier rents have actually fallen below their 2021 high point of $2,704 a month.