Evictions Surge In Major Sunbelt Cities

From the Wall Street Journal:

Eviction filings over the past year in a half-dozen cities and surrounding metropolitan areas are up 35% or more compared with pre-2020 norms, according to the Eviction Lab, a research unit at Princeton University.

The elevated eviction filing rates in some places follow a sharp acceleration in rents, after pent-up demand during the pandemic flooded supply-short housing markets with people looking to rent. Those rent increases have pushed many lower-income tenants to the brink of what they can afford to spend. 

Despite a softening over the past year, asking rents for houses and apartments nationwide rose 30% in the four years spanning 2020 to 2023, according to the Zillow Observed Rent Index. 

Higher rents mean that even temporary income losses can be too much for tenants to ride out: About a quarter of renter households in America spend 50% or more of their income on housing, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Property-management software is also making it easier than ever to file evictions by automating parts of the process.

GoFundMe, a fundraising website, said eviction-related fundraisers nationally have risen by 40% since before the pandemic, including a 10% increase between May and June of this year.