Americans are struggling in the shadow of the coronavirus crisis to repay mortgages. People living in rentes also have problems.

According to CBSnews television, with reference to data from banking houses, 2 million American property owners are already at least a month behind with a mortgage payment. And this, according to television, is a sign that the sharp economic downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic is already taking its toll on the tight budgets of American households.

The volume of repayable mortgages rose to 3.7 percent in the first week of April. Just a week earlier, at the end of March, this volume of outstanding mortgages was one percent lower (2.7 percent), according to data from the American Mortgage Bankers Association. Even during March, the share of mortgages that were in a slippage with repayment was only 0.25 percent. According to Mike Fratantoni of the association, Americans are now using a legal measure that temporarily prevents the eviction of people who are unable to repay their mortgage on time due to coronavirus.

Not only the owners but also the people living in the rent have problems. In the first week of April, almost a third of U.S. tenants did not pay their rent (wages and rents are paid on a weekly basis in the U.S.), The Wall Street Journal reported, referring to data from real estate agencies covering a total of 13.4 million U.S. tenants.

In connection with the current situation, a number of American cities and states have imposed temporary moratoriums on the eviction of defaulters. The reason is that people can stay at home and have some refuge from the spread of coronavirus. This is a priority in the current situation, writes the Vox portal.

American households are trying to come up with their budgets in a situation of redundancies and unemployment in the US threatens to rise to record numbers known from the time of the great economic crisis in the 1920s. Analysts expect that the number of Americans who will not be able to repay their mortgages will skyrocket as unemployment rises.

In early April, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits in the United States reached 17 million. Many experts expect unemployment in the US to exceed 10 percent by the end of April.

Source links www.wsj.com,  www.vox.com , www.cbsnews.com