The Columbian: Rents have skyrocketed at Woodland East Mobile Home Park; now residents want to buy their park but are running out of time
Senate Bill 5198, which took effect in July, was supposed to change things for tenants like them. It aims to give mobile home park residents a chance to buy their parks and have a say in their future.
So when Woodland East was listed for sale, residents thought that law was their savior — a chance to slow the seemingly endless rent hikes. Instead, their effort to buy the park has exposed cracks in the new law.
The Seattle Times: WA needs more housing. Should it limit rent hikes, too?
Shannon Corrick, a grocery store worker from Cheney, Spokane County, had to borrow money from a family member to move in mid-2021 after her landlord said he was raising her rent by $300 a month.
The landlord told her $300 was “what the market will bear,” she said. If she chose a month-to-month option instead of a lease, her rent was going to rise $500 a month.
“Renters aren’t just being squeezed,” Corrick said. “They’re being crushed.”
MYNorthwest: Legislature considers rent increase cap, but don’t call it ‘rent control’
State lawmakers in Olympia heard emotional testimony Thursday, delivered in front of a packed committee hearing room regarding capping rent increases to 5% annually.
House Bill 2114 would also put limits on late fee increases and provide other tenant safeguards.
KUOW: WA lawmakers weigh proposal to slow rising rental costs amid ongoing housing crisis
The battle over rising rent is back in Olympia.
People flocked to a House committee hearing Thursday, as Washington lawmakers weighed a bill to limit how much landlords can increase rent prices.
The hearing was at capacity, with staff opening an overflow room after dozens of people showed up to speak on House Bill 2114.
Washington State Standard: Washington lawmakers look to cap rent increases
Democrats in the Washington Legislature are restarting conversations around rent stabilization with a proposal that would cap rent increases at 5% a year for residential tenants and also place limits on fees charged by landlords.
Their bill would also require a six-month notice for large jumps in rent and offer more protections for tenants who’ve signed month-to-month leases.
KING5 TV: Proposal would limit rent increases in Washington
Washington state could limit how much landlords can raise the rent.
Bills submitted in the House and Senate would cap rent hikes to 5% a year starting in 2025.
Washington State Standard: The outlook for new statewide renter protections in Washington
After failed attempts this year, the debate over how to best shield tenants from unaffordable price hikes will likely return in the next legislative session.
Tacoma News Tribune: I’m a renter in Puyallup. But without help, I won’t be able to afford it for long | Opinion
I am a state employee with nearly 44 years of service working in Pierce County for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. In July 2000, I moved into my apartment in Puyallup. The rent was $650 a month. But when our building was sold to the owner of a neighboring complex, we started being hit with big rent hikes each year and other changes, including charges for previously free amenities.
Everett Herald: Editorial: Cap on rent increases can keep more in homes
That statewide impact has prompted two pieces of legislation in the House that seek to stabilize rents, not by freezing rent costs, but by setting some limits on increases… But other landlords spoke in support, saying the limits sought were reasonable and would not create a hardship for landlords or the rental market… Placing a cap on the extent of rental cost increases, while offering fair exceptions to landlords, can keep people in their homes and support a healthy housing market.
Columbian: Rent increases hit residents of mobile home park
In 2019, the Criteses purchased their manufactured home with cash in a community park designated for senior living in Woodland. The space rent was $685, which the couple considered reasonable. She said that when they signed the paperwork for the home, the property manager said their space rent would stay the same within the first year. But the Criteses received their first of three rent increases eight months later. They now pay $1,000 for the land their bought home sits on — a 45 percent increase.
Everett Herald: Letter: Renters need limits placed to prevent gouging by landlords
I own a manufactured home in the Twin Creeks manufactured housing Park. When I moved here in 2019 the monthly rent for space in the park was $650, including water, garbage and sewer. A few months after I moved in, the park was sold. This is where all my pains started. The new park owners have raised our monthly rent five times from $650 to $775 to $860 to $925 and now to $970. That is $320 more per month, a rent hike of over 49 percent in four years.
NW Public Radio: New Washington legislation aims to stabilize rent as housing crisis worsens
Mei Shah is a renter in Lacey, Washington. Shah said she used to be a landlord before she became a single mom. While she would love to own a townhouse or a duplex, she said, that dream has faded since she is now on a fixed income due to a disability. “Corporate landlords have proven they will not operate their businesses in good faith without the restraint of reasonable legislation,” Shah said.
