In recent history in the State of California primarily in San Francisco and Los Angeles the rental market continues to heat up and subsequently has increased the value of properties including apartments spiking rental unit lease amounts. Typically landlords want good long term tenants that create predictable rental income, however keeping long term tenants usually means keeping rental amounts around the same price. For this reason many apartment property owners and landlords are evicting tenants in order to get new tenants willing to pay much higher rental prices. The two principal methods used to get rid of these tenants is through Ellis Act Evictions and Gotcha Evictions. The California Ellis Act is decades old and allows landlords to evict tenants to demolish units or convert them into condos. The Gotcha Eviction is a category of breach of contract or nuisance eviction. This eviction type has doubled since 2011 when the real estate market started to take off. According to the San Francisco Rent Board’s Annual Eviction Report there were 2,120 notices of evictions filed for the year ending in February 28, 2015. This is a 54.7% increase over five years ago. The number of evictions targeting tenants accused of violating their lease or causing a nuisance doubled since 2010. This has created a battle between tenants and landlords over the fair and legal use of evictions.
In the midst of the rental market challenges it is still paramount that landlords and property managers use professional third party tenant screening companies to properly vet all potential tenants. Just because new tenants fiscally appear to be able to afford the higher rents they may have other rejectionable offenses like a past eviction or criminal history record. As the appeal of charging higher rent amounts during the rental market boom increases so does the temptation of quickly signing a lease with a tenant or tenants without properly vetting them first. Income alone is not enough to make an informed leasing decision, other tenant background reports need also be considered including a sex offender check, past evictions and of course criminal history.
The current challenges that landlords and renters are facing in California is not going away and new legislation is being considered. Tenants want more rights and don’t want to be forced from their home while owners and landlords want to maximize their rental profits. Surely the California rental market will need to balance the rights of tenants with the fiscal ambitions of landlords.
To learn more about the Ellis Act Evictions and Gotcha Evictions being used in California along with the rapid rental market changes occurring there please read recent TenantScreeningUSA.com press release.