Squatting and Rent Control in the Rose City
For the most recent episode of the Housing Matters Podcast, I spoke with George McCleary, a real estate and property developer in Portland, Oregon. I was first introduced to George through a video he posted to social media that went viral with millions of views. The video was a satire where he showed the ease at which someone can squat in a vacant rental property and draw the process out for months until the housing provider just finally cuts them a check to vacate the premises. During this time the squatter would be represented by a pro-bono taxpayer funded attorney while the housing provider has to pay all of their own attorney bills. Sound familiar? While satire, he illustrated a grave concern for many housing providers in states that do not have clear cut black and white squatting policy and something like Seattle’s case where we have the Roommate Ordinance where someone can occupy an apartment without being on a lease or passing through a screening process.
“Basically, it was satirizing the ease with which a person can occupy a house for long periods of time and extract a very large amount of value out of the landlord and worst of all, not be held accountable for it. Because it becomes a civil matter as soon as you cast a shadow of a doubt over who is the rightful occupant of the house,” McCleary explains adding how this can devastate rental housing providers. “Real estate scams that are ship sinkers. Things that can cost you several hundred thousand dollars potentially. So, it’s not the broken toilets you gotta worry about in real estate. It’s not the squeaky floorboards and doorknobs. It’s being absolutely taken advantage of and having no recourse whatsoever and having your finances completely destroyed by what amounts to a failing in policy.”
Something else we addressed from his video is the idea that while squatting this individual would have the potential of being defended by a pro-bono taxpayer-funded lawyer like the attorneys from the Housing Justice Project in Seattle who have dragged out eviction cases for over a year in many cases.
"While the intentions of these non-profits might be at least originally pure of heart because hey if you’ve got somebody who something bad is happening to and they can’t afford representation then yah let’s get them somebody for free. Let’s fund it with tax money to make sure that they get their day in court, tell their side of the story and make sure that justice prevails. But it’s been com pletely perverted. It’s basically people who have schooled these tenants and these squatters about how to exploit and that’s the main difference. So, while well-intentioned it’s been taken advantage of and exploited by opportunistic tenants and opportunist lawyers.”
We took our conversation to the statewide rent control passed in Oregon a few years ago and how he believes rent control has harmed rental housing in Portland. “This is another one of those well-intentioned policies that backfire based on things that people don’t necessarily consider when crafting this policy and the biggest thing by far is when you add restrictions like that, you take units out of the rental pool that would otherwise be happy to add to the housing supply, have tenants and increase the supply of your rentals,” George said as he elaborates on single-family homes leaving the rental pool and new build permits cratering. “If you talk to any national developer, they’re going to build in places with population growth and favorable market conditions for rentals and they don’t want to do it in places like Portland.”
If you would like to listen to my full interview with George McCleary, check out Housing Matters wherever you get your podcasts. If you prefer the video version of this podcast, check out the RHAWA YouTube channel for video content of all episodes of Housing Matters.