Rental Housing Journal On-Site
October 2017
3. Is Your Rental Housing A Target For Bird Nests? 5. Final Defendant Sentenced In Tacoma In Long Running Mortgage Fraud Case 6. Why Your Apartment Reviews and Digital Curb Appeal Matter
7. Segmented Training Fits Better In A Busy Multifamily Professional’s Day 8. 4 Ways To Keep Up With Changing Compliance Laws In Rental Housing 9. Washington Apartment Outlook
11. Top 10 Hottest Hipster Markets In America 17. Startup Company Tackling The Rental Property Maintenance Toothache
www.rentalhousingjournal.com • Professional Publishing, Inc 17,000 Papers Mailed Monthly To Puget Sound Apartment Owners, Property Managers & Maintenance Personnel Published in association with Washington Association, IREM & Washington Multifamily Housing Association
Seattle Area Landlords To Pay $95,000 To Settle Discrimination Complaint
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he owners and manager of three Edmonds, Washington, apartment buildings north of Seattle have reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve a lawsuit filed earlier this year following a discrimination complaint.. The lawsuit alleged that those landlords refused to rent their apartments to families with children, in violation of the Fair Housing Act, according to a release. The landlords will pay $95,000 in damages and civil penalties to settle the discrimination complaint, according to the release. Discrimination complaint alleges apartments advertised as adult only “The settlement resolves a complaint filed by the department in March 2017 which alleged that in March 2014 defendant Debbie A. Appleby told a woman seeking an apartment for herself, her husband and their one-year-old child that the apartment buildings were “adult only.” The complaint also alleged that defendants advertised their apartments as being in “adult buildings,” according to the release. continued on page 22
Is Your Property Management Compliance Training Working? By Ellen Clark
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he Grace Hill training tip this month focuses on compliance training and the importance for landlords and property managers of keeping up with ever-changing rental housing laws at federal, state and local levels. The holy grail of compliance training questions: Is the training working? Being able to answer the question, “Is my compliance training program working?” requires thoughtful planning, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Breaking it down can help, so over the next few weeks we’ll provide a series of tips for structuring a good compliance continued on page 22
Empty Nester Housing Key As Baby Boomers Keep Working
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mpty nester housing is a key as the surge in full-time workers over the age of 65 means that folks born in the 1950s are going to continue working well past the traditional retirement age, according to a new report from John Burns Real Estate Consulting. “The workaholic baby boomers continue to redefine employment, even as they reach the traditional retirement age. They created the surge in dualincome families that ended in 2000, and now they are creating a surge in fulltime workers over the age of 65,” write Chris Porter, Chief Demographer, and Mikaela Sharp, Research Analyst, for John Burns. Burns calls this group born in the continued on page 11