ALEX VEIGA
AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rental homes will remain an attractive option next year to would-be homebuyers sidelined by high mortgage rates and rising home prices, analysts say.

American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes are two big real estate investment trusts poised to benefit from the trend, say analysts at Mizuho Securities USA and Raymond James & Associates.

Their outlooks boil down to a simple thesis: Many Americans will continue to have a difficult time finding a single-family home that they can afford to buy, which will make renting a house an attractive alternative.

It starts with mortgage rates. While the average rate on a 30-year mortgage fell to a two-year low of 6.08 percent in late September, it’s been mostly rising since then, echoing moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

The yield, which has hovered around 4.4 percent last week, surged after the presidential election, reflecting expectations among investors that President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed economic policies may widen the federal deficit and crank up inflation.

Analysts at Raymond James and Associates say they see mortgage rates remaining “higher for longer,” given the outcome of the election. Last week, they reiterated their “Outperform” ratings on American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes, noting “we are increasingly confident in the longer-term outlook for single-family rental fundamentals and the industry’s growth prospects.”

They also believe the two companies will continue to benefit from “outsized demographic demand for suburban homes,” and the monthly payment gap between renting and owning a home, which they estimate can be as much as 30 percent less to rent.

Analysts at Mizuho also expect that homeownership affordability hurdles will maintain “a supportive backdrop” and stoke demand for rental houses, helping American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes to maintain their tenant retention rates.

The companies are averaging higher new and renewal tenant lease rates when compared to several of the largest U.S. apartment owners, including AvalonBay, Equity Residential and Camden Property Trust, according to Mizuho. It has an “Outperform” rating on American Homes 4 Rent and a “Neutral” rating on Invitation Homes.

While individual homeowners and mom-and-pop investors still account for the vast majority of single-family rental homes, homebuilders have stepped up construction of new houses planned for rental communities.

In the third quarter, builders broke ground on about 24,000 single-family homes slated to become rentals. That’s up from 17,000 a year earlier. In the second quarter, single-family rental starts climbed to 25,000, the highest quarterly total going back to at least 1990, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the National Association of Home Builders.

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By JOSH BOAK
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ready to propose a 5 percent cap on annual rent increases for tenants of major landlords as he tries to show he’s doing something about the high cost of housing, according to a person familiar with the plan.

The proposal, to be announced while the president visits Nevada on Tuesday, is being championed by Biden in the middle of a tense presidential campaign and a time when housing costs have been a major driver of overall inflation.

But the plan would require solid Democratic control of Congress to become law. Additionally, most policymakers have said the best way to limit housing costs would be through more construction and changes to land use regulations.

The person familiar with the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal has not yet been formally announced.

Biden himself previewed the announcement at his NATO news conference Thursday, folding it into comments that blamed inflation on companies trying to maximize their profits in the aftermath of the pandemic.

“It’s time things get back in order a little bit,” Biden said. “If I’m reelected, we’re going to make sure that rents are kept at 5 percent increase.”

The Washington Post first reported Monday the details of the plan, which would only apply to landlords who own 50 or more units. The price cap would not apply to units that have yet to be built.

White House officials declined to comment.

The median national rent was $1,411 a month in June, up from roughly $1,150 in early 2021 when Biden became president, according to Apartment List.

Asking prices for rentals jumped in the aftermath of the pandemic and have since cooled, but the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies found in its most recent report that half of renters were “cost burdened” because they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing and utilities.

In recent months, housing has been a primary contributor to keeping the consumer price index elevated at 3 percent annually. Inflation has been a fundamental obstacle for Biden politically as he competes against Donald Trump, the former president and Republican nominee.

The president has proposed policies designed to increase home construction, but industry representatives were quick to criticize the rent cap as ineffective for addressing the overall shortage and possibly leading to fewer habitable units than the country would otherwise have.

“This is not going to create a single unit of housing — which is what is needed to create more housing opportunities for Americans,” said Sharon Wilson Géno, CEO of the National Multifamily Housing Council. “This is really a campaign-driven piece of rhetoric.”

