Seattle Moves Closer to the Edge

Like a swarm of lemmings, Seattle keeps moving closer to the edge of the cliff. Since the beginning of the pandemic, city council has enacted a series of destructive ordinances under the guise of protecting tenants. The latest insanity includes:

• Tenants must be given six months’ notice of rent increases
• Landlords must pay a tenant three months of rent if the tenant moves because of a rent increase of 10 percent or more

These measures just make it more difficult and more expensive for property owners to provide the housing Seattle so desperately needs. This will not have good consequences for anyone.

It can be extremely difficult for a landlord to project his expenses six months into the future. As an example, a landlord may not receive his property tax bill six months before a lease expires. He would be unable to increase the rent to reflect an increase in taxes. The same holds true of insurance—an increase in premiums may not be known six months before a lease expires.

Add into the equation the uncertainty of what city council might do next, and it is more than likely that many landlords will withdraw their rental properties from the market. And others will raise rents the maximum amount allowed whether their costs have increased or not. When the supply of housing decreases and rents on the remaining housing increases, city council will enact more draconian measures in a futile attempt to fix the problems caused by previous draconian measures.

This isn’t a case of the cure being worse than the disease. In Seattle, the alleged cure is the disease. City council believes that prohibitions and mandates will somehow produce more affordable housing.

The solution to Seattle’s housing crisis is a complete repeal of every restriction and control on housing producers. But given the city’s track record, that idea is crazier than anything city council has concocted so far.