Adrianna Miranda-Pratts, studying social work at Coppin State University, laments the lack of “affordable housing” in her May 15 op-ed, “ We can’t ignore Maryland’s housing crisis .” Coupled with her article is a beautiful aerial photo of blocks of a densely packed neighborhood of older row homes, very typical of Baltimore City.

Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development blames this housing shortage on “underproduced” new housing. But the reality is there is no lack of rental properties. Go to any dot com advertising rental properties; there are thousands of available apartments, just maybe not location, location, location. The problem is how average monthly rents have increased exponentially more than average incomes, to a degree that low- to middle-income families can no longer afford the rent.

The reality is that this has not been caused by lack of new apartment housing or landlords, but by an increasing number of high-dollar expenses, created by Maryland’s legislature, politicians, state and municipal agencies, the judiciary, etc., levied on the unique business of residential rental property ownership. Maryland has assumed all extra expenses will simply be absorbed by the owners of the rental businesses, that they will just take it on the chin, which is simply absurd. This view is also to blame for much of the abandoned rental properties, where landlords just throw in the towel and take the loss.

With an aging housing stock, many rental properties require significant maintenance and updates to meet current Maryland state expectations and tenant demands, which can be very expensive. Since 2015, landlords of residential properties built before 1978 (47 years old) are required to have their apartments inspected for lead at each tenant turnover. Then, in 2020, the Maryland Department of the Environment further reduced the acceptable level of lead in apartments from 4 to 1 mcgs/sq ft, which can easily be walked into the apartment on shoes. It causes the landlord repeated inspections, which in turn causes rents to go up.

Previously covered for free by a city housing inspector, in 2018, Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development required landlords in Baltimore City to hire private, city-approved, third-party general housing inspectors, which can be up to $500 per apartment, so the rent on each apartment increased to cover this cost.

Gov. Larry Hogan declared a temporary prohibition on residential evictions on March 5, 2020, forcing landlords to provide free housing for four months during COVID. Many tenants took advantage of this, stopped paying the rent, and then moved out. Many landlords took a big hit on this one. So the next round of leases were adjusted to recover those substantial losses. Some are just recovering now.

The Maryland State Deptartment of Assessments and Taxation just recently raised the assessments on rental properties by up to 35% over the next three years, yet at the same time, Gov. Wes Moore is getting press signing a housing package to address what he sees as the problem of affordable housing: a shortage of new apartments. But because of the property taxes, the rent in Maryland will be going up again, significantly, new construction notwithstanding.

For some reason, while the price of eggs and gas can go up astronomically, the state legislature does not want to acknowledge that owning and operating residential rental housing is not always a very lucrative business, and certainly not a charity or government safety net. Landlords are simply trying to balance their books.

The legislature, judiciary, et al., caused rents to rise, not the property owners. Only developers and those profiting off new housing development spout that it is from a lack of rental properties. Pointing the finger at everything but themselves, these entities are continuing to indirectly raise the costs of owning and maintaining residential rental properties, and the rents will continue to rise.

And one more thing; if the Maryland Senate passes that bill that prohibits a landlord from being able to not renew a lease without what a judge considers “good cause,” it may help a tenant or two stay for another year, but in the bigger picture, it will cause a tighter scrutiny on tenants, because landlords know, once they rent to that tenant, the landlord is stuck with them forever, regardless of the problems inherent with their tenancy. Better think about it.

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