Géno noted that landlords need to be able to keep up with costs such as maintenance, insurance and state and local taxes. If those costs exceed what they can charge for rent, the risk is that landlords will do less to maintain their properties and tenants could be worse off.

“What does that mean — the quality of the housing suffers,” she said.

But affordable housing advocates said that if Biden’s proposal had already been in effect, it would have likely reduced evictions and homelessness.

“The recent unprecedented increases in homelessness in communities across the country are the result of those equally unprecedented — and unjustified — rent hikes of a couple years ago,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Had such protections against rent gouging been in place then, many families could have avoided homelessness and stayed stably housed.”

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By ADRIANA MORGA
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Rents are starting to come down after spiking to record levels this past summer, but experts are uncertain if the slowdown will continue.

Christopher Mayer, professor of real estate at Columbia Business School, said people looking for an apartment now might have a better experience than they did in May or June.

“We’re not seeing rents go up as quickly, the rental market is softening a little bit,” he said.

The national median asking rent was up 14 percent in July over July the previous year, the smallest annual increase since November 2021, according to a new report from Redfin. While that percentage is still high, it has decreased from 15 percent in June and 16 percent in May.

Experts say the market could slow further toward the end of the year, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty.

“I would not be surprised if we get to 2023 before things really get back to normal,” said Brian Carberry, senior managing editor of Rent.com, an apartment search website owned by Redfin.

Much depends on where you live. Cities in Florida such as Boca Raton and West Palm Beach have seen rents decrease -0.1 percent and -0.5 percent respectively compared to last month. But according to Apartment List, rents in California coastal cities such as San Diego have continued to increase over the past year.

In Rochester, New York, rent was up 15.3 percent in August over the same month the previous year, according to data from Apartment List. An average two-bedroom apartment in the Rochester area was $1,318 in August, compared with $1,116 a year ago.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said high rents are a concern because they can account for a big chunk of a household’s take-home pay.

“Gas prices are coming back down, but rents are going up 10, 12, 15 percent. And rent can end up taking 40 percent of these households’ income,” Moynihan said in a recent Associated Press interview.

While things are looking a bit better for renters than a few months ago, it’s still a landlords’ market, Mayer said.

If your lease is up, staying put and negotiating with your landlord might be a better option than trying to move, at least until the rental market slows down further, said Paula Munger, assistant vice president for industry research and analysis at the National Apartment Association.

“When you renew your lease, you’re definitely not paying the same as someone new moving in,” Munger said. “If you can, stay in your apartment.”

A major reason for rent spikes has been increasing demand from people priced out of a booming housing market. That market is starting to slow, which could mean more people can afford to buy and won’t need to rent, but with interest rates rising, some may not want to take on mortgages.

“With inflation now all throughout the market, there’s not enough supply so the prices are going up,” Munger said. “That’s the downside for people, just not having enough options and choices for what they would like in a housing unit.”

That was the experience of Erika Tascon, a 22-year-old Los Angeles resident who was living with roommates but wanted to find an apartment with her boyfriend.

After visiting more than 10 units, the couple picked a 500-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in Beverly Hills where they pay $2,750 per month. The median rent for a one-bedroom in the area is $2,773, up 14 percent from last year, according to data from Zumper.

“I think landlords are taking advantage of tenants right now,” said Tascon, who is paying $200 more per month than for her previous apartment.

In Britni Eseller’s case, the high demand meant that she had to rush to fill out her application to beat the other 10 people who toured the apartment she wanted.

“Because everyone is in scarcity mode, you’re willing to find a place that might be somewhat affordable and you’re unfortunately okay with overlooking chipped floors or a broken appliance,” said Eseller, who lives in North Park, a neighborhood of San Diego.

Developers have ramped up construction of apartment buildings this year, which could eventually help to ease the crunch. But it’s likely to take a while before that’s reflected in the market.

