New York's 2019 law requiring landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers was struck down on appeal over forced inspections. The median age of rental units has jumped from 29 years in 1993 to 45 years today, creating maintenance headaches for owners.
A court just ruled that a Section 8 law in New York State unconstitutional. The median age of a rental unit is now 45 years old. And I have a special announcement for property management business owners. Let's jump into the news. So last week, an appellate court overruled a decision in New York State relating to requiring landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers. They basically said it was unconstitutional. In 2019, the state, New York State, passed what's called a source of income discrimination law. This type of law says that that as a landlord or property manager, you can't discriminate against a prospective tenant just because of the source of their incomes. Mostly this is targeted at Section 8 vouchers. If you have a law like this on the books where you operate, you can't do that. You basically have to accept Section 8 vouchers. And if you don't know, it's part of the Section 8 program is they come in and they inspect the unit. They have to physically enter the property and give you a list of things you have to fix and pay for. And there's a lot of back and forth discussion about, hey, are some of these things really required? So some landlords make, just make the decision like, hey, I don't want to mess with it. This law passed in 2019, and Ithaca Renting Company basically just ignored it. Eventually, the Attorney General got wind of this, and in 2022, they went after this company aggressively. And then this company lost, and then they appealed it, and they just won the appeal. So quoting from the Ithaca Voice, a panel of 5 judges reached a unanimous decision published on March 5th that found the law unconstitutionally subjected landlords to violations of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, by eliminating the ability to opt out of the Section 8 program. I look forward to following along and seeing how this affects other jurisdictions across the country as well. Next up, the median age of a rental unit is now 45 years old. In 1993, the median age of a rental unit was just 29 years old. So we've got a significant increase in the median age of rental units. This is from Jay Parsons. It's a finding from a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies And it makes things challenging as a rental owner and as a property manager because the homes and the apartments that we manage experience a lot of problems with the structures. And of course, tenants get very upset about that. And so it puts a lot of stress on the property manager and then in turn the property owner to pay for these repairs. So I'll be really curious if we start to see a wave of new construction that probably a better experience for tenants. Last this week, we are reopening applications for CRANE. If you don't know about CRANE, it's a paid private community just for property management business owners who have at least 150 doors under management. We're opening up on April 2nd, and as part of that, we're doing a huge live launch event called Access Granted. We'll include information about how to register. If you want to mastermind and get to know other professional property managers who are on a growth path and looking for more time freedom, check out Crane. We'd love to see your application come through. And in any case, I'd love to see you join me for Access Granted. I'll see you there.
