Independent Landlord Rental Performance Report: March 2026

Monthly Tracker of On-Time Payments in Non-Institutional ("Mom-and-Pop") Rental Properties

Key Takeaways

In March 2026, on-time rental payments rose to 83.9%, marking the fifth increase in the past six months and extending the recovery from the September 2025 low.
Year-over-year, on-time payment rates remain lower than a year ago, though the pace of annual declines has continued to narrow.
Full-payment rates strengthened to 96.1%, the highest level since mid-2025, reflecting continued resolution of late payments.
Late-payment pressure has eased since late 2025 and is expected to continue moderating into early 2026, though levels remain elevated relative to historical norms.
Western and Mountain states continue to lead national performance, with several markets posting on-time payment rates in the low- to mid-90% range.

The Bottom Line Upfront

Recent national data point to continued, but measured, improvement across independently operated rental properties. On-time payment rates increased again in March, marking the fifth gain in the past six months and extending the recovery from the September 2025 low. While the pace of improvement remains gradual, the trend suggests that the sector is continuing to work through the pressures that emerged in mid-2025.

At the same time, late payments — the primary source of underperformance in the mom-and-pop rental segment — remain elevated. While late-payment pressure has eased since late 2025 and is expected to continue moderating into early 2026, levels remain above the 10% threshold that has historically marked a more stable operating environment. As a result, cash flow timing remains a key challenge for independent landlords, even as overall rent realization holds up.

Full-payment rates continue to reflect this resilience. Despite softer on-time performance, the majority of late payments are ultimately being resolved, with full-payment rates holding near 96% on average. Because partially satisfied rents are classified as unpaid in this dataset, topline on-time figures likely overstate the degree of income disruption facing landlords.

Looking ahead, emerging macroeconomic risks introduce a new layer of uncertainty. While the labor market has softened, with job growth stagnating in recent months, the more immediate concern is the renewed upward pressure on inflation. Recent geopolitical developments have pushed energy prices higher and lifted inflation expectations, reversing some of the progress toward price stability. For renter households already operating on the margin, a period of elevated living costs could place additional strain on balance sheets, with potential implications for rent payment performance. While current trends remain constructive, the path forward is likely to depend increasingly on the broader inflation and income environment as 2026 unfolds.

National Overview

On-time rental payments in independently operated units moved higher in March 2026, marking the fifth increase in the past six months and reinforcing the stabilization trend that emerged late last year. According to the latest data, 83.9% of units paid their full rent on time in March, up from 82.9% in February. While the pace of improvement remains measured, on-time payment rates are now 163 basis points above their September 2025 low, signaling a continued, albeit gradual, recovery in payment performance.

As additional payment data have been incorporated, prior month estimates have been revised modestly. February’s on-time payment rate, initially reported at 83.7%, has since been revised down to 82.9%. These revisions reflect the typical reconciliation process as late-arriving payments are fully accounted for, along with the incorporation of ex post manual entries, and do not materially alter the broader trend of stabilization entering early 2026.

Year-over-Year Change

Despite recent month-to-month improvement, on-time payment rates remain materially below year-ago levels. Compared to March 2025, on-time collections are down by 193 basis points, extending the streak of year-over-year declines to 32 consecutive months.

That said, the pace of annual deterioration continues to ease. Year-over-year gaps that exceeded 300 basis points during the late summer and fall of 2025 have narrowed meaningfully in recent months. With on-time payment rates now 163 basis points above their September 2025 low, the data increasingly point to stabilization and a gradual rebuilding of payment performance as the sector moves further into 2026.

Note: As of May 2024, monthly data estimates are reported as a three-month moving average.

Full-Payment Rate: Historical & Forecast

The forecast full-payment rate for March 2026 — which accounts for on-time, late, and historically anticipated late payments — is estimated at 96.1%, representing a meaningful increase from February’s 95.3% estimate. This marks the highest projected full-payment rate since June 2025, signaling continued improvement in overall rent collection outcomes.

As in prior months, realized full-payment outcomes have tended to modestly outperform initial forecasts, reflecting a higher-than-expected resolution rate of late payments. While this dynamic has weighed on on-time performance, it underscores the continued willingness and ability of tenants to cure missed payments over time.

The average monthly full-payment rate for 2025 stood at approximately 96.0%, placing performance between the 2023 average (96.6%) and the 2024 average (95.3%). This reinforces the view that income realization for independent landlords has remained relatively resilient despite elevated late-payment activity.

Late Payments

Late payments remain the primary source of underperformance for the mom-and-pop rental sector. While late payments are generally less damaging to property-level economics than outright nonpayment, they continue to pose a meaningful operational challenge. Independent landlords rely heavily on timely rental income to meet recurring expenses, making payment delays particularly disruptive.