Meanwhile, high rents are disproportionately hurting low-income residents across the country, said Ben Martin, research director of Texas Housers, a non-profit organization that works on housing justice.

In May, rental prices in Dallas and Fort Worth were up 21.6 percent from last year, according to Redfin data. In Austin they were up 48.4 percent. One major reason is that high-income people from coastal areas like California and New York moved to Texas during the coronavirus pandemic, when they realized they could work remotely and live more cheaply. In December of last year, for example, Tesla moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin.

“People who make the lowest incomes are paying more of their total pie of money,” Martin said. “Which means that they don’t have money for anything else: school supplies, groceries, gas, clothing, all of the essential stuff that you need to live.”

In addition to cutting basic expenses, renters are also cramming more people into apartments, Martin said.

Increasingly, people can’t afford their homes at all and are now facing eviction. Governments have ended eviction moratoriums and rental assistance programs that allowed people to stay in their homes during the pandemic.

The Eviction Lab, a research organization at Princeton University, is seeing record numbers of evictions that have surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

In Houston, where the eviction moratorium ended in July 2021, there were 7,242 eviction filings in July of this year, 51 percent above average, according to The Eviction Lab. Other cities such as Los Angeles have extended eviction moratoriums until the end of this year.

Tenants who can’t afford rent increases but also can’t afford to move are often forced to choose between paying rent and covering basic necessities. An eviction stays on a renter’s record, making it harder to find housing in the future.

“The threat of eviction is the looming problem,” said Nick Graetz, a postdoctoral research associate at The Eviction Lab. “Part of the reason renters sacrifice so many other things to try to pay unreasonable high rents every month is because of the constant threat of being evicted from their home.”

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By Jesse Bedayn

The Associated Press

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — In the ski town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, motels line the freeway. They were once filled with tourists eager to pitch down the slopes or bathe in the local hot springs.

Now residents like Marc McDonald, who keep the town humming by working service-level jobs, live in the converted motels. They cram into rooms, some with small refrigerators and 6-foot-wide kitchens, or even just microwave kitchenettes. Others live in mobile homes.

Steamboat Springs is one of many vacation towns across the country facing a housing crisis and grappling with how to regulate the industry they point to as a culprit: Short-term rentals such as those booked through Airbnb and Vrbo have squeezed small towns’ limited housing supply and sent rents skyrocketing for full-time residents.

“It’s basically like living in a stationary RV,” said the 42-year-old McDonald, who lives with his wife in an approximately 500-square-foot converted motel room for $2,100 per month. It was the cheapest place they could find.

McDonald, who helps maintain a local golf course and bartends at night, and his wife, who’s in treatment for thyroid cancer and hepatitis E, said they will be priced out when rent and utilities jump to about $2,800 in November.

“My fear is losing everything,” he said, “My wife being sick, she can’t do that – she can’t live in a tent right now.”

Short-term rentals have become increasingly popular for homeowners eager to offset the cost of their vacation homes and turn a profit while away. Even property investment companies have sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into the industry, hoping to pull a larger yield from tourists seeking their own kitchen, some privacy, and a break from cookie-cutter hotel rooms.

When the pandemic opened the floodgates for remote work, Airbnb listings outside of major metro areas rose by nearly 50 percent between the second quarter of 2019 and 2022, the company said.

In six Rocky Mountain counties, including Steamboat Springs’ Routt County, a wave of wealth flooded towns, with nearly two-thirds of 2020 home sales going to newcomers – most making over $150,000 working outside the counties, according to a survey from the Colorado Association of Ski Towns.

Local governments – from Lincoln County on Oregon’s coast to Ketchum in Idaho’s Smoky Mountains – are grappling with how to regulate the $74 billion industry they say fuels their economies while exacerbating their housing crises.

In June, the Steamboat Springs City Council passed a ban on new short-term rentals in most of town and a ballot measure to tax the industry at 9 percent to fund affordable housing.

