Duana Ricks-Johnson, a 54-year-old veteran and single mother, returned from advocating for rent stabilization in Olympia last year to find a 14-day pay-or-vacate notice on her Vancouver apartment door. She had told legislators earlier that day she wasn’t able to pay her rent after it increased by $300 a month.
A year later, Washington finally has rent stabilization. But Ricks-Johnson has mixed emotions.
“It’s a placeholder to do better,” she said.
On Wednesday, Gov. Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 1217 — a hard-fought and hugely controversial bill capping yearly rent increases at 7 percent plus inflation or 10 percent, whichever is less. “Rent” includes any other recurring or periodic charges identified in the rental agreement, according to the bill.
Rents for mobile homes, which have often experienced high rent increases locally, are capped at 5 percent.
Landlords are not allowed to raise their rents during the first year of tenancy. Buildings owned by nonprofits and public housing authorities are exempt, along with new construction for the first 12 years.
Corporate and small landlords have fought against rent-cap bills over the past two years. They argued that rent caps would kill off housing stock, minimize maintenance and actually drive up rents.
Tenants, on the other hand, have been begging legislators to follow in the footsteps of other Western states and embrace rent stabilization. It’s not fair that landlords had the ability to suddenly double rent under the law, they argued.
But tenants who advocated for an early version of the bill with a flat 7 percent cap say increases as high as 10 percent would still crush them.
Landlords
Republican legislators, as well as Democratic Sen. Annette Cleveland of Vancouver, opposed rent-stabilization bills in 2024 and 2025.
“Will this help people afford rent in the long-term? No. Will it trap tenants in place by making it financially impossible to move? Yes. Will it discourage new affordable housing? Absolutely. Will it raise costs for small landlords? Without a doubt,” Cleveland wrote in a statement.
Rent stabilization could encourage landlords to sell off their rentals and deter companies looking to build housing in Washington, they argued.
Without the power to raise rent as needed, landlords have an incentive to raise the rent by the maximum allowed every year, said Sue Denfeld, a landlord and president of the Clark County Rental Association.
A 7 percent-plus-inflation or 10 percent yearly increase could drive rents up even higher, they said. (Over the past decade, fair-market rent in Vancouver has gone up an average of 8.2 percent a year.)
Vancouver attorney Erin McAleer, who frequently represents landlords, has also heard that landlords will raise rents to the maximum.
“If you’re having a rough go with your place and you have a lot of repairs … you’re going to have to raise rents,” McAleer said. “Now, it’s the fear of ‘If I don’t raise them to the max, I won’t have enough money to cover those things.’”
Those fears may steer landlords and developers away from Washington, said Phil Wuest, president and chief development officer at Ginn Group, a Vancouver developer.
A tighter housing market means rent caps may grant renters only brief relief, he said.
“Over the long term, HB 1217 is another on a long list of Washington laws that make it more difficult, riskier and more expensive to build all kinds of housing in Washington state — including rental housing, particularly when compared with other states that are not Oregon or California,” Wuest wrote in an email to The Columbian.
Mobile homes
Craig Hillis — president of InTrust Realty Advisors, which manages three Washington mobile home parks, including two in Clark County — said a 5 percent cap on mobile home parks will result in deferred maintenance to save on costs.
“Older communities need a bunch of maintenance to them,” Hillis said. “It won’t be cost-effective to renovate an old manufactured home community to make a new manufactured home community.”
He suspects mobile home park owners will begin to sell off manufactured home parks to people who want to build multifamily housing.
“Over time, it’ll have a tremendous effect,” Hillis said. “It’s going to reduce the supply of manufactured housing communities.”
Hillis expects that manufactured home park rents will go up by the maximum every year across the industry. He’s not sure whether his company will follow, but there are no plans to raise rents by 5 percent in 2025 yet.
Robin Zorich, a mobile home resident in Woodland who has faced rent increases of several hundred dollars at a time, said she’s glad that the bill had lower rent-increase caps for mobile home residents, who are often seniors on fixed incomes.
“If they would have done this five, six years ago, that really would have been a great thing,” she said.
Renters
A collection of Clark County renters and leaders of nonprofits gathered around a table last week to talk about rent stabilization. They had gone to Olympia to advocate for the original rent-stabilization bill introduced, which included a flat 7 percent cap.
One renter burst into sobs, describing her empty fridge at home.
Ricks-Johnson said she cannot afford a 10 percent rent increase every year, but at least landlords can’t suddenly double rent.
Heather Sheppard, who works for Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health, said she thinks landlords planning to raise the rent by the maximum is their way of retaliation for the bill’s passage.
Landlords should not pass on sudden and costly expenses to renters unprepared for the financial burden, she said.
“They want to prepare for an unforeseen event? What about us?” Sheppard said.
Housing developers being deterred by laws preventing rent gouging is not necessarily a bad thing, the renters said.
“We don’t want those developers to come,” Sheppard said.
Unbridled rent increases have directly contributed to a rising tide of evictions in Clark County, said Ben Moody, a managing attorney at the Clark County Volunteer Lawyers Program.
Clark County had the highest per-capita eviction filing rate out of any Washington county in 2024 and 2023. The state has sent funding and attorneys to keep Clark County Superior Court from being overwhelmed.
Although rent stabilization could lower eviction rates, renters and advocates still have concerns. With a 10 percent increase, rents will still rise faster than people can afford in Clark County, they say.
Ricks-Johnson said the bill hasn’t quelled her fear of being evicted.
“My rent is still going up to the point where I’ll have to move again,” she said.
