Washington/Seattle Perspective: Rental Housing Policies Aren't Working

by Cory Brewer, a vice president of residential rental operations and veteran property manager.

I have spent a lot of my time this year trying to get an important message across: Legal regulation is killing rental-housing supply in Seattle.

Whether it is via written article, calls and emails to elected officials and meetings with their staffs, or TV and radio interviews with news media, the message has been consistent.  I’ve laid out facts and offered carefully reasoned predictions.  I’ve partnered with my colleagues from around Washington State to compare data and share stories.

One thing is abundantly clear:  Lawmakers have put a target on the backs of corporate landlords, and their crusade against this existential bogeyman has resulted in nothing but collateral damage.

Over the course of countless state legislature, city, and county council meetings I have heard testimony from local mom-and-pop housing providers about concerns over “renter-protection” policies aimed at “profiteering” corporate landlords … but you know who never calls in to voice opposition?  Corporate landlords.

Why?  I propose to you that in the end, the only group that stands to gain from “renter-protection” policies are, ironically, the corporate landlords that they are intended to harm.  These corporations are often not local, and in many cases may not even oppose the legislation because – even while anti-landlord by definition – the policies do little more than to drive out the mom-and-pop competition.  Large corporations built on the economy of scale can absorb short-term losses and come out the other end way ahead when renters have fewer choices.

Some will say that the loss of single-family rental homes is no problem because so many new housing units are being added to the Seattle market.  The problem is that three+ bedroom houses are being “replaced” by one-bedroom apartment units, which are not suitable replacements at all.  The city of Seattle runs the RRIO program (Rental Registration & Inspection Ordinance) as a way to, among other things, attempt to establish a database of the rental-housing stock in the city.  Their 2020 report indicates a loss of 4,858 property registrations compared to the previous year (a drop-off of 14.4 percent).  During the same time period the UNIT count only decreased by 0.65 percent.  So what is going on here?  Clearly single-family houses are going away, and apartment units are “replacing” them.  Apartment units don’t work for everyone, especially in this new age of working and schooling from home.

This is becoming, as I predicted, increasingly difficult for those that the “renter-protection” policies are supposedly meant to help: low-income renters.  I recently spoke with Chris Klaeysen, an adviser with the Seattle Housing Authority, which administers Section 8 housing assistance vouchers to low-income renters.  Here is what he had to say: “Generally we do find that Seattle has a shortage of larger (3+ bedroom) units.  This obviously creates a difficult situation for the families we serve.  Many of the new buildings coming online have primarily studios and one-bedroom units.”

Read more in the Rental Housing Journal.