News and Events

City Council Approves Temporary Eviction Moratorium for Rent-Controlled Tenants Facing Rent Increases Starting September 1

At last night’s meeting, the Santa Monica City Council approved an emergency ordinance allowing a temporary eviction moratorium to take effect immediately for rents due September 1, 2022 for residential tenants in rent-controlled units. The moratorium is a measure to safeguard Santa Monica residents who may be unable to afford potential rent increases of up to 6% due to an increase in the maximum allowable rent (MAR) for rent-controlled housing. “We are doing all we can to protect our residents in rent-controlled units through the soon-to-launch rental assistance program and this eviction moratorium,” said City Manager David White. “Santa Monicans living in rent-controlled units should be aware of these two vital safety net measures leading up to September 1.”

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Santa Monica moving to tighten rent control rules

UPDATED, July 27, 2022, 9:22 a.m.: In a climate of soaring rents, rampant inflation and escalating recession fears, one of Southern California’s most expensive cities is moving closer to implementing new rent control measures. During a 10-hour marathon session on Tuesday, the Santa Monica City Council discussed new initiatives that include lowering the city’s maximum annual rent increase cap from 6 percent to 3 percent and granting a rent control board the power to freeze hikes altogether under a declared emergency. But, the Council did not come to an agreement and will resume talks on Aug. 6.

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Santa Monica puts rent control measure on November ballot

via TheRealDeal.com

"After weeks of public rhetoric — and spirited opposition from landlords — the Santa Monica City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday in favor of a November ballot measure that would reduce the city’s maximum annual rent increases.

“One sentence,” Councilman Phil Brock said after the vote: “I hope all of our rent control renters will sleep better this evening.."

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2022 Landlord-Tenant Legislative Update

Tracey L. Merrell, Managing Partner of Education, Kimball, Tirey and St. John LLP

About this event

In this AOA Live Stream, you will discover

• 2022 Clarifications to AB 1482
• What's needed to comply with new landlord-tenant laws
• How to navigate fair housing law updates and other trending topics affecting landlords
• How to avoid challenges as a property owner and manager

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Attorney Mike Brennan: Rental Screening Policies for the Post Covid Era!

The COVID pandemic has changed many things in the rental housing industry. However, landlords must have comprehensive and fair rental screening policies that remain consistent. That said, many renters had their income interrupted or even faced eviction due to the pandemic. So, how should future landlords view these circumstances? Read more...

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Demand For Electric Vehicles Is Rising. How Can Building Owners Prepare For The Influx?

via biznow.com The research is clear: Electric vehicles are the future of transportation in the United States. Adoption of EVs is growing across the country, with 1.8 million electric vehicles registered in the U.S. in 2020, three times the number of EVs in 2016. More than half of respondents to a 2021 CarMax survey said they expected their next auto purchase to be an electric or hybrid vehicle. Read more..

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Show A Tenant A Building’s Energy Efficiency Score, And They Make Greener Choices

via biznow.com Showing residential tenants how energy efficient a building is when they are looking at rentals nudges them toward making greener choices, a new study has found. The report from The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that on a mock rental listings website, the presence of energy labels on listings encouraged a nationally representative sample of U.S. renters to select the most efficient listings 21% more often. Read more..

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CPI Updated: New Allowable Increases Go into Effect Under State Law (A.B. 1482)

The good news for those of us subject to statewide rent control, rent increases this year can be greater, but the obvious bad news is that inflationary pressures have led to rapidly increasing prices for all goods and services. And, to add bad news on top of bad news, the allowable increase under state law, Assembly Bill 1482, is limited to just 10%. Under Assembly Bill 1482, annual rent increases are limited to the greater of (i) CPI + 5%, or (ii) 10%.

This week, the U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics published the updated Consumer Price Index (CPI) for major urban areas. The California (as a whole) CPI is still pending from the California Department of Industrial Relations; however, CPI data is now available for urban areas across California such as Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario and others.

Please be sure to refer to the footnotes when referring to the chart above. For help on which area to use to calculate rent increases, please contact one of our Operational Advisors for assistance.

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Join Scott Properties Group and the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA)

at the "Achieving Success in Multifamily" in-person event on May 3rd, from 9:30am-5:00pm in Pasadena: Register - https://glaareaa.org/meetinginfo.php?id=36&ts=1650613363

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Multifamily Owners Aren’t Putting Enough Juice Into EV Infrastructure

When Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz and other auto manufacturers last year pledged to phase out sales of gas and diesel vehicles worldwide by 2040, the most immediate impact on commercial real estate came in the form of multibillion-dollar plans to build domestic factories and battery plants.

