You Go Seattle! Never Let A Good Pandemic Go To Waste!

[Marc Winter]

"In an effort to provide renters with more protection against evictions, the Seattle City Council created an inability-to-pay defense that renters can use in eviction.  

"This new legislation provides an additional eviction defense for an additional six months after the City’s eviction moratorium is lifted, according to a release."

https://rentalhousingjournal.com/seattle-adds-an-inability-to-pay-defense-to-eviction-protection-for-six-months/

"Your Honor, I spent my money on other stuff, so I was unable to pay the rent."

"Case dismissed!"  

Never let a Pandemic go to waste.

[John Barrett]

@Marc Winter This is terrible public policy and it will ultimately just end up hurting the very people these politicians want to help.  That said, I don't really expect this to be as impactful to landlords as people would think.  The reality is the evictions in general are not as common as you might expect.  While we don't yet know how much Covid-19 pandemic is going to change that, I personally haven't seen any increase yet.  Though this is just my experience.

The 2nd order consequence of the misguided policies by the Seattle City Council is that selection criteria and rents will rise to compensate for the increased risks that landlords are being forced to accept.  Additionally, as the city councils war on landlords continues to drive smaller operators out of the market it further reduces the availability of affordable housing.  Since there have been no policy solutions provided to increase the number of housing being built or reduce the regulatory burden supply will remain constrained and prices high.

John