Rent increases in WA could get capped at 7% under latest push by Democratic lawmakers
Housing affordability is a big concern among Washingtonians who feel crushed under the weight of inflation and skyrocketing rents. It’s why Democratic lawmakers this session are again trying to limit annual rent hikes to no more than 7%.
State Sen. Yasmin Trudeau of Tacoma and state Rep. Emily Alvarado of Seattle are sponsoring legislation that would do just that. A similar push failed last session, but the lawmakers hope that 2025 will be their year.
“It is my job and my responsibility to make sure that people have their basic needs, and housing is a fundamental, basic need,” Trudeau told reporters during a Friday press conference. “You cannot expect people to think about opportunity — to have hope — with the ground shaking underneath them.”
Advocates argue that the legislation would erect sensible guardrails for tenants amid a rise in both evictions and homelessness. Detractors have countered that it could hurt the state’s housing supply by discouraging developers and landlords.
The proposal would also protect manufactured homeowners who lease the land on which their house rests. In addition to capping annual increases for existing renters at 7%, the companion bills mandate that tenants be notified six months in advance of rent bumps 3% or higher.
Late and move-in fees also would be limited.
Some housing types are exempted, including new multi-family constructions for the first 10 years and nonprofit-owned and operated housing.
The rent-cap odds might be better this time around, thanks partly to a shift in committee makeup, new legislators and broad constituent support.
Last year the state logged its highest-ever rate of eviction filings, said Michele Thomas with the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. Inability to pay rent was the main driver.
Thomas told reporters on Friday that frail renter protections disproportionately hit people of color, who are likelier to rent than white households.
Nearly 4 in 10 Washington residents are renters, she said. Close to half of those, 47%, saw their rents jump by more than $100 per month in the past year.
Support for rent caps
Zeenia Junkeer, a renter in Bellingham, said during the Friday press conference that she lives in a small apartment complex managed by a company in California. By June, her rent will have risen more than $350 over 12 months.
Even for someone with a good salary, Junkeer said, that price hike hurts.
“So while I’m thankful I can afford the increase, I shouldn’t have to, and neither should anyone else living in this state,” she said. “How can people be expected to save for a home or their kid’s school — a vacation, a car, et cetera — when they’re having to choose between making a move they hadn’t planned for, or not paying their bills to make sure they don’t get evicted?”
Ann Dorn, a leader with the tenant-rights group Tacoma For All, told McClatchy that she’s excited to see the legislation revived this year. She described it as a natural extension to the Landlord Fairness Code citizens’ initiative that took effect in Tacoma in December 2023.
Similar renter safeguards are desperately needed at the state level, Dorn said.
“It’s not enough to protect residents of Tacoma,” she continued. “We need to protect other cities and other places as well so that we can stabilize our communities, protect working families, keep kids in school, and generally protect against the growing issues with homelessness that are facing our state.”
Supply concerns
The rent-stabilization push also has attracted naysayers. The Washington Landlord Association is urging its members to be ready to testify in opposition to Alvarado’s House Bill 1217.
Last year a similar lower-chamber bill died in committee in the Senate, McClatchy reported.
During a Thursday legislative preview, Democratic House Speaker Laurie Jinkins of Tacoma told reporters that the latest iteration would again pass off the House floor. Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen, a Seattle Democrat, thought his caucus would support it, too, especially if bolstered by bills aimed at expanding housing affordability and supply.
Yet while Republican leadership agrees that housing affordability is a serious problem, they differ on how to go about solving it.
“We need to focus squarely on building more housing and solving the problem from the supply side,” House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary of Auburn said Thursday. “And I think this is a distraction from that.”
Trudeau on Friday said she has focused on that issue by bringing and passing “a number of supply bills.” She was the primary Senate sponsor of a bill aimed at expanding middle housing, for instance.
“We can chew gum and walk,” Trudeau said. “The issue is that supply is going to take a long time, so we have to have something in place to make sure that people are not funneled onto the street while we do that.
“We are doing both.”
HB 1217 will receive a hearing in the House Housing Committee at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 13, the first day of session.
This story was originally published January 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Rent increases in WA could get capped at 7% under latest push by Democratic lawmakers."
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