Pass bill limiting rent hikes to help stabilize households

About a third of Washingtonians are living as renters and many communities are facing an affordable housing crisis with frequent and sizable rent hikes. The Washington Legislature is poised to intervene to keep rent increases more manageable.

House Bill 2114 is not rent control. Rather it would limit how much a landlord could increase rent charges to 7% each year, still almost double the recent rates of inflation.

Also landlords would be required to give at least six months’ notice of any rent increase of more than 3% and would limit late fees to 1.5% of monthly rent.

Frequent high rent increases each year have forced some tenants out of their homes, creating revolving doors in some neighborhoods, according to testimony. Excessive increases force families to frequently relocate. Such moves add to instability for students who have to switch schools.

The House passed the bill and it is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee Thursday.

The reasonable compromise would protect renters from much higher increases, while letting rental owners recoup some of their rising costs from utilities and property taxes.

Some landlords say the bill would keep them from making renovations. But the bill’s 7% cap doesn’t apply when tenants move out and new tenants move in.

Though some landlords consider the needs and abilities of their tenants to pay, and understand the economies of places like Seattle and Bellevue, where salaries drive up the cost of housing, others do not and gouge renters with yearly increases of more than 10%. At least two landlords testified before the House Appropriations Committee (when the bill called for a 5% increase cap) that they do well enough by raising their rents periodically and less than 5%. One landlord said he refrains from raising rents too high because he values good-paying, stable renters.

HB 2114 also addresses the economic pressures surrounding housing, with studies, including a Zillow-sponsored study, that found rising rents are pushing more and more people into homelessness. 

Fixed-income seniors, veterans and those with disabilities who often don’t have reliable access to the internet to search for housing options and transportation are just some who would benefit from knowing their rent will not rise by more than 7% each year.

Others say the bill would stymie the development of new rental housing. But HB 2114 exempts newly constructed apartment buildings from the 7% rate increase cap for the first 10 years of occupancy.

The bill is the logical next step to last year’s bills that will help make affordable housing more obtainable. The Senate should pass this House bill.