Rental Housing Journal Valley
February 2016
2. 5 Extraordinary Ways to Market and Lease Apartments 4. Handling Application Deposit Desputes
5. 14 Points That Must Be in Your Apartment Building Leasing and Marketing Plan
EUGENE · SALEM ·ALBANY · CORVALLIS WWW.RENTALHOUSINGJOURNAL.COM • PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING, INC
Five Facts Your Community Network – Every Parent Doorway to Delivering New Dollars from Digital Services Should Know About Their Housing Rights
By Jo Becker, Education/Outreach Specialist, Fair Housing Council of Oregon
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s housing providers, you should know that federal, state, and local fair housing laws1 make it illegal for housing developers, landlords, Realtors®, homeowners associations, shelters, (etc.) to deny housing to families with children or to place unreasonable restrictions on them. Of all the alleged acts of discrimination each year, those made on the basis of familial status is among the most common of all the protected classes – this is true nationwide, as well as here in Oregon. Following is a reprint of a media release from HUD that aims to inform parents of their right to buy, rent, and live in the home of their choice regardless of whether or not there are children in the home. If children live in your home, obviously, you have these same rights as well. We encourage you to review these familial status rights from the lens of both the housing consumer (which is the tone of this media release), as well as your responsibilities under the law as housing providers.
By Eric Markow
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our renters not only want to live on your properties, they also want to live on the Internet and the World Wide Web! In a recent article, we talked about the increased value and desirability that implementing wireless (Wi-Fi) internet access in each of your units would bring to your properties. Wi-Fi services would make your properties more efficient, and
more in tune with the needs of today’s renters – whatever their age.
So now that you have this network, what can you do with it?
Presto – You’ve Built a Network
Incremental Revenue from Your Community Network
What we haven’t talked about is the fact that implementing Wi-Fi in all of your units actually builds your own private community network -- a sort of mini-internet all your own!
continued on page 6
Are The Current Proposed Legislative Bills Really Helping Tenants?
1. You Cannot Be Denied Housing Because You Have a Child
Although it has been illegal for 20 years, many housing developments and apartment buildings still have rules prohibiting families with children or families expecting a child. With the exception of senior housing and small properties where the owner resides <NOTE: The small property exemption, known as ‘the continued on page 3 Professional Publishing Inc., PO Box 6244 Beaverton, OR 97007
The first thing you need to know about your community network is that it makes money for you. You become your renters’ Internet Service Provider (ISP),
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s you may know by now there are a few bills being proposed during the current legislative session that will put some very large restrictions on Landlords across the state of Oregon. PRSRT STD US Postage PAID Portland, OR Permit #5460
These bills are calling for a range of things like doing away with no-cause notices, asking landlords to pay tenant relocation expenses when they serve a no-cause notice, and repealing the “no rent control”
law to allow cities to enact rent control guidelines, just to name the major ones. Unfortunately these particular bills are very one sided and ignore the detrimental effect they will have on the small landlords across our state. A large portion of landlords are middle class citizens that are not making much of a profit beyond just paying the mortgage on their rental property. Some are landlords only because renting their home was the only option other than letting it go into foreclosure when the housing market crashed. When I see bills like this I feel that those presenting them are continued on page 7
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