SALEM — The majority of Oregonians once again paid their rent on time in September, but the latest numbers from housing groups continued to show a decline in the percentage of tenants paying their rent at the beginning of the month.

According to data compiled by RealPage, a company that provides property management software, 81% of renters in Oregon made full or partial rental payments by Sept. 6. Roughly the same percentage of renters in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro area paid their full or partial rent within the first six days of the month.

Those numbers are down 11 percentage points from Sept. 6 of last year when about 92% of renters in the Portland area and in Oregon overall had made full or partial rental payments, according to RealPage. The year-over-year drop in on-time rental payments is the largest Real Page has reported in its Oregon and Portland-area rental data since the start of the pandemic.

Data compiled by Multifamily NW, a rental industry group, sheds new light on the number of tenants in Portland that have struggled to meet their rent obligations since the start of the pandemic.

In a survey of more than 70,000 Portland renters, Multifamily NW found that 12% of renters failed to pay their rent in May, while 15% failed to pay their rent in June and 14% failed to pay their rent in July.

The Portland Housing Bureau estimates that Portland renters will have missed over $120 million in rental payments during the pandemic if nonpayment rates hold through September.

Fewer tenants paid their rent on time in September nationwide as well, as the federal government’s $600 unemployment boost and other coronavirus relief programs expired.

The National Multifamily Housing Council, a trade organization representing apartment owners, surveyed 11.4 million professionally managed apartment units across the country and found that just over 76% of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by Sept. 6, down from 79% a month earlier and down nearly five percentage points from the same date last year.

Adam Couch, a market analyst with RealPage, said that holidays, including Labor Day, often disrupt rent collections and the percentage of renters who are able to meet their September rent obligations could increase as the month goes on.

But Couch also said that the expiration of the $600 federal weekly unemployment boost appears to have had an impact on the ability of tenants to meet their rent obligations as well. The $600 boost, which was enacted as part of federal coronavirus relief legislation in March, expired at the end of July after Congress failed to come to a compromise to extend or replace the benefit.

President Donald Trump redirected FEMA funds in August to support a smaller $300 weekly unemployment boost, but Oregon and other states are still in the process of paying out that benefit.

Oregon expects to start paying that money by the end of September, but the FEMA funds will only support six weeks of bonus payments, through the end of August.Renters in Class C apartments, units generally occupied by low-to-moderate income residents, may have been hit the hardest by the expiration of the $600 unemployment boost. Only 66% of Class C households had paid their rent by September 6, down over 10 percentage points from the same date last year, Couch said.

“Increasing financial stress among renters appears likely to have had some influence on the payment levels (in September),” Couch said.

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration ordered a moratorium on evictions through the end of the year to help renters who have experienced financial hardships due to the coronavirus pandemic. But renters will still be required to pay accumulated back-rent when the moratorium expires, which could lead to a massive increase in evictions at the start of next year.

Oregon lawmakers voted in June to extend the state’s ban on evictions for both residential and commercial properties until Sept. 30 and give renters until March 31, 2021 to pay back their outstanding nonpayment balances.

This article was originally published by The Oregonian/OregonLive, one of more than a dozen news organizations throughout the state sharing their coverage of the novel coronavirus outbreak to help inform Oregonians about this evolving heath issue.