Comments

1
Good. It's not perfect, but it's a start. Now follow through on it.
2
Will this help out the hooker in the parking lot of my work who lives in her Minivan and does tricks there?
3
There's a shitload of good, used class A motorhomes listed on Criag's in every city offered for just a few grand. Why not buy them in bulk and park them on the outskirts of Trimet. There's no need to even dig them foundations. Let the homeless live in them and have a free bus pass to go downtown to eat at the missions and go to their doctors. Maybe change the locks because you don't want them taking the key, starting the engine, and leaving town, now do you?
4
So if you are willing to give up a primo property for lease you'll make a killing off the tax payers. The Man wins again! Gotta love the poor, if you're rich.
5
The rent has skyrocketed because the city allowed (and then legalized) AirBnB apartment rentals! Just 2 years ago rent was $300 less than what it is now for me and just about everything I've looked at in the Portland area has increased exponentially since then as well. Why rent to someone by the month if you can make much more $ renting by the day impersonating a hotel without the rules? Once apartment complexes started realizing that their tenants are making so much money renting out one or two of their rooms, they caught on that those tenants can now afford much more in rent. However, for people like me who do not take advantage of the recent legislation our Mayor passed to transform residential neighborhoods into illegal small businesses without employees, we are the ones who unfortunately have to pay, silently without a voice! Why are you only speaking of the homeless housing crisis when there's much more involved?
6
Charlie Hales only wants to stay in office to keep the gravy train rollin' for himself and his pals.

Seems like the prospect of Wheeler comin' to town has our commissioners quaking in their boots too.

Can't happen soon enough.
8
Saltzman and the City Attorneys' explanation for why 90-days notice was ok but 120 days was not was complete gibberish.

There's no legitimate legal difference, but Dan wanted an excuse to appease the scumbag landlord lobbyists --who are going to sue either way, so why make concessions to them? Wake the fuck up, Dan.
9
According to a recent merc article, Airbnb units comprise only 2% of the market. So overall, they likely aren't having a large impact on the lack of supply issues.
10
If a Portland Mercury article supports my assumption, it must be legit, right?
11
@JTR:

The AirBnB units might comprise 2% of all (potential) rental units, but it's a MUCH larger fraction of the AVAILABLE units. If we assume that we have about 120K rental units, and 3% of them are available, that's 3600 rental units. Now open up those 1200 AirBnB's to long term renters, and you've just increased your available units by 25%.

The thing is, there aren't even 3600 units available. That might be true for our MSA, but I sure can't find 3600 available rentals listed anywhere online. Zillow lists 1082 rentals in Portland right now. Craigslist shows about 1500, but TONS of those are repeats (and scams). So those 1169 illegal AirBnBs are actually a BIG DEAL. Adding them back in would increase the available units by 100%. It would DOUBLE our available housing stock.
12
The amount of affordable houses that the city has proposed to provide was less than 1400. Airbnb units make up more than that number. Not all airbnb units remove rental units from the market, but a very substantial number of them do so. Airbnb or guesthouses affect our housing market is by raising the price of properties that were once homes. If you own a fourplex or duplex or big old house and set it up to operate legally as a "guest house," BnB, or Hostel, you can ask a lot more $$$ for it, get more financing for it, because commercial properties are priced according to a CAP, or capitalization rate, how much can be gained annually on your investment: The yearly net income (NOI) and divided it by the sales price. Most investors consider a cap rate at 5% or better a good investment. This is how and why you're seeing former fourplex apartment buildings in Buckman and what used to be a 4 bdrm family home on Alberta going for $1 million plus as guesthouses. More and more properties become investments, not housing units. And when there's money to be made, the trend will continue. That 2% figure is going to get a lot bigger.
13
Fix the ROADS and stop the panhandling in Oregon!! The money is better served in the shelter's and food kitchens! If you give the homeless cash 95% will just get Alcohol and Drugs....
14
But Margot, JTR read that in the Portland Mercury. He's got an airtight alibi for his ignorance.
15
Trooper - I see your troll crush is in full flame today. Those are simple numbers, that is all I was stating.

Margot - that holds true, but only at a single point in time. i.e., if we opened them all up tomorrow, the vacancy % would increase for the next few weeks which would be a windfall for a lucky few (although, see my paragraph below). However, once those airbnb units were rented, we would likely go right back to where we were from a vacancy perspective (only 3% or so of those former Airbnb units would be available at any given time) and things would still be as competitive and tight as ever. Overall, the entire apartment stock - which is what you have to look at over the medium or long term, not just units that happen to be available right now - would only be increased by the ~2% that was put back into it.

Also, it is worth mentioning that by default the majority of AirBnb units are in expensive locations (most out of towners want prime locations in hip neighborhoods in their Airbnb's), so we would just be largely adding in more high rent units...not affordable units, which is what we really need.
16
AirBnB seems like a pretty easy scapegoat, but the fact is there was basically no new construction in Portland for five years (hell, they stopped work mid-construction on a downtown apartment building after they already dug the hole due to piss poor economic conditions) and that's going to take some time to overcome. And while I'm certainly no expert on AirBnB, I've got a hunch from staying in a few elsewhere that a lot of these "units" wouldn't be units except for the existence of AirBnB (as in, I suppose I would consider renting out part of my house for a few days on AirBnB, but would never consider taking on a full-time renter).

Euphonis: Honest and earnest question here: how long legally, in your opinion, would the no-fault eviction notice have to be to be considered rent control? I agree that claiming it's 120 days seems pretty specious, but a year? Two years?
17
@JTR,

Yes JTR, simple numbers from a simpleton. We've already established that fact.

