Florissant pisses Greggie off.
My city has decided that landlords need to pay $100 twice a year to have rental houses inspected to make sure they are in good condition.
I sent the below email to my councilman and mayor:
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I was in City Hall paying my license fee for being a landlord today when I was told about the new ordinance.
I have some questions:
1) Where did the $100 figure come from? Does it really cost 100 for someone to inspect a house?
2) Why weren't tenants surveyed? Why weren't landlords surveyed?...instead of the decision being made for us?
3) How long until Florissant imposes this on owner occupied houses?
4) This is purely about revenue, ins't it?
5) My tenants are people. You are treating them like they are not. Now they have to be babysat by inspectors twice a year to make sure they can take care of themselves and something that I own? That's what I screen for. This is not protecting me, nor my tenants, nor the value of my homes. It is intruding on our rights to privacy and property.
I am not a slumlord. I realize there are people who don't take care of their houses. But that should not be my problem. I rent homes, not houses.
6) What about the economics of this? You say this is to maintain the value of houses, but this will not do that. As interest rates go up, who is going to buy houses? Investors like myself. You have just lowered the demand for investors to buy houses in Florissant which increases the supply. Hence prices don't appreciate as fast as they otherwise would.
If my tenants destroy my house, its my problem, not Florissant's. I won't be able to sell it for as much, but someone will come in and rehab it, or else it won't pass Florissant's purchasing inspection. Doesn't that solve the problem right there? Its capitalism, not socialism.
7) This is purely a revenue generator isn't it? Florissant couldn't have made this big of an economics blunder right?
8) How many complaints will it take to get you to represent your constituents and get this reevaluated immediately?
Your timely response to my questions is greatly appreciated.
Thank you, and have a great day!
posted by Greg at 11:21 AM
2 Comments:
This is strictly speculation since i don't really know what I am talking about, but couldn't one make the case that having rental properties in an area would decrease the overall value (or make home values not as high as it should be) of the neighborhood or city? Personally I would not like to live next to a rental property for trashy neighbor reasons among others. If the above theory is true then maybe Flotown is trying to keep true owners in and rental units out. People who own a house usually take better care of it than a temporary tenant on the whole. Florissant is definetly not above having rental units in the city...
-Joe
If alot of houses in any neighbor hood aren't taken care of, than the value should decrease. But in actuality one trashy house on a street won't hurt anything.
But here's the deal: my rental houses are in better condition than the one I live in. It has to be or I can't charge tenants what I want to.
I rent home, not houses.
I understand I may be the exception to the rule.
But look at how many hundreds of thousands of words I have posted on my blog. I have never said something is not fair. I firmly believe this is not fair.
Its an invasion of my tenants right to privacy. I am ok with $200 a year "fee" to be a landlord. I am not ok with Florissant feeling the need to babysit my tenants. That is my problem, not yours.
You don't penalize a league, because a few players are losers. All landlords (and tenants) should not get penalized because a few landlords are slumlords. If they use that logic there, then they should start inspecting owner occupied houses twice a year. I know alot more trashy owner occupied than I know of trashy renters.
It is not right. Oh, and did I add that I pay 4500 a year in florissant real estate taxes alone? I'm paying a nice chunk of taxes, with no representation. (Florissant went against their citizen's vote on this, and did their own thing).
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