Rental Housing Journal On-Site
August 2015 - Vol. 9 Issue 08
3. Today’s Online Renter
11. The Value of Membership – WMFHA
8. Pet Smart: What You Need to Know About Being Pet-Friendly
13. Ask the Secret Shopper 15. 5 Ways to Improve Resident Relations – A Crash Course
9. Why Work-Life Balance is the Wrong Idea
21. To Social Media Relevance
10. Dear Maintenance Men
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Puget Sound Apartment Owners, Property Managers & Maintenance Personnel
Published in association with: Washington Apartment Association, IREM & Washington Multifamily Housing Association
Vacancies Drop to 4.05% and Rents Surge.
31ST
TRENDS 2015 Education Conference & Trade Show MARK YOUR CALENDER!! 31st Annual TRENDS 2015 December 8th, Washington Convention Center, Seattle TRENDS is ‘THE’ Oldest and Largest Northwest Rental Housing Education Conference and Trade Show OVER 1,500 PEOPLE attend TRENDS TRENDS hosts a 215 Booth TRADE SHOW
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PRSRT STD US Postage PAID Albany, OR Permit #188
his year TRENDS will be celebrating it’s 31st year of production in a VERY big-way. The conference draws over 1,500 attendees and hosts the biggest industry trade show of 215 exhibits. The TRENDS education schedule offers 40 outstanding workshops. This year’s TRENDS should be the biggest conference ever. continued on page 4
By Tom Cain Seattle he latest Apartment Insights survey shows the vacancy rate dropping to 4.05%. Rents shot up $67 to $1,408 per unit according to Tom Cain of Apartment Insights. The data are from his Seattle firm’s 2nd quarter statistics and trends on 50+ unit properties in the King/Snohomish market. VACANCY: 4.05% The vacancy rate for our nonrandom survey of conventional, stabilized 50+ unit properties in the King/Snohomish market is 4.05%. The market was strong last quarter when the rate was 4.46%, but it just got stronger. This is the all-time low since we began surveying this rental market in 2005. It was 4.17% a year ago. The overall vacancy rate which includes properties in lease-up continued on page 5
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Medical Marijuana and Reasonable Accommodations in Housing By Christopher D. Cutting, Loeffler Law Group PLLC
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Professional Publishing, Inc PO Box 30327 Portland, OR 97294-3327
ousing providers are required to make reasonable changes in their policies and procedures to allow benefit disabled individuals to fully benefit from the housing opportunity by both the Washington Law Against Discrimination and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. This obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation applies to private landlords. Some examples of reasonable accommodations include
allowing a guide dog in a no pets building and allowing a tenant to install a grab-bar in the shower. With recent changes to the law concerning marijuana, landlords are faced with the question of whether they need to allow medical marijuana in a nonsmoking or drug free rental unit. All uses of marijuana are illegal under federal law. Washington allows both the medical and recreational use of marijuana by adults. Recreational use of marijuana does not receive any special protection under Washington law; Landlords are free to prohibit recreational mari-
juana. Washington landlords may wish to prohibit use of recreational marijuana because smoking it may annoy other tenants, increase costs at turnover, and put a building as risk of federal asset forfeiture. A landlord who wishes to prohibit marijuana on his or her property should add a specific clause in the lease prohibiting its use. A generic ban on “illegal activity” may not be effective now that marijuana is legal under Washington law. Medical use of marijuana creates a different question. The Washington continued on page 6
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