Independent Landlord Rental Performance Report: November 2025

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

Key Takeaways

In November 2025, on-time rental payments in independently operated units rose by 65 basis points (bps) to 83.7%.
Measured year-over-year, on-time payment rates have fallen for 28 consecutive months.
Despite lower on-time payment rates, full payment rates have held up in 2025, averaging 96.1% this year — outperforming the 2024 average.
Late payments — the primary driver of underperformance in the mom-and-pop sector — have remained above 10% for all of 2025.
Western states continue to hold the highest on-time payment rates in the country, led by South Dakota, Utah, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
2–4-family rental properties led all property types in November with the highest on-time payment rate, coming in at 84.4%.

The Bottom Line Upfront

Recent national data paint a picture of improvement. While on-time collections remain well below post-pandemic highs, the recent positive inflection suggests a rebound is already underway. Objectively, current collection levels represent underperformance, though the upward trajectory is justifiably fueling optimism.

As detailed throughout this report, the primary source of underperformance in the mom-and-pop rental sector is a sizeable uptick in late payments. In 2023 and 2024, the three-month moving average of late payments never reached double digits. In 2025, late payments are forecast to have exceeded 10% in every month this year. As operators rely on tenant income to cover operating expenses, higher late-payment shares are far from harmless.

Still, late payments notwithstanding, these data also indicate that tenants are continuing to prioritize paying their rent — even when they fall behind. Despite higher late-payment rates in 2025, full-payment performance has outpaced 2024. Further, since this dataset counts partially satisfied rents as unpaid, the real income impact to landlords may be smaller than the topline figures suggest.

The current labor market environment is characterized by low heat — less hiring, but also less firing. Through September, the US economy has only added about 684,000 new jobs this year — less than half the pace of job creation in 2024 at the same point (+1.4 million payrolls).

While limited labor market churn may weigh on wage growth and rent growth, it also promotes income stability for households already employed. Moreover, even in the face of slowing labor market momentum, the economy has remained resilient. So long as the labor market avoids major job losses and inflation stays contained, on-time collections should continue to recover through the balance of 2025 and into 2026.

National Overview

On-time rental payments in independently operated units rose for the third consecutive month in November 2025 — a strengthening signal that the sector is rebounding off its performance floor. According to this month’s first estimate, 83.7% of units paid their full rent on time, an increase of 65 bps from October. Compared to the August 2025 trough, the November on-time payment rate is up by 130 bps.

Meanwhile, October’s on-time payment rate, initially reported at 83.5%, has been revised down to 83.0%.

Year-over-Year Change

While on-time payment rates have improved month-over-month, they remain significantly lower than a year ago — down 223 bps. On-time collections have now declined year-over-year for 28 consecutive months, marking a sustained period of soft performance.

Encouragingly, the pace of decline is moderating. After drops of roughly 300 bps in July, August, and September, the gap narrowed in October and November. Since the on-time payment rate has already improved by more than a percentage point from its Summer 2025 lows, a light at the end of the annual-declines tunnel is growing stronger.

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 November 2025 — which accounts for on-time, late, and historically anticipated late payments — fell by a de minimis 9 bps from the prior month, sliding to 94.9%. Notably, actual full-payment rates have outperformed forecasts in recent months, thanks to late payments being resolved at higher-than-expected rates. While this has weighed on the on-time rate, it indicates that tenants remain committed to making up missed payments.

Omitting the October and November data points, which remain heavily influenced by incoming late payments, the average monthly full-payment rate for 2025 currently stands at 96.1% — landing between the 2023 average (96.6%) and the 2024 average (95.3%).

Late Payments

Late payments have proven to be the primary source of underperformance for the mom-and-pop rental sector. While late payments are not as debilitating to property-level economics as outright missed payments, they remain a significant source of headaches for operators. The three-month moving average of late payments in independently operated rentals has risen consistently since mid-2024, climbing from a low of 8.4% to a high of 13.2% in August 2025. The fever saw its first signs of breaking in September, with the late-payment rate falling to 13.1%. While still elevated, the September late-payment rate snapped a five-month streak of increases.

Forecast late-payment rates for October and November currently stand at 12.0% and 11.3%, respectively.

Performance by Property Type

Trends within key rental subsectors reveal a clear performance gradient. Among the three tracked property types, 2–4-unit rentals led all property types in November 2025, posting an on-time payment rate of 84.4%. Single-family rentals (SFR) followed at 83.7%, while multifamily properties trailed with an average on-time collection rate of 82.5%.

Compared to the prior month, all three subsectors saw significant improvement. 2–4-unit rentals experienced the largest uptick (+77 bps), followed by single-family rentals (+61 bps) and multifamily (+55 bps).

Regional Differences

At the state level, continuing a consistent trend, properties in the West outperformed the rest of the country. In November 2025, on-time payment rates were highest in South Dakota (95.1%), followed by Utah (94.5%), Alaska (93.3%), Montana (92.8%), and Wyoming. New Hampshire (91.8%) was the only East Coast state to crack the top 10, coming in at ninth on the list, though Vermont (89.8%) and Virginia (89.8%) have also moved into the top 15.

Importance of the 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 66,125 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's primary businesses include real estate data science (REDS), economic & market research, and litigation consulting.

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, 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 November 2025 (current reporting period). As of the latest month of data availability, the reduced unit sample size totals 66,125. 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 November 16th would be treated as a charge corresponding to December'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