Late-payment activity rose steadily through much of 2024 and 2025, climbing from a cycle low of 8.4% to a post-pandemic high of 13.4% in September 2025. Since then, conditions have begun to improve. Late-payment pressure eased in late 2025 and is projected to continue moderating into early 2026, with forecasts declining to 12.4% in February and 12.1% in March.

While this recent improvement is encouraging, late payments remain elevated relative to longer-run norms. Even as the trend has shifted, payment delays continue to exceed pre-2025 levels, suggesting that underlying strain in renter finances has not yet normalized.

Performance by Property Type

Performance across rental subsectors continues to show a clear gradient. In March 2026, 2–4-family rentals once again led all property types, posting an on-time payment rate of 84.8%. Single-family rentals followed at 84.0%, while multifamily properties remained the weakest-performing segment at 83.4%.

All three subsectors recorded month-over-month improvement, reinforcing the broader recovery trend observed at the national level. Gains were particularly notable in smaller property types, which continue to demonstrate greater resilience in rent collection performance.

While on-time payment rates remain below earlier-cycle highs across all segments, the recent improvement has been broadly shared. This suggests that stabilization in payment performance is not confined to a single property type, but rather reflects a more generalized improvement across the independently operated rental market.

Regional Differences

At the state level, regional performance patterns remained broadly consistent in March 2026. Western and Mountain states continued to lead the nation, with South Dakota (95.4%), New Hampshire (94.0%), Utah (93.1%), Colorado (92.2%), and Wyoming (92.1%) posting the highest on-time payment rates.

Performance at the lower end of the distribution remained concentrated in parts of the Southeast and Appalachian regions. Tennessee (77.0%), Mississippi (77.9%), Vermont (79.4%), and Maryland (80.8%) recorded the weakest on-time payment rates nationally.

While dispersion across states remains notable, the broader pattern of Western outperformance relative to other regions continues to hold, reflecting persistent differences in local economic conditions and renter profiles.

Importance of the Independent Landlord Rental Performance Report

The Independent Landlord Rental Performance report provides valuable insights into how well non-institutional landlords are managing rental payments. It uses data from property management software RentRedi, showcasing results from 64,552 units. Information is collected and reported monthly by Chandan Economics. The trends highlighted here can serve as a benchmark for investors, brokers, and policymakers to understand the health of independent landlords in the rental market.

About: Chandan Economics

Chandan Economics is an economic advisory and data science firm serving the commercial real estate industry. The firm provides bespoke research, analytics, and advisory services to investors, lenders, operators, and public- and private-sector clients. Core practice areas include real estate data science (REDS), economic and market research, and litigation consulting, with a focus on translating complex data into clear, decision-relevant insight.

About: RentRedi

RentRedi is the leading comprehensive, data-powered rental management software for smart landlords and investors. It helps landlords and their tenants rent smarter by providing all the tools and intelligence needed to optimize portfolios, boost retention, reduce turnover, and improve the lives of everyone in the rental process. By combining real-time data, user behavior insights, and customer feedback with a modern, intuitive interface, RentRedi delivers solutions that help savvy real estate investors increase revenue, reduce risk, save time, minimize friction, and improve relationships. For landlords, the all-in-one web and mobile app streamlines rent collection, listings, tenant screening, lease signing, maintenance coordination, accounting, and more. For their tenants, it includes online rent payment, auto-pay, credit building and boosting, 24/7 maintenance requests, among other services. Founded in 2016, RentRedi is VC-backed and a proven PropTech leader. It has been recognized by the Inc. 5000, Inc. Power Partners, Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech, and HousingWire’s Tech100. With more than $33 billion in assets under management and nearly 300,000 landlords and tenants using its platform, RentRedi partners with leading technology providers including Zillow, TransUnion, Experian, Equifax, Realtor.com, Lessen, Thumbtack, Plaid, and Stripe to create the best customer experience possible. Learn more at RentRedi.com.

Methodology

Data are reported on a forward basis from March 2020 through March 2026 (current reporting period). As of the latest month of data availability, the reduced unit sample size totals 64,552. Rent charges are measured on a 15th-to-15th-of-the-month basis. Rent charges that are issued after the 15th of the current month are treated as a rent charge for the following rent-tracking period. (E.g., a rent charge sent on February 16th would be treated as a charge corresponding to March's owed rental payment.) Monthly estimates are represented as a three-month moving average.

Only charges designated as "rental income" are included for analysis. Rent charges below $500 and above $10,000 are excluded from this analysis.

Units that have not paid any form of rental income (full or partial) in the previous 60 days at the time a new rental charge is issued are removed from the sample tracking sample. Unpaid units refer to all units that have yet to fully satisfy their owed rents for a collection period. These unpaid units include units that have only partially paid their rent. As a means of reporting standardization, units with more than one monthly rent charge (E.g., rent paid weekly) are removed from the rent tracking sample.

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE'S ECONOMIC ADVISORS