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Although the $46.5 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program has paid out tens of billions of dollars to help avert an eviction crisis, some tenants who received help are finding themselves threatened with eviction again — sometimes days after getting federal help, the Associated Press reported. Many are finding it nearly impossible to find another affordable place to live. The National Housing Law Project, in a survey last fall of nearly 120 legal aid attorneys and civil rights advocates, found that 86% of respondents reported cases in which landlords either refused to take assistance or accepted the money and still moved to evict tenants. The survey also found a significant increase in cases of landlords lying in court to evict tenants and illegally locking them out. “A number of issues could be described as issues related to landlord fraud ... and a set of problems I would describe as loopholes within the ... program that made it less effective to accomplish the goal,” said Natalie N. Maxwell, a senior attorney with the group. National Apartment Association President and CEO Bob Pinnegar said the survey was not based on facts, adding that its members are doing everything they can to keep tenants in their homes, including lobbying to get rental assistance out faster. Read more.

​​In related news, Seattle’s eviction moratorium implemented nearly two years ago due to the coronavirus pandemic will be extended through the end of February and then not renewed, the Associated Press reported. Mayor Bruce Harrell made the announcement Friday about the moratorium, which has prevented evictions of residential renters, small businesses and nonprofits. The Seattle Times reports it is at least the seventh time the moratorium, first enacted in March 2020, has been extended. “With COVID cases steadily declining, the time has come for the city to move on from the broad approach of the eviction moratoria and instead drive more deliberate and focused efforts to support those most in need,” Harrell said in a statement. Harrell directed the city’s Office of Housing to distribute $25 million to renters and small landlords, as a complement to the larger rental assistance being distributed by King County. About 124,000 households — more than 12% of all renters — in the Seattle metro area, which includes King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, are behind on rent, according to a Census survey from the first weeks of January. Read more.

Foreclosures on homes in the U.S. surged in January after a pandemic moratorium ended, though they remained well below pre-Covid levels, according to new data from RealtyTrac, Bloomberg News reported. Foreclosure filings such as default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions jumped 29% from a month earlier and more than doubled compared with January 2021, the report said. Lenders repossessed 4,784 properties in the month and started the process on another 11,854 homes. “It’s very important to keep these numbers in context,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of RealtyTrac, a unit of real estate research firm Attom Data Solutions. “Foreclosure completions are still far below normal levels -– less than half as many as in January of 2020 before the pandemic was declared. He said that after the end of the moratorium, “we’re likely to continue seeing large year-over-year percentage increases for the rest of this year.” Measured against the total number of homes, the state with the highest foreclosure rate is New Jersey, where one in every 2,336 housing units has a filing. Nationwide, the ratio is one in 5,922. Among large cities, the worst foreclosure rates in January were in Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago.

The owner of the Fortuna House apartments in Miami's Edgewater neighborhood filed for chapter 11 protection to halt a foreclosure lawsuit, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The building is currently unoccupied because the city declared it an unsafe structure, so this raises further questions about its future. Daniel Marzano signed the petition for the Hialeah-based company. It listed assets of $5.04 million and liabilities of $3.7 million. The company owns the 24-unit apartment complex at 432 N.E. 26th St. It was built on the 4,900-square-foot lot in 1925. In December, First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. filed a foreclosure complaint against Edgewater Holdings Miami over the property, alleging $2.8 million in principal, plus interest, was due and the loan was in default for missed payments. The case was still pending, but the chapter 11 filing stayed it. Edgewater Holdings Miami also had a pending lawsuit against Fortuna Holdings, the building's previous owner, accusing it of overstating the financial performance of the building in prior years and not disclosing physical defects of the building before it was sold. Fortuna Holdings denied the allegations.

Tens of thousands of residents of New York City public housing, many of whom lost their jobs after the city locked down two years ago, have fallen behind on their rent, raising fears of a coming rise in evictions, the New York Times reported. The problem has been compounded because public housing tenants have so far been shut out of a depleted pandemic rent relief program. The New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, which runs the nation’s largest public housing system, is owed more than $364 million of the rent it charged in 2021, the largest level of unpaid rent ever, the agency said. More than 68,000 households, roughly 42 percent of all of those in public housing, had overdue rent as of November 2021, according to the agency. The bleak picture has left many residents fearful that they may eventually lose their homes, deepening the city’s housing crisis. The fear is also fueled by NYCHA’s past practices. Between 2016 and 2018, more than 40,000 evictions cases were filed against NYCHA tenants annually, according to data from the New York State Office of Court Administration collected by the Housing Data Coalition and the Right to Counsel Coalition. The cases stemmed from missed rent payments as well as issues like property damage. NYCHA sent an email to residents last month saying that it planned to “restart nonpayment eviction proceedings” after the state’s eviction moratorium expired in mid-January.

American Dream, the $5 billion super mall in New Jersey’s Meadowlands, drained a reserve fund to make a bond payment as it struggles to attract shoppers and tenants with the pandemic set to begin its third year, Bloomberg News reported. The 3.5-million-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex, which features an indoor ski slope, amusement park and water park, nearly emptied a reserve account to make a $9.3 million payment due Tuesday on about $290 million of debt supported by sales tax receipts, according to a securities filing. About $820 is left in the reserve fund, the filing said. It’s not clear whether American Dream will make its next payment on the securities, due Aug. 1. Failure to make a payment on the sales tax debt doesn’t constitute a default nor require the borrower to pay back the loan immediately, according to bond documents. However, the filing disclosing the reserve draw included a letter from bond servicer Trimont Real Estate Advisors saying American Dream wasn’t complying with obligations under the bond documents to provide updates on project costs and performance. Remedies for the breach “range from specific performance to a special redemption of all the bonds,” the letter said.

Rising rents are one of the main drivers in the recent bout of inflation. They are also spurring many renters to try to buy a home as quickly as possible, the Wall Street Journal reported. Average monthly rents listed in the U.S. jumped more than 14% year over year in December, climbing to $1,877, according to data from Redfin. In many major cities, including Austin, Texas, and Miami, rents increased by more than 30%. Economists still recommend buying a home as a way to stave off inflation and build wealth, though it is hardly easy. Buyers are already contending with rising home prices, decreased inventory, bidding wars and the prospect of higher mortgage rates. Many renters are staying on the hunt nevertheless. They are redoing the math on renting after seeing their monthly payments go up and rushing to get a home — any home — to outrun coming rises in mortgage rates and future rent increases. The pressure on renters is coming from many directions. Higher rents are eating into buyers’ down-payment savings, while rising home prices mean they need to come up with a bigger down payment to compete with other buyers. As of January 2022, the median home price increased to $357,300, up 14% year over year, according to Redfin.

Rental prices across the country have been rising for months, but lately the increases have been sharper and more widespread, forcing millions of Americans to reassess their living situations, the Washington Post reported. Average rents rose 14 percent last year, to $1,877 a month, with cities like Austin, New York and Miami notching increases of as much as 40 percent, according to real estate firm Redfin. And Americans expect rents will continue to rise — by about 10 percent this year — according to a report released this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At the same time, many local rent freezes and eviction moratoriums have already expired. Higher rent prices are also expected to be a key driver of inflation in coming months. Housing costs make up a third of the U.S. consumer price index, which is calculated based on the going rate of home rentals. But economists say there is a lag of 9 to 12 months before rising rents show up in inflation measures. As a result, even if inflation were to subside for all other components of the consumer price index, rising rents alone could keep inflation levels elevated through the year, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at real estate data firm CoreLogic.