I bet that there are properties that just took a valuation hit of 20% or more.
Why isn’t this classified as a government theft?
As a small-time landlord in rural Oregon, that would represent a buying opportunity.
This law is actually not that bad, the real danger is that it will have the opposite of the desired effect -- units will become scarce and more expensive. And then, then the legislature will decide that the cause of failure is that the law did not go far enough so they will make it much more onerous.
Surprisingly, even though our little town has less than 1% vacancy rate, we have 25-40% voluntary turnover every year. When a unit voluntarily becomes vacant, it can be re-rented at any level. There is no vacancy control in this law.
I suspect the law will provide an annual increase of 7% plus CPI, about 10%, which is a lot better than we have been able to get in the past. It will become the "standard" rent increase.
To me, the real problem is that it does not allow for no-cause terminations. As a landlord, I can tell you that no landlord wants to terminate a good tenant. A turnover always costs money. The truth of the situation is that a no-cause termination always has a cause behind it: drug use, low-level drug dealing, alcoholism, criminal activity, low-level prostitution, etc. I may not want to go to the trouble of proving these problems, so I used to be able to do no-cause terminations. Now I am going to have to document and lay these issues out -- I will still get rid of undesirable tenants, but they will now be in a worse position, and will have a harder time finding a new place.
Too bad, so sad.