Portland, ORE restricting rent increases till 3/31

[Brad Hammond]

I saw on the Oregonian that Portland is now mandating landlords to pay relocating fees if we raise rent from now until 3/31/2021 and tenants can not afford the new rental rate.  Tenants must provide a written statement that they can not afford the rent.  

[Steve Morris]

"Maybe I'm turning soft in my middle-age, but I'm just not seeing the necessity of raising rents right now."

1) Water/sewer goes up 10% per annum when CoP has some pet projects that do nothing to fix infrastructure or improve the quality of water.

2) Prop taxes go up 3% p.a. + plus all the bonds that get voted on

3) Maint and supplies have taken a big jump.

Maybe you're a ma-and-pa with no debt so doesn't matter to you, however, lot of people need to borrow money and repay debt.  A lot of nice guys are now 20% below market rent and it'll take 3-4 years of 10% increases to catch up and they'll get dinged when they sell.

If you don't want to raise rents, god bless you.  However, some people see rentals as a business that they need to run efficiently for income.  We start messing around with the market by draconian rent caps, it'll come back to bite us.

Offered in evidence - I dare you to move to SFO and try to rent an affordable apartment.