Your People magazine has probably arrived recently, so are there any other statistics you'd like to throw out at this point?
18
Care to stay on topic and try to add something to the conversation for once, trooper? I can't believe that the Merc hasn't banned your account yet. You troll 100% of the time, never on topic, and most of the time directed at me. Pretty pathetic.
19
^ Quit being such a fucking crybaby JTR. The Merc won't ban my account because they obviously realize that I tend to respond to your comments as opposed to inciting them.

You're a coward and a hypocrite. You're also a bloviating nitwit. When you stop spouting nonsense and instigating shit here, you'll probably notice that I have nothing to say to your dumbass.

Now quit whining every time I point out how stupid and unfounded your bullshit comments are you twit.
20
@ChuckAGarabedian

There are two distinct issues under discussion here: One is the extension of the notice required for a "no cause" eviction to 90 days. Section 30.01.085(B). The other would extend the notice to 90 days for a rent increase of 10% or more within a 12-month period. 30.01.085(C).

If you think about it, you'll quickly realize why it's important to take both issues together: An excessively high rent increase can amount to an eviction, so allowing a shorter timeframe for rent increases would render the no-cause protection ineffectual.

I don't think anyone would argue that subsection B violates the rent control prohibition, but they might argue that subsection C does. ("[A] city or county shall not enact any ordinance or resolution which controls the rent that may be charged for the rental of any dwelling unit." ORS 91.225(2).)

Commssioner Fritz initially wanted to offer an amendment to extend the subsection C notice to 120 days. She instead offered an amendment to subsection C to drop the percentage to 5%, which was approved 4 to 1, with Saltzman opposing. The City Attorney took the position that a 90-day notice was probably acceptable under the rent control law but a 120-day one would not be. She also said that dropping the percentage to 5% would probably not violate the rent control law, which was why Fritz changed her amendment.

I believe that 120-day notice would survive a legal challenge because it's only a notice requirement. It in no way "controls the rent that can be charged." A landlord can charge as much as she/he wants. She/He can raise the amount from year-to-year as much as she/he wants. All the law would require is that the tenant get adequate notice.

(Note also that even if you believe that the notice requirement violates the rent control law, that law itself allows rent control under emergency situations. "Cities, counties and state agencies may impose temporary rent controls when a natural or man-made disaster that materially eliminates a significant portion of the rental housing supply occurs, but must remove the controls when the rental housing supply is restored to substantially normal levels." ORS 91.225(5).)

I believe that Dan Saltzman wanted to appease the landlords, and asked for an opinion from the attorneys to rationalize limiting the notice to 90 days. The attempt to claim a legal distinction between 90 and 120 days was, as I said, gibberish. What she seemed to be implying was that the landlords might not sue the city if they got the 90-day requirement, but would sue if 120 days was enacted --which is essentially a political argument more than a legal one.

If the landlords believe they have a case, they'll sue whether it's 90 days or 120 days. Their awful lobbyist essentially conceded as much later in the hearing. After Fritz abandoned her effort to get 120-days, Commissioner Fish asked the horrible person to take the potential suit off the table, but she refused to do so.

Meaning that giving in to their demands got us nothing.

And here's what gives Saltzman away: If all he cared about was the legality, why did he then vote against Fritz's 5% amendment?

Perhaps that would be a good follow-up question for Shelby to ask him.
21
@Euphonius: Many thanks.
22
Trooper - you have not once pointed out that any of my comments are "unfounded" or "stupid". That is precisely the problem, honey. You are incapable of making any coherent point, and the truths I point out on a whole host of topics really get under your skin. Have a good day trolling.
23
^ "Truths"

You're funny JTR.
24
I don't think we need to get rid of Airbnb in Portland but we DO need to enforce the laws that require each listing to have a permit number. That will eliminate most of them which don't comply with the rules about owner occupied (for entire houses and apartments). Out of town guests staying in a hosts home are not the problem with rental prices but they need permits to make sure they're safe. Many of the listings on sites such as Airbnb are rented by either owners who don't live there or rented by folks knowing that short term 'subletting' of them gets them a hefty profit. The law states that each entire home or apartment is required to be occupied by its owner or renter for 270 days of the year (unless it's an ADU) and that's not what you find. Just look at the wide open calendars on most listings, indicating that they are rentable year round. Hales responded to me on OPB's Think Out Loud that they can't get the addresses from Airbnb. I call bull. The reason is they aren't trying because the city benefits from massive amounts of listings even if they're not legal because Airbnb and others forward 12.5% occupancy taxes to the Dept of Revenue. They'd rather not enforce the law, reap the taxes and leave citizens looking for rental houses and apartments out in the dust.
25
its just hales chance to waste dollars on his dumb ideas without our approval - IT IS A REELECTION STUNT THAT WILL WASTE ALL THE FUNDING WE HAVE.

No one's getting rid of AirBnb anymore than they are going to reverse globalization. Find a way to play the game and beat companies like AirBnb at it. As JTR said; we need to clear out affordable units right? Rather than asking dummies like hales and Saltzman to combat the free market corporations they suck off under the table because they are way more powerful than any of those guys will ever be, and rather than asking how to make more affordable units, maybe ask the better question: "what could beat airbnb at it's own game all the while clearing out room in affordable units?"

ps- merc your website is fucked up, I cannot click a link without going somewhere I did not intend.

Please wait...

and remember to be decent to everyone
all of the time.

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