Center for Owner-occupied Real Estate

Very welcome news.

Preempting Bad Local Housing Policies: Indiana Shows How Indiana has overcome the conceptual barriers many legislatures have about preemption; it's legal and essential to prevent bad housing policy.

Just spreading around theseattlejournal.com’s voting guide for moderates. Your help sharing it is most welcome. 🙏

2024 TSJ Primary Voting Guide for Moderates Forget political polarization. Follow the TSJ Primary Voting Guide for Moderates. Expect results, not outrage.

Hot off the press.

How to Bring Back Owner-Occupied Rental Housing - The Seattle Journal Local and state rental housing legislation works against owner-occupied rental housing and small landlords who want to rent out an affordable room or a basement apartment in the house they live in. Exemptions would help. While this type of owner-occupied rental housing - whether a room, or an apartm...

It's Kate Martin. I have a meeting scheduled for August 1 with my District 6 Seattle City Councilmember, Dan Strauss, to discuss a bill that I'd like him to put forth that exempts owner-occupied rental housing (shared houses, ADUs, DADUs, Duplexes, Triplexes and Fourplexes from nearly all local rental housing legislation. This will reduce risk for owner-occupant landlords and create more affordable housing for renters. CORE later intends to talk to state legislators with this ask so they can do the same with the Washington State Revised Code of Washington RCW, that includes all of the rental housing legislation as well.

Coming to a blue city near you.

New York's Housing Court Hell Landlord-tenant issues may be a fact of life in New York City, but they usually don’t make national news. In recent months, however, Americans have read about squatters in the city taking up residence in quiet residential neighborhoods, tenants refusing to pay rent for years on end, and even polic...

Please stop by my house tomorrow (Saturday) between 12:30 and 1:30 to meet gubernatorial candidate Mark Mullet. He's an awesomely qualified candidate who shares our owner-occupied small business values. We'll have yard signs here and Mark is bringing Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream! (His business when not being a competent moderate Dem senator in Oly during the winter includes owning and operating some Zeek's Pizza and Ben and Jerry's franchises.)
Kindly invite your circle to come by.
Kate Martin 412 NW 73rd St Seattle, WA 98117

Mark Mullet for Governor Mark Mullet for Governor’s campaign

Please stop by my house tomorrow (Saturday) between 12:30 and 1:30 to meet Washington State gubernatorial candidate Mark Mullet. He's an awesomely qualified candidate who shares our owner-occupied small business values. We'll have yard signs here and Mark is bringing Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream! (His business when not being a competent moderate Dem senator in Oly during the winter includes owning and operating some Zeek's Pizza and Ben and Jerry's franchises.)
Kindly invite your circle to come by.
Kate Martin 412 NW 73rd St Seattle, WA 98117

Mark Mullet for Governor Mark Mullet for Governor’s campaign

It's super important to get our Washington Sate legislators to approve more commissioners to hear these eviction cases. We need to be lobbying them for the votes. Meanwhile, Reagan Dunn and Mark Mullet get it, thankfully. It's a quick read that explains well the situation we're in.

How does WA fix its eviction case backlog? A constitutional change King County is struggling due to a constitutional requirement that unlawful detainer cases must be heard by a constitutional commissioner.

Here in Seattle/King County eviction proceedings in King County Superior Court are seriously backlogged which is causing significant financial hardship for landlords, especially small landlords. Backlogs of this kind are not happening in other WA county courts. Additionally, King County contributes funding to the Housing Justice Project which provides free legal services to tenants in eviction court. No equivalent free legal services are offered to small landlords. Basically, the county is in a position where they're supporting processes that result in material damages to rental property owners in King County. King County District 4 Councilmember Jorge Baron will be meeting with constituents on Friday June 14th in Greenwood at Coffeeholic House at 8525 Greenwood Ave from 3pm - 5pm. Please join me there to bring this issue up with Councilmember Baron.

https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/evictions-king-county-wa

Thousands left in limbo as King County eviction cases pile up King County is grappling with a significant backlog of eviction cases, leaving thousands of landlords and tenants without resolution for months.

We're working with Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to make it easier for owner-occupant landlords to find the rental housing regulations in the City of Seattle that pertain to them. It's been really hard to find the information to-date. While we're not setting any records on getting the info organized, there is progress and it's possible that in another month or two we'll have some clear information. Also, SDCI is working on a section for their rental housing regulation website specifically for owner-occupied units (DADUs, ADUs, and shared housing). This is progress. Once the regulations are well defined, CORE will be seeking additional exemptions for owner-occupant small landlords so we can unlock the vast inventory of shared housing units that exists in houses where people have vacant rooms, but are too nervous to rent out space even though they could use the money or the company or both. In King County alone, there are over 200,000 units in waiting. In Washington State, over 1,000,000 units.

Please consider calling your King County Councilmember to support Reagan Dunn's proposal. Here are the members and their districts: https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/council/governance-leadership/county-council/councilmembers-districts. Thank you.

Dunn proposal would restrict funds, request audit of controversial Housing Justice Project programs - King County, Washington We currently offer language translations on our site primarily through Google Translate. This helps visitors find and use information in the languages they speak, but the tool is not perfect. Automated translation may be inaccurate or errors may display on translated pages.