Spokesman Review: Shannon Corrick: Renters need legislative protections from gouging
Cheney’s my home. I’ve lived here since 1999. There’s a lot I love about living here, but rising rent is definitely not one of them. Most of the homes in this area are rental properties. It’s great being in a community with so many young people who are college students, but landlords know they can rent to groups of college students who can each pay $500 for a room in a shared house or apartment. Workers and families are being displaced because this raises the rent for all of us.
Peninsula Daily News: Housing proposals advance
Lawmakers tackle high rents, mobile home park sales
Chris Walker, a Parkwood Manufactured Housing Community resident in Sequim, called its progression really good news. “I’m thrilled. I’m absolutely thrilled,” Walker said Friday. Approved along a party line vote in Appropriations, the measure would curtail “exorbitant fees” charged for rent that landlords and landowners are trying to get away with, Walker said. “Right now, they can charge whatever they want,” said Walker, who has testified in favor of renter-friendly legislation in Olympia..
Cascadia Daily News: Skyrocketing rents turn into ‘economic evictions’
It’s not news that we’re in a housing crisis here in Whatcom County. There’s universal agreement that we need to make a major investment in new housing. But new housing alone will not help the 40% of Washingtonians who are renters stay in the homes they live in today.
Crosscut: Rising rents are drowning Washington’s smaller cities
While Seattle may have the highest rents statewide, the most drastic percentage increases over the past four to five years are in smaller cities and rural areas. And affordability is not an issue just for the poor but across different income levels: Even college-educated professionals are feeling the pinch of rapidly rising prices.
The Columbian: Washington bills aim to slow rent increases
“Rent increases are unpredictable, destabilizing and are causing displacement,” said Michele Thomas, director of policy and advocacy for the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. “Rent stabilization is the only policy that can act with the speed needed to immediately provide relief to Washington’s renter households.”
Peninsula Daily News: Legislature aims to protect tenants
State lawmakers are considering legislation to slow down rent increases for apartments, single-family homes, and in mobile home communities where hundreds of seniors live on the North Olympic Peninsula.
“Mobile homes are really a major piece of the affordable housing puzzle,” said state Rep. Steve Tharinger of Port Townsend, a co-sponsor of HB 1129.
“It’s an odd development, usually, because people do not usually own the land underneath them,” he said.
“A mobile home park owner says they want to build something else on the property and suddenly a homeowner, usually elderly and on a fixed income, finds themselves homeless. There needs to be some sideboards on that process, and that’s what this bill does.”
KING 5: Three bills targeting rent gouging, stabilization proposed to House
Three bills aimed at stabilizing rent increases and preventing rent gouging in Washington state were proposed to the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
HB 1388 would prevent “excessive rent increases,” which would be defined in the bill as “a rent increase during a 12-month period that is greater than the rate of inflation as measured by CPI-U (West Region) or 3%, whichever is greater, up to a maximum of 7%.”
Axios: Washington lawmakers want to curb “bonkers” rent increases
What they’re saying: “The increases in rent prices are absolutely just bonkers. I say that as a technical term,” state Sen. Yasmin Trudeau (D-Tacoma), who is sponsoring one of the bills, said at a Tuesday press conference.
KXLY TV: WA bill would cap rent hikes for tenants
Locally, the Tenants Union of Washington in Spokane testified in favor, saying that Spokane has seen some of the highest rent spikes in the country, after the eviction moratorium ended.
Terri Anderson, Spokane Office & Statewide Policy Director for the Tenants Union says this wouldn’t be considered “rent control”. She said the bill, if passed, wont tell landlords how much they can charge for rent, but will limit how much they can raise rent after each lease.
“Adding a cap and limiting how much rent can be increased on an annual basis,” Anderson said.
NBCNewsRight Now (Yakima) – Three bills targeting rent gouging, stablization proposed to House
“According to recent polls, homelessness, housing costs and rising rent top the list of concerns for people of all incomes across our state. It’s time that our lawmakers take action to fix a broken one-sided system that allows landlords to increase rents by any amount with too short of notice. These bills provide a balanced approach that allows landlords to raise rents by reasonable amounts that account for inflation while giving tenants protection and peace of mind knowing that rent increases will be both predictable and affordable.”
South Seattle Emerald: Housing bills aim to stabilize rent and protect from rent gouging
Reps. Nicole Macri (D-43) and Alex Ramel (D-40) recently introduced two bills in the State Legislature — HB 1388 and HB 1389 — to stabilize rent and protect tenant households from rent gouging. HB 1389 aims to stabilize rents by ensuring that rent increases happening during any 12-month period will not be more than 3–7%, depending on the rate of inflation at the time. HB 1388 aims to provide tenants with mechanisms and structures to challenge excessive rent increases or deny them rights under the law, including when landlords are not upholding their duties.
