Q1 2026 Tenant Payment Performance
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Welcome to 2026: What kind of year are we walking into?
Q1 is usually one of the most telling quarters in property management because it gives owners an early look at whether households are financially stabilizing or not.
Holiday spending is over and tax refunds are being used to pay off accumulated Holiday debt, as well as past-due rent balances.
For many tenants, this is the quarter where their past due rent balances either get corrected or begin aging into bigger problems.
After finishing 2025 with one of the best quarters we’ve seen all year, 2026 Q1 continued the improvement trend.
Fewer tenants are outright missing rent or making partial payments => more are staying current on their rent payments!
General Eviction Update
After the typical, unofficial suspension of evictions during the Holidays, Metro Detroit eviction courts spent 2026 Q1 catching up and are now back to the standard 60-75 day timeline from filing to bailiffs.
That said, the court system is still not the biggest risk – it’s compliance & documentation!
Missing city inspection certificates, unresolved maintenance issues, or incomplete paperwork can quickly turn a standard case into a delayed one.
Overall, Macomb, Oakland & Wayne County courts continue to be fairly landlord-friendly, as long as everything is in order.
The City of Detroit’s 36th District Court continues to be slightly more tenant-friendly, especially when a property doesn’t have the required Certificate of Compliance or is not properly maintained.
The biggest lesson going into 2026 remains the same: eviction success is won before filing, not after filing. Owners who keep their paperwork, inspections, and lease enforcement organized continue seeing the fastest outcomes.
Rent Payment Trends: 30, 60, 90+ Days Behind
Looking at the full portfolio, the first quarter of 2026 continued to show better tenant payment performance.
All categories showed improvement, a lot of it due to our team’s efforts of keeping “polite pressure” on tenants and aggressively structing & managing Payment Plans.
Macomb County Tenant Performance
Macomb County continues to perform strong as we have very few tenants with unpaid balances.
We actually have ZERO tenants not pay anything!
Oakland County Tenant Performance
Oakland County rentals in our portfolio experienced a slight drop in performance in Q1 from 2025 Q4. We dug into the data and found this was due to several recent properties in Pontiac that we were hired to manage. Our team was able to get all but two of the tenants on Payment Plans.
Wayne County Tenant Performance
Wayne County has the largest and most management-intensive rental properties in our portfolio, specifically in the City of Detroit.
But, our team was able to improve tenant payment performance, as you can see in the above graph!
Tenants paying Full Rent dramatically increased, much of it due to our team’s Polite Pressure with tenants to get them to use their income tax refunds to pay their past due balances. While Partial Payments dropped, it was due to more tenants paying their rent in full.
Keeping Class C & D tenants paying their rent is an arduous task, but our team is persistent & methodical!
What should owners be thinking about next?
We’re monitoring the day-to-day inflation of household basics our tenants are dealing with.
The war in Iraq, tariffs and the slowing economy may all negatively impact tenants living paycheck-to paycheck.
So, as we head into Q2, owners should be asking themselves some tough questions:
- If two or three of your tenants were to fall behind at the same time, how much in reserves do you have for mortgage payments, property taxes, etc.?
- How compliant are your properties if you had to file an eviction tomorrow?
- What’s the best time of the year to get rid of a slow paying tenant?
If you’re reading this and you’re are NOT a client of Logical Property Management, maybe it’s time to schedule a call to explore how we can either exceed the service level of your current PM or discuss transitioning to professional management and get rid of your DIY headaches.