“There is not a day goes by that I don’t hear from someone … that they have to move” because they can’t afford rent, said Heather Sloop, a council member who voted for the ordinance. “It’s crushing our community.”

The proposed tax is strongly opposed by the Steamboat Springs Community Preservation Alliance – a coalition that includes businesses and property owners. Robin Craigen, coalition vice president and co-founder of a property management company, worries the tax will blunt any competitive edge Steamboat Springs might have over other resorts nearby.

“The short-term rental industry brings people to town, funds the city, and you want to tax it out of existence?” Craigen said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Visitors booking on platforms like Airbnb spent an estimated $250 million in Steamboat Springs in 2021, according to a coalition analysis of local data. If tourism dropped just 10 percent, local business in the town of some 13,390 residents would lose out on $25 million.

Larger cities, including Denver and Boston, have stricter regulations, like banning vacation rentals in homes that aren’t also the owners’ primary residences. However, in New Orleans a federal appeals court recently struck down an ordinance that had required residency to get a license for short-term rentals.

But smaller tourist destinations must strike a delicate balance. They want to support the lodging industry that sustains their economies while limiting it enough to retain the workers that keep it running.

“No one has found the perfect solution yet,” said Margaret Bowes, executive director of the Colorado Association of Ski Towns, which tracks efforts to control short-term rental markets. “The trajectory of the number of properties becoming (short-term rentals) is not sustainable. No one (working in) these communities” will be able to live in them.

Susana Rivera, a 30-year Steamboat Springs resident, tried living in the nearby town of Craig as a cheaper alternative. Every morning, she would drop her youngest child off at a friend’s house before driving 45 minutes to her Steamboat Springs supermarket job.

In 2014 she left the grueling routine behind after getting off the waiting list for an $800-a-month, two-bedroom apartment in a government-run affordable housing development. Her youngest child, a niece and nephew, and occasionally her mother and couch-surfing brother, also occupy the unit.

The affordable housing program is one way local officials are trying to address the problem, but demand dramatically outstrips supply.

About 1,200 people signaled interest in 90 apartments in a new subsidized housing development, said Alyssa Cartmill, regional property manager for the Yampa Valley Housing Authority.

While the industry’s major companies, including Airbnb and Vrbo, do not release comprehensive data publicly, figures from analytics firm AirDNA and the U.S. Census Bureau show nearly 30 percent of homes in Steamboat Springs are vacation rentals.

That’s some 3,000 units removed from Steamboat Springs’ housing supply as the town’s median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment reached $3,100 in August, according to data from Zillow.

Median home prices showed a 68 percent jump to $1.6 million since the beginning of 2020, pushing the quaint town’s home values nearer to those of San Francisco, at $1.8 million, according to company data.

A study commissioned by Airbnb found short-term rentals support 13,300 jobs in popular Rocky Mountain counties and, it argued, have little impact on housing prices. The real problem, it said, is that housing construction hasn’t kept up with job growth. The report also found that only 3 percent of short-term rentals could be used as workforce housing based on their rental rate.

“This report underscores the integral role of short-term rentals in the Colorado tourism economy,” Airbnb spokesperson Mattie Zazueta wrote in an email.

“Vacation rentals provide a diversity of accommodation options for visitors, help some vacation homeowners and residents afford their homes, and are a key revenue generator in local economies – providing jobs, income and taxes to local communities,” Vrbo parent company Expedia Group stated.

But the study didn’t consider other options, like making homes that are out of reach for a single worker available to a group living together, said Daniel Brisson, a Denver University professor and director of the Center for Housing and Homeless Research.

The high prices are not merely displacing lower-income workers and their families, but also better-paid workers such as nurses and police officers.

The city’s hospital, Yampa Valley Medical Center, is scrambling to find staff as the number of open positions grew from around 25 to 70 in the past few years, hospital president Soniya Fidler said.

“What keeps me up at night?” Fidler asked. “Will we be able to help the next trauma victim?”

