With many Americans working and learning from home, multifamily properties are facing increased wear-and-tear, greater volumes of waste and recycling and demands for services.

Life under COVID-19 means people are now at home most of the time. And while this is better for public health, since it helps slow the spread of the virus, it introduces new challenges for multifamily owners and operators.

With millions of Americans working and learning from home, properties that used to have residents on site only part of the day now have them around nearly all of the time. This is putting added strain on apartment properties including increased wear-and-tear on units, creating challenges for scheduling routine maintenance, generating greater demands on utilities, amenities and services and producing more waste and recycling volumes to manage. Owners and property managers are struggling to balance the extra expenses of this work with the money they save as amenities like fitness centers stay closed and many communities continue to cancel in-person events.

“The biggest impact to our service team involves balancing their workload,” says Lela Cirjakovic, executive vice president for Waterton, based in Chicago. “The enhanced cleaning protocols have required changes to work schedules.… Similarly, communities are spending less in certain areas, such as resident and guest hospitality. Efforts to balance expenses and offset new costs have been successful.”

The extra cost of the coronavirus crisis

Some apartment investors have already begun to increase the dollar amounts they estimate for maintenance costs because of changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Sarah Yaussi, vice president of business strategy for the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) in Washington, D.C. Long term, this means the incomes generated by apartment investments may take a hit if average rents stagnate or fall in a prolonged recession while costs rise.

However, despite these pressures, apartment investments are likely to remain attractive because the issues (including plummeting occupancies and rents) facing other property sectors are far more severe.