Apartment vacancy rates and rents for the second quarter held "remarkably stable" amid the economic distress from the pandemic–but "cracks are indeed appearing and spreading quickly" for multifamily fundamentals, according to a new report from Moody's Analytic's REIS subsidiary.

National apartment vacancy rates for the quarter were unchanged at a "relatively tight" 4.8%, the report said. But effective rents nationally declined by 0.4%, which, significantly, was the first decline since the multifamily sector started its recovery from the 2008 to 2009 recession.

And the decline in rents varied sharply by market. Both asking and effective rents for San Francisco fell by 3.3%, which the report said was the largest quarterly decline since the third quarter of 2001, when the city was hit with the dotcom crash and the national shock of 9/11.