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However, after a year and a half of pandemic-related costs, the nation’s housing providers and residents continue to face serious challenges meeting their financial obligations. Residents are struggling to pay their rent and property owners always had to continue paying their taxes, mortgages, payroll, insurance costs and more. Housing providers across the country are facing untold millions of dollars in rental arrears. Accordingly, it is critical that rental assistance funds are distributed as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In order to facilitate the distribution of rental assistance aid to residents and housing providers alike, NAA and NMHC, on behalf of the nation’s 40.1 million individuals who call an apartment home, requested that policymakers make the following improvements to expedite rental assistance distribution:
• Reject the addition of counter-productive eviction moratorium provisions.
• Direct grantees to allow housing providers to apply on behalf of residents under a notification safe-harbor, prioritize arrearages and remove 18-month limit on assistance.
• Allow ERAP to reimburse rental property owners, without qualification, on properties where a renter has moved out.
NAA and NMHC stated: “Without action to improve disbursement of ERAP and increased participation in the program, renters are faced with further uncertainty and a mounting debt cliff, while rental property owners move closer to foreclosure, bankruptcy, or a forced sale of the property—putting the overall stability of the rental housing sector and broader real estate market in peril.”
RESEARCH STUDY REVEALS THE IMPORTANCE OF LANDSCAPING TO PROPERTY VALUES
According to a recent study by Trees.com, 78% of real estate agents say poor landscaping and hardscaping can negatively affect the value of a property. 43% of real estate agents believe that poor landscaping has a significant impact on a property’s value, and 35% say it can “somewhat” affect what a property is worth. According to the study, however, there was a lack of consensus on how much shoddy landscaping can decrease a property’s value. 24% of realtors say property value will drop by 10%, 22% of them felt a property will lose 20% of its value, and 18% of real estate agents
agree that the value will drop by 30% or more due to lackluster landscaping. Additionally, 1 in 5 real estate agents say having a healthy tree in the front yard of a home can increase the value of a property by 30%.
Hardscaping, which includes all non-living elements in outdoor décor like driveways or decks, is also thought to have a major impact on a property’s value. 40% of real estate agents say that low- quality hardscaping has a “very” negative impact on a house’s price, while 38%t say hardscaping is “somewhat” influential. In conducting the study, researchers analyzed responses from 1,250 currently licensed real estate agents.
“REPEAL THE DEATH TAX ACT”
Title and Summary of Proposed Ballot Initiative to “Fix” Last Year’s Prop. 19 Tax Hike
In November 2020, California voters unfortunately narrowly approved Proposition 19, which is known as “The Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families, and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act.” Under Proposition 19, homeowners 55 and older or that are disabled pay lower property taxes when moving to a new, more expensive residence by carrying over their previous home’s lower property tax assessment. However, also under Proposition 19, children or grandchildren who inherit property are now required to pay substantially higher property taxes unless they inherit the primary residence of the deceased and utilize that property as their primary residence. For those of us with second homes or that own rental properties, our descendants will pay substantially higher property taxes when inheriting our properties because of Proposition 19. Prior to the passage of Proposition 19, inherited property maintained the same, lower property tax assessment that existed previously.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has
APARTMENT MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE - DECEMBER 2021 CS-3