But there is more for commercial real estate to facilitate and capitalize on, and it starts at home.

Friday marks one Earth Day closer to the 2040 goal and projections that about half of all cars on the road will be electric in 2050. As adoption becomes more common — 1.8 million electric vehicles were registered in the U.S. in 2020, three times the number of EVs in 2016 — more people need more access to charging, and multifamily developers and owners have fallen behind the rate of adoption.

“The way we characterize the problem is going to evolve over the next couple of years as EVs become more and more widespread,” said Don MacKenzie, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering who leads the University of Washington’s Sustainable Transportation Lab. “Rather than this being a problem for people who want to own EVs, this is going to be a problem for landlords and building owners and developers when they realize that they are unable and they have not prepared themselves to provide an amenity that many residents have come to expect.”

Most electric vehicles have been sold to wealthy, single-family homeowners, but EVs are becoming more of a legitimate option for more drivers, and 56% of respondents to a 2021 CarMax survey said they expected their next auto purchase to be an electric or hybrid vehicle.

Public funds are behind the EV adoption and infrastructure build-out push. In addition to federal, local and state subsidies for drivers buying electric, the Biden administration's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act established the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, which is tasked with deploying $5B over five years to help states fund public charging infrastructure, especially along the interstate highway system.

NEVI has another $2.5B available for a discretionary grant program to support deployment of rural chargers and infrastructure in underserved communities, among other priorities.

But as EV adoption becomes a more viable option for more people, owners of apartments and other multifamily properties waiting for federal money to trickle down to them aren't positioning themselves for rapidly increasing renter demand. “In the multi-unit dwelling setting, we actually think that the market is behind adoption interest,” McKinsey & Co. partner Shivika Sahdev, who leads the firm’s Center for Future Mobility, told Bisnow.

She said the profile of the prospective EV buyer is shifting, and not just along income lines.

“We’re also seeing folks that live in different types of settings showing interest in buying EVs, and for them, the biggest enabling factor is access to charging,” Sahdev said. “It continues to be one of the top three barriers to adoption for an individual.”

McKinsey projects the overall EV charging market to be $100B in 2030, Sahdev said. Of that, $43B will be spent on residential charging — a smaller percentage of the overall market because a single-family homeowner can buy a charger for as little as $200 while a commercial-grade Level 2 charger can cost $5K to $10K, and upward of $150K for faster, direct current chargers.

Of the $43B expected to go toward residential charging infrastructure, McKinsey predicts $2.5B will be spent for implementation at multifamily properties. Demand is expected to reach 27.4 million chargers in 2030, 1.4 million of which will be for multifamily properties.

Camden Property Trust, which owns and operates more than 165 communities with more than 59,000 units across the country, is among the large-portfolio multifamily owners that have begun to advance EV charging, but the process isn’t simple.

“In our new developments, we’re outfitting our garages with electrical service that can handle a substantial amount of cars,” Camden Chairman and CEO Ric Campo said. “It’s more challenging, for sure, in older developments where we have to upgrade our electrical service to garages and deal with those kinds of things.”

He said that over the last five or six years, Camden has been laying conduit and making other preparations to streamline retrofitting properties when consumer adoption spurs tenant demand.

Planning ahead could have a significant impact on how much a developer has to spend to install EV charging equipment, so even though only about 1% of the global car stock is electric, according to the International Energy Agency, the time for developers to act is now.

“If you’re planning a new development, I think it generally is going to be a lot cheaper because you don’t have to go in and rip out a bunch of existing stuff and put new stuff in,” said Adam Davis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies.

Retailers have made headlines by making charging locations available to customers. Simon Property Group was an early adopter, making a Level 2 charger available at an Orlando, Florida, mall in 2011. JPMorgan Chase just this month announced a partnership with provider EVgo to install chargers at 50 Chase branches around the country as part of a pilot program.

“I think it’s finally getting to that inflection point where there’s enough demand in the market coupled with the right scale of a company like EVgo where they can say, ‘This is how we want to do it,’” JPMorgan Chase Head of Real Estate John McGinley said. “It’s a little more amenable to a Chase or another large retailer.”

More public chargers will be necessary as mass adoption takes hold to make EV road trips more feasible as electric cars evolve into primary vehicles instead of secondary options.

But EV experts say home charging availability will be so critical that it is destined to be a determining factor in where many people choose to live.

“I think within 10 years, this will kind of flip into now the consumer has the power and they’re choosing where they choose to rent — especially your higher-income renters, your luxury apartment [renters] — they’re going to be choosing where they live based on where they can plug in their car,” MacKenzie said. “So this could then become a liability for those who are not ready.”

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