Steamboat Springs Police Chief Sherry Burlingame spends her days finding housing and negotiating mortgage loans for prospective hires. Understaffed, the police department has cut back on services while response times have lengthened.

“We have overlooked what it takes to keep this community alive,” Burlingame said.

The new Steamboat Springs ordinance creates three zones. The red zone, where new short-term rentals are prohibited, covers most of the city but those who have rented in the past 12 months can continue to operate. The yellow zone caps the number of new vacation rentals, while the green zone, set largely beneath the ski mountain, has no cap.

Oregon’s coastal Lincoln County, heavily reliant on tourism, in November 2021 approved a ballot measure that would ban new short-term rentals and start a five-year phaseout of the rest in certain areas. After vacation rental owners filed a lawsuit, the measure was placed on hold; it’s pending in court.

Steamboat Springs, which studied what other municipalities have done nationwide, plans to monitor the effectiveness of its new regulations and tax increase, if it passes, and adjust if necessary.

For Sean Bailey, the new laws are welcome. Bailey, who moved to Steamboat Springs in 2019 and works at the outdoors store Big Agnes, squeezes into a bedroom in a mobile home that he rents for $650 a month. He has been on a waiting list for three years to get an affordable unit.

“My bedroom acts as my living room, my dining room, my den, my office – all in this 12-by-12 space,” Bailey said.

Now, he said, even “low-income housing is being priced out of the water for a lot of us who are just trying to get by.”

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By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — With winter coming and federal funds drying up, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said Tuesday she’ll call a special session of the Legislature Dec. 13 to approve state funding for rental assistance and extend eviction protections issued because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is clear that a state solution is needed to address the urgent and immediate needs of Oregon renters,” Brown said.

Brown is proposing that protections be extended for everyone who has applied for rental assistance, that landlords be paid in full for the rent they are owed, that up to $90 million in additional rental assistance be provided to low-income tenants through the winter and an additional $100 million be provided to transition from pandemic-related emergency rental assistance to long-term, locally delivered eviction prevention services.

Brown said she is working with federal officials at the U.S. Treasury and the White House to secure additional federal emergency rental assistance funding for Oregon.

Oregon is not alone in feeling pressure as the federal government is forecasting that upwards of $30 billion — or about two-thirds of money allocated for rental assistance — will be disbursed or allocated by the end of the year.

Texas has stopped accepting new applicants because it has allocated all its funds, while New York has spent or committed nearly all of its money. California has also indicated it will soon exhaust its funds.

Margaret Salazar, the executive director of Oregon Housing and Community Services, said recently that Oregon “just did not get enough resources to meet the needs” of the state to respond to the immediate crisis.

As of a few days ago, a significant chunk of the funds — $159 million — hadn’t yet reached renters. The state received nearly 51,000 complete applications for rental assistance but so far, just 43 percent of those who have applied have received funding.

Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, and House Majority Leader Barbara Smith Warner, D-Portland, said Oregon is committed to protecting individuals and families at risk of eviction.

“We can take action in a special session to ensure this doesn’t happen and that we keep our promise to Oregonians. No one should lose their housing because of administrative delays,” they said in a statement.

Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson, who on Tuesday was named House Republican leader, said a special session isn’t needed and that the Legislature’s Emergency Board can allocate funds “to support those already in line to receive rent assistance.”

“Our unemployment level, jobless claims, and job openings have returned to pre-pandemic years. A special session is unnecessary,” the Republican from Prineville said.

Oregon Housing and Community Services received $289 million in federal rental assistance funds to help renters impacted by COVID-19, the governor’s office said. As of last week, almost $150 million was paid to over 22,000 households. The state housing finance agency and its partners have received more than 25,000 additional applications. Brown said Oregon’s federal funds for rental assistance will be nearly all spent by Wednesday.

Senate President Peter Courtney noted that with the session only two weeks away, lawmakers will face challenges to ensure that it’s productive.

“Special sessions are the most difficult of all sessions. Everything must be carefully planned. We have a lot of work to do,” the Democrat from Salem said.

