Free Republic

After months of delays, the battle between landlords and tenants in one Bay Area city has come to an end. A rent control ordinance in the city of Concord went into effect Friday after its opponents failed to get enough signatures to place the issue on the November ballot. “We are thrilled that the people of Concord have spoken again in favor of people over corporate greed,” Rhea Elina Laughlin, executive director of advocacy group Rising Juntos, said in a statement. The ordinance reduces the annual percentage by which landlords can raise rent in Concord and bolsters certain eviction protections....

Wayne County is rolling out a new round of funding to assist landlords with small-scale properties in meeting federal housing standards. The initiative, explained by County Economic Development Director Brian Pincelli, is a collaboration between the county, The Housing Council at PathStone, and both the Newark and Geneva Housing Authorities. This effort aims to support landlords who manage fewer than 15 units in upgrading their properties to comply with Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program inspections and health and safety regulations. The program was designed in response to a 2021 affordable housing study that highlighted the necessity for maintaining affordable...

After years of missed rental payments, one Oakland property owner was left on her own to recover her losses, despite desperately seeking help from the city, state, and local law enforcement.Carolyn Silas-Sams, a retired paralegal and an Oakland resident, said she inherited a duplex in the city in 2006 from her late mother and has been maintaining it ever since, although she never imagined that she would face the disaster that she has over the past few years due to the eviction moratorium. “I’m telling you ... any level of education would not allow your brain to accept that something...

“My background is partially in extremism,” Rep. Emily Dievendorf, D-Lansing, told WKAR News recently while defending legislative proposals supported by a group of progressive lawmakers. Dievendorf is the author and key sponsor of a series of housing bills and ideas that would upend the rental market in Michigan. This includes rent control and preventing landlords from using criminal background checks for renters. More bills were introduced recently, including: HB 5235 – Requires housing providers to accept renters on a “first come, first serve” basis (unless legally obligated not to, as in cases of low-income housing). HB 5237 – The state...

Over 90% of Los Angeles tenants were given three days to get out of their homes, but the city is offering more help Tenants in the Hollywood neighborhood were handed the most eviction notices in Los Angeles after protections introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic lapsed earlier this year. Those living in the 90028 ZIP code received 3,585 — the most for any L.A. neighborhood — out of nearly 50,000 notices accounted for, according to new data released by L.A.'s City Controller, Kenneth Mejia on Monday. In August alone, 5,575 notices were filed across the city. Other top neighborhoods affected by...

It’s already very expensive to rent in a hot housing market like Southern California. Now landlords have found a way to make things even worse. A growing number of property owners and managers are hitting tenants with extra fees each month — a nickel-and-diming of people that the airlines, for one, have made a core aspect of their business model. It’s been common for years for landlords to charge more for a parking space or having a pet.

Far-left members of the City Council want to make Big Apple landlords do their work for them — or face five-figure fines. A new bill would require property owners to provide tenants with contact information for all elected officials representing their respective neighborhoods. Under the bill, introduced last week by Brooklyn Councilwoman Jennifer Gutiérrez, landlords would be required to supply new and existing tenants with hard-copy notices listing the names, office addresses and phone contacts for all federal, state and city pols representing their neighborhoods.

On July 27, the Biden Administration released a fact sheet detailing new actions to develop the Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights, which was rolled out early this year (covered by InfoBytes here). The three new actions aim to support renters by (i) “ensuring all renters have an opportunity to address incorrect tenant screening reports”; (ii) “providing new funding to support tenant organizing efforts”; and (iii) “ensuring that renters are given fair notice in advance of eviction.” Additionally, the CFPB, USDA, FHFA, and HUD concurrently released statements aimed at landlords, reminding them of “best practices” and their obligation to...

The ACLU and a taxpayer-funded group are “demanding a federal crackdown on landlords who don’t rent to tenants with eviction records,” reports Reason Magazine.They are arguing that it is racist and sexist not to rent to people who have histories of being evicted, because blacks are more likely than whites to be evicted, and black women apparently have the highest eviction rates.In a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last week, the HOPE Fair Housing Center, which gets taxpayer money, “argues that such policies amount to illegal discrimination based on race and sex, given...

Now, a New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled for Ithaca Renting, agreeing with the local business’s position that the Section 8 program’s inspection requirement was a violation of the Constitution’s protection against searches. In his ruling on June 27th, Hon. Mark G. Masler says the Attorney General’s argument “is fundamentally flawed for the simple reason that, as set forth above, a landlord cannot accept a Section 8 housing voucher as payment for rent without agreeing to participate in Section 8, which, in turn, requires that the landlord authorize warrantless searches.” Judge Masler’s ruling points out that the Housing...

