Congress must acknowledge the impact COVID-19 has on the housing industry. Rent payments have effectively been cancelled due to the impending national quarantine. Property owners and housing professionals count on rents to pay mortgages, property taxes, insurance, labor, and material supplied by artisans and industrial manufacturers. Several sectors of the economy will receive bailouts from the worst impacts of the national quarantine, real estate MUST be one of them.

A bailout for the real estate sector is a bail out for the average American. Individual real estate investors account for 74.4% of rental properties in the United States. (US Census Bureau) 36.6% of US households are renting, the largest percentage since 1965. (Pew Research Center)

What does a real estate industry bail out look like? It would help both tenants and landlords:

1. Pay rents on behalf of the tenants to the landlords for the effective time of quarantine.
2. Pay mortgage and operating expenses for building owners during the effective time of quarantine.