> Don Jorovsky writes about housing:
> Next Monday night, the Committee will deal with
another set of housing bills, but those involve state
> subsidies for affordable housing, which we hope will
ease the housing crunch in Minneapolis, and I think >
the landlords and the tenants won't be far apart on
those issues.
[TB] There was a time when the tax structure was much
better for owners of rental housing. Rental property
could be depreciated over much shorter time periods
than are currently allowed. There were also financing
programs that made lower interest rates available.
I would like to see MN Housing Finance (or someone)
make some of the low rates they make available for
single family housing available for rental housing.
This plus the long needed change of bringing the
property tax rate down to single family owner occupied
housing will go a long way toward improving the cost
structure to make housing more affordable.
We need to remember that it�s not just Minneapolis,
it�s a metro area issue. If we put housing on every
available building lot in the City of Minneapolis, we
still wouldn�t have enough. The programs need to be
put in place to place affordable housing throughout
the metro area.
> Don again:
> Craig did a fine job of outlining the problems faced
by landlords. �
>
> Many renters also made excellent presentations on
why they need relief in this ultra-tight housing
market. > As you know, about half of the households
in the City of Minneapolis are rental, and with the
vacancy
 rate at an all-time low, times are tough for
renters.
[TB] One of the issues I keep hearing about is
application fees. While I think screening is
important, nobody wants bad neighbors and landlords
certainly want people that will pay their rent, I hear
stories of people who need to pay multiple application
fees because landlords take a number of applications
for the same unit and then select one. I can�t verify
the frequency that this occurs, but think that at a
minimum a landlord who takes multiple applications
from acceptable prospective tenants should refund
those fees to those that are not accepted because the
unit is rented to someone who had previously applied.
There is also the question of what we do with the bad
tenant, someone with multiple UDs, maybe other
problems. They obviously need to live someplace.
Nobody wants the bad neighbor, both the City and
neighborhood organizations demand that landlords
screen as they don�t want �problems� in the
neighborhood. Like many other things it becomes a
livability issue.
At the same time we need to protect the good tenant
against the bad landlord who files retaliatory UDs. I
think the screening issues are resolvable, but in many
ways are more difficult than the financing due to the
subjectivity.
Terrell Brown
Loring Park (where the rental rate is closer to 90%)
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