Associated Press writer Sara Cline also contributed to this report.

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TIGARD, Ore. (AP) — A group of low-income Oregon seniors is suing their out-of-state property management company, alleging the company deliberately misled them by renting apartments that would soon jump in price.

The class-action suit was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court this week against Denver-based Mission Rock Residential, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. The company manages Woodspring Apartments, a federally subsidized building in Tigard.

This January, residents of Woodspring were told that the owner would soon bring the building’s 172 units to market-rate rent.

The suit argues that when San Francisco real estate firm Hamilton Zanze bought the property five years ago, the property managers knew of the plan to raise rent. The lawsuit alleges the property management company intentionally withheld that information and continued to market the units to people as a retirement option.

Michael Fuller, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, says a judge should consider this a form of false advertising and deem it an “unlawful trade practice.”

The suit names one plaintiff: Cheyenne, who began leasing an apartment in Woodspring in July 2020.

According to the suit, Cheyenne, whose last name is not given in the legal documents, rented the apartment with the expectation that she would be able to stay for decades.

Fuller said he’s asking a judge to issue an injunction ordering the property manager to maintain apartment rents at a rate that is affordable for older people on a fixed income.

Mission Rock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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By SARA CLINE
Associated Press/Report for America

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a measure into law Wednesday that gives tenants facing financial struggles during the coronavirus pandemic more time to pay their past-due rent.

People now have until Feb. 28, 2022, to pay back rent, instead of facing a July deadline.

“Everyone deserves a warm, safe, dry place to call home — and during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been particularly critical that Oregonians be able to stay in their homes,” Brown said.

Senate Bill 282 also protects renters from the long-term effects of not making payments on time by barring reporting to consumer credit agencies and removing back rents from consideration when submitting future rental applications. The law also bars landlords from denying applicants based on pandemic-era evictions and allows such evictions to be kept secret.

The new law also relaxes occupancy limits, with lawmakers saying some residents have needed to stay with friends and family because of financial or health issues during the pandemic. However, it does not extend Oregon’s eviction moratorium past June 30 or forgive back rent.

The pandemic has exacerbated the state’s housing crisis.

In March, more than 17 percent of Oregon renters — or nearly 158,000 — said they were not caught up on their rent payments, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse Survey.

Of Oregon renters who answered the survey, 11 percent said they had no confidence they would be able to pay the next month’s rent.

“Senate Bill 282 gives the Oregonians hardest hit by economic impacts during the pandemic more time to recover and, thanks to a historic amount of rent assistance in Oregon, we have the resources to help those families get back on stable financial footing,” Brown said.

Lawmakers also passed legislation Wednesday to reinstate a moratorium on foreclosures. The measure, which now heads to the governor, would allow homeowners to pause or reduce their mortgage payments at least through June 30. The previous state moratorium expired at the end of 2020, but many homeowners continued to struggle to catch up on mortgage payments.

The bill could be extended until the end of the year if Brown lengthens her emergency declaration over COVID-19.

State lawmakers have pushed the housing crisis to the forefront during the legislative session.

In March, lawmakers presented 17 housing-focused bills, which included $535 million for increasing affordable housing, addressing homelessness and supporting homeownership.

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Washington County has launched an online open house as county officials move toward imposing licensing requirements on short-term rentals.

Washington County has seen a sharp rise in short-term rentals, defined as those offering stays of less than 30 days. Websites such as Airbnb, Vacasa and Vrbo have made it easy for homeowners to rent out their properties to visitors for days at a time. That’s drawn the ire of some neighbors, who complain about over-parked streets, parties and other nuisances.

“We did have a lot of community members who had concerns about short-term rentals in their neighborhoods,” said Melissa de Lyser, communications manager for the county’s Department of Land Use and Transportation.

Washington County has identified 560 short-term rental homes as of February 2020. Many of the complaints arose from urban, unincorporated areas of the county, de Lyser said.

