Listen to this note:
*87 percent of multifamily housing is owned by corporations and trusts
After it was revealed that the San Mateo County Elections Office pulled back on a rent control proposal being on the November ballot, and that rent prices have skyrocketed, a new report suggests that corporate multifamily owners are driving such unsustainable prices in Redwood City.
The report released Thursday by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project reveals that 87 percent of Redwood City's multi-family homes are now owned by corporations and real estate investment funds.
The analysis details that these corporate landlords, especially those with larger property portfolios, are charging higher rents and increasing them more quickly compared to the small number of small landlords.
And those most affected by these types of practices are older people, families and essential workers.
“Out-of-town corporate landlords care primarily about their profits,” said Amelia Garibay, a leader with the Bay Area organization Faith in Action, which has led the effort to put rent control on the ballot. November.
“We care about keeping Redwood City affordable and making sure everyone has a decent place to live,” he added.
The report shows that of a total of 12,030 multifamily units in Redwood City, only 187 are locally “family” owned, while the top 20 landlords own more than 5,116 multifamily rental units in Redwood City, more than 40 percent of the city's total.
“Out-of-town, larger-scale or corporate landlords may be more likely to view their rentals as business investments and be motivated to maximize profits regardless of community impact,” according to the report.
Thus, real estate funds with large portfolios based outside Redwood City have been especially fast in raising rents: an average of 17.4 percent in 3 years, he specifies.
“The report shows that large-scale corporate landlords dominate the rental market and charge the highest rents, and that drives up rents overall,” said Dan Sakaguchi, one of the report's authors.
To this, he added that corporate landlords not only own the majority of Redwood City apartments, but "they are actually the drivers of the city's affordability crisis."
It should be noted that some neighborhoods in Redwood City are more affected than others.
Communities like Friendly Acres and East Woodside Road are highly vulnerable, as there are now more than a thousand corporate-owned units and rents in those two areas have increased more than 9 percent in the last three years.
“Small family landlords are important because they maintain reasonable rents and keep families stable,” said Martha Beetley, a Redwood City homeowner and Bay Area Faith in Action leader.
“I was surprised to see that they now own less than 2.0 percent of our rental units. “The corporate owners who own properties across the country don’t have much interest in our community.”
According to Zillow Rental Data, the average apartment rent now exceeds $3,250 per month.
Added to this is that many tenants are also being evicted due to mistreatment by landlords, which includes harassment and uninhabitable living conditions.
More than half of Redwood City residents are renters. According to the Bay Area Equity Atlas, since 2000, rents have grown twice as fast as renters' incomes, leading to more likelihood of living in rent-burdened or overcrowded households than the average renter in San Mateo County.
The report highlights that, in the Latino community, 60 percent of households are overburdened by rent, including 31 percent who pay more than half of their income on housing, exposing them to serious risk of displacement.
Likewise, it highlights that older adults who have been living in Redwood City for decades are also disproportionately affected, since 75 percent of the 6,600 households in the city have low incomes.
You may be interested in: Redwood City will not put rent control petition on ballot