MyNorthwest: Multiple rent stabilization bills to control extreme increases
“I’m confident that you heard from folks who are experiencing double-digit rent increases year over year and what that’s doing to their lives. For myself, I made the decision to introduce legislation like this while standing on the doorstep of a young man in Bellingham,” Ramel said. “He’s a recent graduate from Western Washington University and just got a new job. And he was leaving our community. He was packing to go, and I knocked on his door because his landlord had just notified him that his rent was going to go up by $600 a month.”
Spokane Public Radio – Washington lawmakers propose tying rent increases to inflation
“In the last year I’ve talked to constituents in Eastern Washington, up and down the I-5 corridor, Puget Sound, about rent increases that are unimaginable to me,” Macri said. “50 percent, 70 percent, 100 percent. We have an obligation as we work on the housing crisis. There are many things that we need to do, but first, and foremost we need to make sure that people today can find some stability.”
Patch.com: Bill to cap rent increases introduced in Olympia
“The recent uptick in rental rates has been used to deny people stability,” Macri said. “It’s just plain wrong, and it’s harming our communities. Washington renters deserve stability and protection from those who would use excessive rent to push people out of their homes or deny them of vital legal protections.”
The Seattle Times: WA bills seem to cap rent hikes and register rentals, landlords object
Brianna Vazquez, who rents a duplex near Maple Valley, left behind more than just an apartment when a 14% rent increase forced her to find a cheaper rental last spring.
“I miss the other part of Renton I was in because there was a Latinx community, and it was more walkable,” she said of the Renton Highlands neighborhood where she and her teenage daughter lived.
But the increased cost was too much, and Vazquez had to move. If she had accepted a month-to-month lease at the Greystar-managed building instead, the cost would have been even higher: The $2,051 rent for her two-bedroom apartment would have more than doubled to $4,347.
The Spokesman Review, The Bellingham Herald and The Tacoma News Tribune This is how Washington legislators seek to limit rent gouging statewide:
“Rent stabilization is complementary to increasing housing supply. Washington needs both,” Ramel told The Bellingham Herald in a text message.
San Juan Islander: Ramel, Macri introduce stability measures to stop excessive rent hikes:
“Rapidly rising rents, especially predatory increases, are the driving factors behind the displacement that is destroying our communities. Studies show that for every $100 increase in rent, there is a 9 percent increase in homelessness” said Rep. Ramel. “It is not sustainable to drive families out of their homes or out of our communities. At a time where working families face more economic pressure than ever before, this provides a certain level of stability”.
The Urbanist: WA Leg Wednesday gets wonky with wealth taxes and rent stabilization
The bills we have been tracking from previous weeks did not see a lot of movement. Design review reform made it out of its first committee and the Evergreen Basic Income Pilot survived a flurry of amendments. But really, the big news this week is a few big new bills that dropped, including one aimed at dense transit-oriented development (as we detailed this morning), some consideration of a wealth tax in Washington, and three rent stabilization bills (see our focus at the end).
Publicola: With an eye on preventing homelessness, state Dems introduce tenant protection bills
Responding to Washington’s ongoing homelessness and housing affordability crisis—more than 25,000 people across the state live without permanent housing—several Democratic state legislators have introduced bills that would protect tenants and help prevent them from becoming homeless.
The Seattle Times: Half of WA college students face food or housing insecurity, survey finds
Around half of Washington college students have experienced some form of either food or housing insecurity, according to the results of a new survey distributed to nearly a quarter million students in the state.
Staff at Western Washington University sent the voluntary survey, developed on behalf of the Washington Student Achievement Council, to students at 39 colleges and universities across Washington in September 2022.
My Northwest: Study: Renters need to work longer hours to afford rent
Seattleites making minimum wage would have to work 88 hours before they reach the median monthly rent price.
The Center Square – Bills to prevent ‘excessive rent’ hikes proposed in Washington State House
“It’s clear we should all agree that we all need a place to call home,” Macri said. “It’s a basic human need. It also is essential for us to operate in community and have adequate support from our communities. But more and more that’s not the case.”
KOMO TV: Landlords, tenants look for balance in new rules on rental housing
“A lot of people can’t afford what used to be just normal, one-bedroom apartments,” said Julia Berglund, a renter who has avoided some of the price hikes that convinced some of her friends to move.