Posted on 01/31/2020 6:30:57 PM PST by karpov
Affordable-housing shortages are an abiding challenge for cities around the nation. But often policies meant to alleviate the problem aggravate it instead. That’s certainly the case in Seattle, where the City Council imposed a pair of ordinances aimed at restricting property owners’ right to choose their tenants.
These misguided laws, recently upheld by the Washington Supreme Court, attempt to solve problems caused by the housing shortage by destroying property rights. Property owners in other cities should take note: Such reforms have a tendency to spread once they take root.
The two ordinances in question strip landlords of the right to decide who will occupy their property. Seattle’s “first in time” rule requires landlords to set rental criteria in advance and then rent to the first person who walks in the door with an adequate application. There are plenty of good reasons a landlord might prefer a different tenant, including socially beneficial ones such as a desire to help a struggling family.
The second law prohibits a landlord from inquiring about or considering an applicant’s criminal history—deemed an “unfair practice” that can subject the landlord to severe civil penalties. The federal government requires background checks for federally assisted housing, and for good reason: Criminal history bears directly on factors like reliability, creditworthiness and safety.
Both Seattle laws purport to reduce discrimination in housing and help beleaguered minorities, even though there’s no evidence that Seattle landlords engage in widespread discrimination. Taken together, these laws thrust landlords blindly into long-term lease relationships with renters they didn’t choose.
A small band of mom-and-pop landlords, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, sued the city over both ordinances. Marilyn Yim owns a triplex in Seattle. She lives with her husband and children in one of the units and rents out the other two.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Keep voting democrat...
Oh! And one of the psychos on the city council wants to outlaw evictions during the winter. What could go wrong?
Nope. They want to drag everyone down into their misery so they don’t feel lonely.
The insane elect the insane. Seriously,
Then they will do rent control. There is no end to their evil.
They are not Socialist! (They are Communist!)
Plank #1 of the Communist Manifesto: Abolition of private property rights.
So basically when the rent comes due and the person doesn’t pay and then it takes a month for an eviction process, said person can just up and go somewhere else, walk in, and keep repeating the process rent free.
MADNESS !
So if I were to have Seattle rentals I would not longer ‘advertise’.
I would ‘ask around’, let my circle of friends know I ‘might’ have an open unit ‘soon’...but nothing ‘definite’.
Better to have an empty unit than one that is being destroyed.
he or she, cmon lets be fair, plenty of gals have criminal records.
This law is intended that a landlord doesn't set aside the applicant(s) hoping for somebody better.
And once you try to evict your deadbeat tenants, the same bureaucrats that forced you to rent to them in the first place now make it almost impossible for you to evict them.
Oh yeah, rent to the first person who applies?
Are they nuts?
If that person seems like a good safe bet sure.
In that quest of the perfect dreamland, I think there are some nightmares waiting to happen.
Hard for me to feel sorry for landlords in Leftist cities like Seattle. Seriously, how did they think it would end, with that bunch. The writing was there, just as it was with Hitler’s extermination camps, but if the soon-to-be victims refuse to see it and take action (in this case selling their properties while it was still possible), then they will suffer the consequences.
By the way, if a city like Austin tried that stunt here in Texas (if it is even legal), our Legislature would be called into emergency session and quickly put them in their place...which is why you don’t see Leftist cities here enacting gun control - won’t happen as long as Republicans rule the state (and that will be for far longer than many here believe).
Same thing.
You get what you vote for, good and hard.
I have sworn I will never own another rental property ever again. Did that 7 years ago. Burned the house. Got tired of people asking to rent it.
these kinds of laws pretty much guarantee rentals will completely dry up as owners of big complexes sell them out as condos, and small landlords sell individual properties for home ownership ...
I’d make it 760, require a college degree, a two month deposit, and provide proof of employment; all to be provided up-front at time of interest with a $200 deposit to be included for verify the information provided (fully refundable in first month’s rent if everything proves to be valid.
At least then, I’d feel a little better about whom I renting too; except in a liberal like that, the degree could possibly be in something useless like “Transgender Dolphin Relationship Studies”
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