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Concern among landlords over tenants’ ability to pay rent for May appears to be unfounded, according to a recent collections survey of Oregon and Southwest Washington multifamily property owners and managers. Despite record job losses in Oregon in April and a national unemployment rate hovering around 15 percent, nonpayment for leased units this month dropped from the total for the prior month.

The survey, conducted by Kidder Mathews, drew responses from owners and managers of 728 properties containing 15,830 total units. As of May 11, only 9.46 percent of leased units had gone unpaid, a half-percent decrease from a survey taken in April. Units within the city of Portland went unpaid at 5.8 percent, and those in Portland’s suburbs went unpaid at 7.9 percent – both were improved from April. For properties outside the metro area, uncollected rents jumped to 10.2 percent from the 4.4 percent of the prior month.

Owner/landlord confidence was mixed. Half of the survey respondents reported feeling confident that they will ultimately collect past due rent from all or most of their tenants, whereas in April less than one-third anticipated collecting unpaid rent. However, nearly three-quarters of respondents anticipate that June’s rent collection will be worse than May; nearly a quarter anticipate it will be about the same. Only 1.4 percent expect an improvement from this month to next.