After a lull, the eviction crisis is escalating: in some states, eviction filings are 50 percent higher than they were prepandemic. Rising rents and an affordable housing shortage, coupled with the end of pandemic rent relief, stagnant wages, and higher costs of basic necessities, are fueling the trend.
In response, many cities and state policymakers are passing legislation to protect tenants, such as prohibiting harmful screening requirements, enforcing habitability standards, updating eviction requirements and processes, and regulating fines, fees, and security deposits.
As these policies are enacted across the nation, understanding how effectively they help tenants—and their effects on landlords—will be key to achieving rental market stability.
But not all landlords are the same. Mom-and-pop landlords, who own and manage 10 or fewer rental properties, own more than a third of all US rental housing. They have unique experiences and needs and face very different challenges than larger landlords—but they aren’t well understood because there are limited data on them.
To help fill this void, we’ve partnered with Avail, an online platform acquired by realtor.com that helps mom-and-pop landlords manage their rental properties. Using the December 2023 Avail survey of 2,315 landlords, we explore how mom-and-pop landlords view landlord-tenant laws and regulations. Though we found three overall trends, our biggest takeaway is that one-size-fits-all policies don’t work for such a large, diverse group.
A third of small landlords say local landlord-tenant laws are hard to comply with and ineffective
Overall, about a third of respondents (28 percent) reported having a specific landlord-tenant law in their state they found particularly challenging to comply with. When asked why, the top reason reported (by around 26 percent of landlords) was that the law restricts their ability to effectively manage their property once leased.
When asked about the effectiveness of local policy, around 31 percent of surveyed landlords reported there was a specific landlord-tenant law in their state they found particularly ineffective at achieving its purpose. Like the question around challenges with compliance, when these landlords were asked in a follow-up why they felt the law was ineffective, a quarter of respondents (24 percent) indicated it restricted their ability to manage the property, and a fifth (19 percent) said the law doesn’t address what it’s intended to.
The larger and more experienced the landlord, the more likely they are to take issue with their state’s landlord-tenant laws
Among landlords who reported management issues as their top concern, we found that these landlords were more likely to report being a landlord as their primary occupation, were more likely to have been a landlord for more than five years, and were also more likely to own multiple rental properties—suggesting that with more experience and knowledge as a landlord, the dissatisfaction with local regulations increases. In part, this could be because landlords who manage many properties must adhere to different local regulations than those who manage just a few.
Those with management issues were also more likely to own multiple rental properties; 77 percent of them owned two or more units compared with just 65 percent in the survey overall. These responses were more pronounced for the more units they owned. Although 98 percent of landlords on Avail’s platform own fewer than 10 properties in total, a small sample of larger landlords owning 10 or more properties were more likely to face management challenges. While only 19 percent of respondents with 1 property noted that laws were challenging to comply with, 37 percent of those with 10–24 properties and 43 percent of those with 25 or more properties noted the same. Similarly, respondents with fewer properties noted that the laws were ineffective (22 percent for those with 1 property), compared with landlords with more properties (41 percent for those with 10–24 units and 54 percent for those with 25 or more units).
State policy context matters
State policy context also seems to influence how challenging or ineffective landlords view their local landlord-tenant laws to be. That said, our state-specific analysis is limited by smaller sample sizes, and as a result, we can draw limited conclusions from state-specific analyses. What we can see are local variations on landlords’ perceptions toward landlord-tenant laws.
When looking at the state-level responses to our three questions pertaining to landlord-tenant laws and regulation, we see that though some states experience similar response distributions across the three questions, others diverge.
The states with the highest percentage of agreement that policies are difficult to comply with were Washington (68 percent) and Oregon (61 percent), both of which were well above the national average (28 percent). The states with the lowest agreement with compliance challenges were Georgia (9 percent) and Tennessee (9 percent). This is likely related to the number of landlord-tenant laws passed in each of these states; regions like the Pacific Northwest have passed more tenant-screening bills and just-cause legislation than regions like the South.
Surprisingly, landlords in many states had varying opinions on the degree to which they found laws ineffective and challenging to comply with. In states such as New Jersey, South Carolina, and Florida, the share of “yes” responses varies substantially across the three different questions, with the question pertaining to challenges with compliance generally having the lowest rate and the question pertaining to approaching rental management differently having the highest rate.
More research is needed to better understand small landlords’ local contexts and policy effectiveness
Although our landlord survey provides a high-level scan of landlords and their views on state regulations, it points to the need for more research and data to identify the following:
- Which specific policies are burdensome and for whom? These burdens include being able to sign new tenants, evicting troublesome existing tenants, renewing leases, maintaining properties, and dealing with management costs.
- How do landlords respond to policy changes, and how does this vary across policies and types of landlords?
- How do landlords’ responses affect tenants? What are the potential negative spillover effects?
Building this evidence base will be key to ensuring state and local policies effectively benefit both tenants and their landlords alike.
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