Rental property foreclosures more than doubled in 2025 as the District’s extended eviction moratorium led to tenants not paying rent and owners struggling to pay bills, according to a new report.
The Small Multifamily Owners Association, which represents the District’s affordable housing providers, estimated this month that foreclosure sales of buildings with five-to-50 housing units increased from 14 in 2024 to 29 last year.
The association’s report found that 174 buildings of this size, representing the bulk of the city’s low-rent housing market, sold “under pressure” last year. That’s up 45% from 120 sales the year before.
“Across the city, apartments remained largely occupied, but rent payments became inconsistent long enough to destabilize operations, delay repairs, and force sales,” the association said. “Owners continued paying taxes, utilities, insurance, and emergency repairs — even as rent stopped coming in regularly.”
The report also found that rental housing buildings sold faster than usual as operators struggled to unload them, with pricing falling by 14% from $148,000 per unit to $127,000 over the period.
The group calculated that the average 20-unit building lost between $400,000 and $500,000 in property value, and a 40-unit building lost at least $1 million. The average 75-unit building lost between $2 million and $3.5 million, while a 120-unit building lost between $3.5 million and $6 million.
Association officials said the strain of paying utilities, insurance, emergency repairs, property taxes, and other expenses without a steady cash flow all increased pressure on owners to sell.
Dean Hunter, CEO of the Small Multifamily Owners Association, said that the report charts the damage caused by city officials extending the pandemic eviction moratorium from 2021 to the end of last year.
“No other jurisdiction in the country kept pandemic renter protections in place for so long, and it caused significant harm to affordable housing owners,” Mr. Hunter said Monday.
He voiced concern that the city is still slow-walking the collection of over $1 billion in unpaid rent from that period, despite the D.C. Council lifting some pandemic renter protections last year.
“The mayor wanted deadlines for landlord court hearings, but the Council gutted them,” Mr. Hunter added. “The bottom line is that evictions are still taking over a year, and 25% of tenants still aren’t paying rent nearly a month into the new law.”
In September, the Democrat-controlled D.C. Council voted to roll back some pandemic eviction protections, directing local courts to collect overdue balances from deadbeat renters.
The amended RENTAL Act took effect on Dec. 31 after council members rejected Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposal that it include a 45-day court deadline for initial eviction hearings.
Council member Robert White, an at-large Democrat who sponsored the final version of the legislation, did not respond to a request for comment on this month’s report.
Neither did the office of Ms. Bowser, a third-term Democrat and advocate for affordable housing who has declined to seek reelection.
According to city estimates, 13 D.C. Superior Court judges were handling roughly 270 monthly eviction cases in September, and the eviction rate was expected to rise from 16% to 22% by the end of December.
As of this week, more recent eviction statistics were unavailable.
Several council members declined to comment on the Small Multifamily Owners Association report. They referred questions to Mr. White and to city officials.
The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development said the impacts of the RENTAL Act will not be immediately evident.
“Data on evictions and repayment plans is still being finalized,” the office said in an emailed statement. “Rebalancing won’t happen overnight; the District hopes to see meaningful progress as implementation matures.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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