According to proposed rules, short-term rental owners would be required to get a license. Maximum occupancies would be set based on the number of bedrooms. The maximum occupancy is as drafted two people per “sleeping area,” plus two additional people.

Operators must also provide contact information to all neighbors within 300 feet and quiet hours would be enforced. Operators who do not meet these requirements would risk license revocation.

Any new rules must be approved by the Board of Commissioners. De Lyser said commissioners would consider the rules in 2021, but the exact timing is unclear.

The online open house is posted at . A Spanish-language version is available at .

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Residents of the Wimbledon Square and Gardens, in Southeast Portland, said they’ve had to endure repeated, unannounced water shutoffs, unsafe walkways and rats.

Now the renters at the sprawling apartment complex have formed a tenants union and submitted a list of demands to the property’s out-of-state ownership group.

“This is our home, where we’re supposed to be safe,” said Sam Bevington, co-chairwoman of the tenants group. “We’ve reached out to them. … We’ve had doors (shut) in the face.”

Linzy Querner, who has lived at Wimbledon Square since February, said she’s put up with repeated water disruptions and unsafe conditions.

“They’ve never returned a single email of mine,” she said. “All we’re asking for is accountability.”

The complex is one of Portland’s largest, with approximately 600 units. The market-rate apartments attract students from nearby Reed College and others.

The property at 2837 S.E. Colt Drive is owned by Prime Group, a large multifamily owner with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Tenants held a press conference Monday after, they said, attempts to push Prime Group to improve the property were ignored. The tenants have formed a group, Wimby Tenants Union, with the help of Portland Tenants United.

“The residents of Wimbledon Square have had to pay market-rate rents for substandard conditions for years,” said Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who has been a staunch advocate for tenants on the City Council.

Eudaly called Prime Group a “slumlord” and said the City Council and Oregon Legislature must do more to protect renters from landlords who don’t fulfill their obligations.

“No one should have to live under these circumstances,” she said.

State Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, also spoke in support of the tenants.

Wimbledon does not appear decrepit on its exterior. But residents said fresh paint and cosmetic fixes cover up issues such as dry rot and rodents. One tenant held up a sign saying, “Fresh Paint, Dry Rats.”

Workers were busily making repairs Monday.

Advertised rents at Wimbledon range from $865 for a studio to $1,543 for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment.

In May, a Multnomah County jury awarded a Wimbledon Square tenant, Robert Trebelhorn, $20 million in damages after he broke through a rotten walkway and suffered injuries.

“We’re not going to put up with this in our city,” said Jason Kafoury, a Portland attorney who was part of a team representing Trebelhorn.

The Wimbledon Square activism comes as tenants have grown more politically prominent, placing their concerns on City Council and state legislative agendas. Tenants at another Southeast Portland housing complex, Holgate Manor, have been on a rent strike since August.

Tenants also scored a number of victories in the November election, elevating Jo Ann Hardesty to the City Council over Loretta Smith, who was backed by real estate interests; and defeating state Sen. Rod Monroe, D-Portland, a landlord who was viewed as an obstacle to tenant protections.

Housing advocates and their elected allies are expected to bring forward rent control and other tenant-friendly measures in the legislative session that begins in January.

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By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network

NEWPORT, Ore. (AP) — Hot housing markets in major cities like Seattle and Portland have pushed the cities to regulate short-term rentals like Airbnb. But small Pacific Northwest towns popular with visitors are also struggling to balance the growth of Airbnb-type rentals with a tight housing supply.

Newport is a beach town on the central coast known for its working waterfront, sea lions, lighthouses and aquarium. Now, the town finds itself at the messy intersection of the sharing economy, the tourism business and a housing crunch.

The town has held two meetings so far for residents to ask questions and sound off on short-term rentals.

Sandy Benning came to the first open house last week to support capping the number of short-term vacation rentals available in Newport. Benning said she learned firsthand how tight the housing market on the Oregon coast is when she and her husband moved to Newport two years ago.

