Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, many observers had dire predictions about what would happen with apartment rents.

"If you go back to when this started in March, people were thinking by the summer, the situation would implode and rent collections wouldn't be where they were," says Evan Blau, a partner at Cassin & Cassin LLP, a NY-based law firm and the leader of the firm's agency lending and affordable housing practice. "So the can has been kicked down on a positive note continually. Everyone thought this was going to be this catastrophic event."

While Blau, who represents lenders in the financing of multifamily properties through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs, thinks that rent payments have been better than anyone could have expected, he realizes tenants have gotten some help.