Illinois will soon require landlords to rent and sell property to illegal aliens, opening the housing market to tens of thousands considered deportable from the United States, even as rents remain sky-high in metropolitan areas like Chicago. Late last month, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed SB 1817 into law, which will add “immigration status” as a protected class under the Illinois Human Rights Act.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Retiree Pamela Haile has paid property taxes, insurance and other bills on a house she lets out in Oakland, but for more than three years her tenants have paid no rent thanks to one of the longest-lasting eviction bans in the country. The eviction moratorium in the San Francisco Bay Area city expires next month and Haile can't wait. The 69-year-old estimates she is owed more than $60,000 in back rent, money she doubts she will ever see. Moreover, the tenants have trashed her house and it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to make it...

Albany must include “good-cause eviction” once it finally passes the stalled state budget, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive electeds said at a Wednesday rally in Astoria, Queens. “Fighting to pass good-cause eviction is essential,” the Democratic congresswoman, who represents a swath of the Bronx and Queens, told a crowd in Athens Square. “We have to push Gov. Hochul to make sure that she includes this in the budget.” The good-cause evictions bill, first introduced in 2019, would bolster protections for tenants in non-rent regulated apartments by barring landlords from kicking them out without “good cause,” such as failure to...

Columbia Property Trust, a large office landlord controlled by PIMCO, has defaulted on $1.7 billion in loans tied to seven buildings across the country, marking one of largest office defaults since the start of the pandemic. The firm is now working with its lenders — a group that includes Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank — to restructure its portfolio, according to Bloomberg. The loans were all floating rate, meaning Columbia Property Trust started to feel pain after interest rates soared last year. The loans are tied to three office buildings in New York, two in San Francisco, one in...

A growing number of office landlords are defaulting on loan payments as the rise of remote work causes more corporate tenants to rethink long-term leases... The delinquency rate on office loans increased by a quarter percentage point to 1.83% last month .. While the number is still relatively low, the increase was the sharpest of its kind since December 2021. ... The shift away from traditional offices has impacted major firms. Brookfield Asset Management recently disclosed a default on more than $70 million in debt on two office towers in Los Angeles. In Manhattan, real estate firm RXR is reportedly...

In a bid to offset the baleful effects of allowing violent offenders to remain free on their own recognisance, Supervisors in San Francisco voted 8-3 to deploy robots authorized to use deadly force against suspected criminals. Supervisor Connie Chan said she understood that "giving robots a license to kill, so to speak, sounds scary, but the alternative of having dangerous predators prowling our streets is also frightening. We think shifting some of the responsibility for public safety from human police officers to mechanical drones has its advantages." "For one, we'll save money," Chan pointed out. "Robots don't draw salaries, require...

They voted themselves in a couple of gems, these New York City folks did. Between actually electing Kathy Hochul to continue her reign of incoherence and incompetence, coupled with their already in-situ fashion plate, empty-suit city chief executive, Big Apple dwellers might as well save time and just beat themselves up.Emboldened by the election of state and local politicians, a NYC Council bill that had seemed doomed to ashes is experiencing a Phoenix-like rebirth. To his eternal shame, New York City mayor Eric Adams has signaled he is willing to sign it.What is Mayor Adams willing to sign? THIS abomination.A...

The new Kingston Rent Guidelines Board made history Wednesday for the second time this year, approving New York state’s first rent rollback for stabilized tenants. The 15 percent reduction applies to renters of 1,200 apartments in 64 rent-stabilized buildings with leases between Aug. 1 of this year and Sept. 30 of next. On top of that cut, the board set a three-year lookback period for tenants to challenge their base rent if they believe it was higher than the fair market price. If a challenge succeeds, future adjustments would be applied to that lower rent. In July, Kingston became the...

The Federal Reserve is most likely going to raise interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point again on Wednesday, its fourth straight supersized hike. And it’s still possible another rate increase of that magnitude could come in December. But the big question for many investors – and American consumers – is whether the Fed will send the economy into a recession with these massive rate increases. There are hopes that any downturn would be mild, but this is uncharted territory for the Fed. Former central bank chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen never...

Outside Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Murray Hill office, small landlords traded war stories Monday morning about New York’s rent relief program. “Three years and 18 months,” said one, double-fisting protest signs denoting how long he’d shouldered his tenants’ arrears. “I’m out $75,000 right now,” another said. “Three years. One house.” Terri, an organizer of the “landlords rights protest” who asked that her last name be omitted for fear of retribution, said her tenant hadn’t paid rent since November 2020. Tired of waiting, she’d agreed to settle, eating $40,000 of arrears in an agreement that should have seen the renter evicted in...