Washington has enacted a law that makes the state the third in the country to have statewide rent regulations.
Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a measure that caps annual rent increases at 7% plus the annual inflation rate, or 10%, whichever is lower. Washington joins Oregon and California as the only states to adopt statewide rent control, also called rent stabilization.
Washington, home of large tech companies such as Amazon and Microsoft, has struggled with a housing shortage that has contributed to some of the nation’s highest apartment rents.
The law took effect immediately on Wednesday after Ferguson signed the bill as part of a package of measures aimed at addressing affordable housing in Washington. Lawmakers passed House Bill 1217 in Olympia on April 28, the last day of the legislative session.
Ferguson said the rent regulation bill was "an especially consequential" measure in a state where many people can't afford to live near where they work.
The state has the fifth-highest median rent in the U.S., behind California, Hawaii, Colorado and Massachusetts, according to census data released last fall. Average asking rents have increased 33% over the past decade to over $2,000 a month in greater Seattle, above the nation's average of just over $1,750, according to CoStar data.
The bill drew criticism that it could end up causing rents to go up each year.
Supporters, critics
The bill aims to increase affordability across the state and help residents work and live in cities like Seattle, according to the governor.
"From my personal experience, the number of times I would have someone come up to me and for example say, 'I'm a renter, I clean buildings in downtown Seattle. I used to live relatively close to the city, then I moved a little further away,'" Ferguson told reporters at a briefing. "Some version of that story, I heard many, many times over the course of traveling across the state."
The law serves as "a modest middle ground to help protect working people," state Sen. Liz Lovelett, a Democrat from the north Puget Sound region city of Anacortes, said during a fiery floor speech on the last weekend of the legislative session.
"Forty percent of people in Washington state are renters," Lovelett said. "They are desperate for these protections. I am watching people in my community pay 25% more, 50% more, year over year."
Republicans said the bill will have the unintended effect of driving costs higher as landlords exit the market and fewer apartments and rental houses are built.
"You’re going to see an immediate increase in rents and an immediate decrease in people that want to provide homes," state Sen. Keith Wagoner, a Republican from Skagit County, said during the floor debate. “It’s just wrong-minded policy and it’s going to backfire badly.”
Republican state Sen. Leonard Christian of Spokane Valley said the bill "will guarantee a 7% increase on your rent” every year.
"We’re not capping the landlords’ expenses, property taxes or maintenance and insurance rates," Christian said on the Senate floor. "We’re capping the amount of money that the property owner can recover."
Developers pull back
Cities from Los Angeles and San Francisco to New York have passed various forms of rent control, also known as rent stabilization. Oregon was the first in the nation to pass a statewide law in 2019, followed by California the same year.
Landlords and developers in Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minnesota, among other locales, have pulled back from apartment construction or sold properties as rent regulation and other tenant protections have cut into their profits.
In St. Paul, apartment construction has been at a near standstill since city leaders passed an ordinance in 2021 that caps annual rent growth at 3%.
An amendment creating a 20-year exemption for new construction hasn’t reignited activity in St. Paul, with a number of builders shifting to the suburbs to construct at least 17,000 units since 2023. That matches the total number of suburban units finished in the 10 years leading up to the pandemic, according to CoStar data.
The passage of HB 1217 marked the first time that both legislative chambers have passed statewide rent regulation in Washington. Republicans, joined by some Democrats, for years scuttled efforts to pass rent control, including in 2024, when a similar bill died in a Senate committee.
No Republicans voted in favor of HB 1217, which passed the Senate last month with a 27-20 vote, with two Democrats voting against the bill. Lawmakers in the House passed the measure with a 54-44 vote, with five Democrats voting no.
The law will expire after 15 years and will exclude buildings 12 years old or less. The measure also caps annual rent increases at 5% for manufactured and mobile homes.
Other bills signed by Ferguson this week include property tax relief for more disabled veterans, limits on minimum parking requirements for new development, rules to encourage condominium construction by clarifying and streamlining current state laws, and a law requiring cities to make it easier to convert buildings to housing in commercial and mixed-use zones.