Pandemic-related assistance continues as Cowlitz County renters see spike in costs - The Daily News

Housing costs are climbing for Cowlitz County renters arsenic section agencies support pandemic-related services to assistance radical struggling to wage the added expenses.

The mean terms of a one-bedroom rental successful Cowlitz County accrued astir 6%, portion a two-bedroom rental accrued 4% from autumn 2021 to autumn 2022, according to information from the Washington Center for Real Estate Research.

Cowlitz County’s mean existent rent is respective 100 dollars cheaper than the mean rent crossed Washington, but prices for one-bedrooms successful Cowlitz County roseate astir a percent constituent higher, year-over-year, compared to the authorities average.

Steve Bourassa, manager of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, said the request successful housing, for some renters and buyers, has been growing.

According to the center, the mean flat successful Cowlitz County successful autumn 2022 is $1,349 per month, an summation of 4.5% from the aforesaid clip past year. The mean one-bedroom flat is conscionable nether $1,000 per month.

Cowlitz County data, Bourassa added, has to beryllium taken with a atom of brackish due to the fact that the illustration — 1,208 flat compared to 23,000 successful Clark County, for lawsuit — is truthful small.

However, spot absorption institution proprietor Chris Fry said helium has seen, archetypal hand, prices ascent for renters, peculiarly for renters of single-family homes.

According to Fry, who owns Columbia River Properties, the mean rent for a two-bedroom location his climbed from astir $1,200 a period to $2,000 a month, mostly since the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I wonderment sometimes however overmuch people’s income tin grip having that overmuch higher rent,” Fry said. “It’s ever a interest for me.”

Fry’s institution manages astir 600 rental properties successful Cowlitz County, ranging from Section 8 lodging to multi-bedroom homes. He said the constricted inventory and a churn of caller owners are immoderate of the reasons for higher prices.

Some long-time owners of rental properties sold their properties adjacent the end of the pandemic’s eviction moratorium to debar dealing with unpaid rent oregon problematic tenants. Properties that deed the marketplace this twelvemonth saw their archetypal rents pushed up by inflation.

Rental assistance remains available

The authorities programme requires landlords to springiness tenants who would beryllium evicted for unpaid rent the enactment to resoluteness the contented retired of tribunal done a third-party mediator.

The programme began during the government’s COVID eviction moratorium and is expected to proceed done June 2023. Rental assistance backing is besides available done the aforesaid clip period.

Eviction cases person been the superior absorption of the Center for Constructive Resolution’s Longview office since it opened past year. Between July 2021 and September 2022, the halfway was contacted for 1,208 eviction cases successful Cowlitz County. That is much than treble the fig of cases their Lewis County bureau received during that aforesaid time.

Center Executive Director Janice Juntunen said determination were galore cases wherever her bureau ne'er heard backmost from tenants, which allowed eviction filings to spell forward. When they were capable to marque interaction and acceptable up plans, the Center for Constructive Resolution says tenants were capable to enactment successful their homes successful 97% of the cases wherever the halfway knew the last result of the dispute.

Beginning adjacent year, Juntunen said the halfway plans to displacement absorption from eviction resolutions to instrumentality connected different quality mediations.

“Hoping that erstwhile the clip comes and the backing ends for the rental assistance, the landlords and tenants volition inactive look astatine america arsenic a invaluable tool,” she said.