Letter to the Editor: Rent Stabilization bill will help renters stay in their homes
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
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Washington is facing an eviction crisis. The simple fact is, rent is becoming too expensive.
In our current residence, my two-time cancer surviving wife and I have had 4 rent increases in less than 2 years. My work at a before and after school program for elementary students is important, but the money it makes me isn't enough that I don't have to worry about rent each month.
Our situation is not unique. Washington renters need relief.
HB 1217/SB 5222 is a “rent stabilization” bill. This bill sets standards for the amount that a landlord can raise rent on a tenant, protecting tenants from predatory fees and rent gouging. If passed, this bill will help millions of renter households stay in their homes and provide stability and predictability for renters and landlords alike.
This bill won’t solve all the problems with our housing crisis, but it’s a crucial step in the right direction that will bring relief to renters all across the state.
I sincerely hope that Representative Lauren Davis, Representative Cindy Ryu, and Senator Jesse Salomon will support HB 1217 and SB 5222. We can’t afford to delay.
Alan Charnley
Shoreline WA
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7 comments:
One reason that rent is so expensive is that too many tenants took advantage of their landlords in the wake of COVID. People who could afford to pay their rent stopped paying, landlords still had to pay property taxes on non-revenue properties, and landlords were denied due process first by Inslee's emergency order, and second by King County's lengthy eviction backlog. This is a major risk for local landlords, and the way they mitigate the risk is by making good tenants pay more to cover the losses.
If you want to pay less for rent, push your leaders to make timely evictions of deadbeat tenants a priority for county courts.
Greedy landlords will raise rents on good tenants too. I 100% agree that we need a bill to keep rents reasonable.
As with most things, there are unintended consequences. In years past I didn't raise the rent for tenants unless costs went up a certain amount. Now, because there are maximum rent increases set and long advance notification to tenants (3-6 months) I feel I need to increase the rent each year by a little at least. When property taxes go up by $1,000 per year, replacement appliances, repairs, and maintenance costs go up 20-40%, landlords will either pass along these costs, stop taking care of issues, or sell (possibly to a developer who will build more expensive townhomes) which doesn't help renters. In Shoreline we have seen so many new apartment units/ townhomes go up in the past few years with many more to come when you look at all the construction projects near the light rail, yet property taxes don't seem to go down. Where there was one house there are now six townhomes paying 6x or more property taxes than the house that was there. At what point will property taxes go down? This would help stop rents increasing.
We need a multi-pronged approached to addressing housing cost increases and the homelessness that causes, but we absolutely need to put the brakes on what's been going on.
Other than landlords, people's incomes aren't keeping up with what it costs to live. So we need to have denser housing, built more quickly, with fewer restrictions on things like parking minimums and what commercial businesses can also be there.
However, in the mean time, we need people to be able to stay where they're at instead of getting a rent hike from every landlord colluding with one another on how high they can get away with charging people.
Completely agree with this comment about the property taxes. If landlords have a cap on rent raises then I agree they may eventually have to see the property and you can bet after the sale either the apartments will be torn down and replaced with new or the current apartments will be given a rent increase. The cost for repairs, maintenance, and taxes go up- who should absorb that? The landlord and tenant, or just the landlord? Agree there are landlords that are pushing rent increases to be greedy, but not all. We have to realize that there are landlords that are not greedy but they can’t afford to meet rising cost of owning and maintaining an apartment complex all on their own. They have to pass some of the cost onto their tenants. Shoreline needs to help landlords keep things affordable so they can in turn keep good tenants in their building because it’s affordable.
It's not just tenants that are suffering. People that are aging in their single family homes are being priced out by Shoreline property taxes and fees on all the utilities. It's apparent to those owners that the city wants to raze the little houses and let corporations build townhomes and those god-awful apartment blocks that will look like tenements in a few years. One note - inviting private equity funds to purchase up all the rental housing will turn out to be big mistake for renters and small landlords alike.
I'm a landlord. If this law passes I'm selling my real estate. The homes that are bought will most likely sell to people intending to live in them. That makes for fewer rental. I'm not the only rental owner who would see the wisdom in selling. The greater Seattle area pushes up real estate taxes all the time and now I bet we are looking at a school levy. I'm out.
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