“We literally looked for a place to rent for almost 90 days,” Benning said. “That entire time we stayed in VRDs (vacation rental dwellings) around the local area. It was a huge expense for us to stay here over the summer for what, three months, before we found a place to live.”

Benning shares a widely held concern around the Northwest that landlords are converting long-term units for the local workforce into short-term rentals for visitors because the temporary rentals are more lucrative.

“This was something we found repeatedly,” Benning said. “In fact, we ended up having to purchase a home. And the availability of homes for us to purchase was very, very limited.”

Newport resident Carla Perry lives in an oceanfront neighborhood where vacation rentals have proliferated and created what Perry calls “a critical situation.”

“Lots of traffic. Lots of noise. Garbage. Lots of people,” Perry said. “This was a quiet neighborhood. It’s changed that. There are no neighbors. It’s not like you can know who is staying anywhere.”

Perry is part of a citizen advisory committee that came up with options for how Newport could regulate short-term rentals. The alternatives include limits on the number of vacation rentals, their location or density, as well as establishing a complaint hotline.

Newport Community Development Director Derrick Tokos said the committee borrowed ideas from other Northwest places that took a run at this issue recently.

Hood River doesn’t restrict home shares or bed-and-breakfasts where the owner or a manager lives on the premises. Astoria has a limit on the number of rooms that can be rented. Both Cannon Beach and Yachats have caps on short-term rentals, and Durango has a density limit that only allows one short-term vacation rental per block.

“It’s kind of a potpourri,” Tokos said. “They looked at best management practices that a lot of jurisdictions are using. These are all kinda living codes that get updated periodically as jurisdictions try something. Then, ‘Hey, maybe that wasn’t working like we wanted.’ So they make adjustments.”

Newport has a permanent population just over 10,000. Tokos said about 200 properties are currently licensed as vacation rentals.

The push to clamp down comes just as more property owners are looking to list their beach homes with rental management companies. Pete Even, who lives outside of Springfield, Oregon, is in the process of a buying a second home in Newport with hopes of generating some retirement income.

“There’s already enough rules and regulations on the books. They just need to be enforced,” Even said. “We want to do it the right way, but we don’t want to be micromanaged if we’re doing it properly.”

Jon Tesar of Kennewick, Washington, owns a second home in Newport that he’d like to turn into a vacation rental. He’s concerned a cap that’s too restrictive might mess up his plans, not to mention the city’s greater economic prospects.

“If you start to establish yourself as a place that is unfriendly to tourists, it’s a slippery slope,” Tesar said. “You don’t know where it’s going. So if you start restricting the number of tourists that can come in, it just doesn’t seem like it’s good for our economy. You’re wasting the space.”

The Newport City Council will have the final say on what to do after the citizens committee and the planning commission first try to reach consensus where they can.

Newport currently has a fairly basic licensing requirement for vacation rentals that permits them in all zones of the city if adequate parking is available. Nearby Lincoln City last year joined other coastal cities such as Manzanita, Seaside and Gearhart in limiting the number of vacation rentals allowed in residential neighborhoods. Astoria only allows vacation rentals in commercial zones, although an Airbnb search this week showed that restriction is being flouted.

But regulations can also come with consequences. Manzanita’s rules are being challenged in federal court as excessive and unconstitutional by a Washington woman who was fined for accepting money from friends and family who stayed at her second home. In Gearhart, vacation rental proprietors forced a voter referendum on restrictions they considered overly strict, but the rules were upheld at the polls last November.

Vacation rentals are a hot topic on the Washington coast, too.

Long Beach, Washington’s city administrator recently said his community has learned from the experiences of Oregon coastal towns. Long Beach and nearby Ilwaco now strictly prohibit short-term rentals of homes in residential zones unless the property owner obtains a conditional-use permit.

In Ocean Shores, Washington, the city planning commission this spring heard testimony that “hundreds” of short-term rentals are operating in residential areas in likely violation of city codes and probably not paying state and local taxes.

The planning commission continues to study the approaches other places have taken with no action anticipated before autumn.

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