Housing Policy and Resource Committee
THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2025
DOCUMENTS RECEIVED AFTER PUBLISHED AGENDA
PUBLIC COMMENTS
Anita Bajaj
From: Anita
To: Housing
Subject: Rent registry consideration
Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2025 3:43:08 PM
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Hello,
I am a small property manager. I have an apartment in Hayward and one in Oakland. As you know Oakland has implemented rent registry. It had added quite a burden to my one person business.
Besides preparing a lease package that is close to 100 pages long with all the disclosures, making sure that I send proper notices and do it properly, document how everything was done, keep up with everchanging laws, keep detailed notes on all my conversations with tenants, take care of all repair requests, lost keys, pet related issues, emergencies, etc, it has become an arduous process. My costs have gone up. The cost to maintain properties, especially in bay area, has gone way up. Now with tariffs, I just replaced a garage door at 1.3 times the money I paid just last year.
I do understand the need to protect consumers. However, before you consider penalizing all of us by rolling out such a laborious procedure, please realize that bad property owners are a very few, just like bad tenants. I do not penalize all the tenants just because I have had a bad one. My tenants, as I feel most tenants are, well aware of how to proceed when they experience unfair treatment from a property owners.
Oakland rent registry is clunky at best. We keep a spreadsheet when tenants have moved out or moving in with all the relevant data the registry require. Their registry system does not allow us to work ahead which adds a huge cost to us. They spend time answering our questions, which we have so many. Then, if we made a small error on the property, it is not simply a matter of correcting it. We have to re-create the data and city has to do some work in the background to enable us to use another profile.
The consumer is the one that suffers. Rent goes up to keep up with the cost of doing business.
Taxes go up to fund all the government program. How did it serve anyone?
Please do not proceed with this. Extreme regulations only create another extreme on the other side, as we are experiencing now with our federal government. I am happy to discuss this with you in person or over the telephone.
Anita Bajaj
510-332-2167
4400 Keller Ave
Ste 140-292
Oakland, CA 94602