Long Beach rent control advocates miss deadline for November ballot

A proposed rent control measure for Long Beach won’t appear before voters in the fall, but the measure could still qualify for a later election.

Housing Long Beach missed its June 1 deadline to submit more than the 27,000 signatures required to qualify the initiative for the city’s November 2018 ballot.

Rent control advocates, however, vowed to keep circulating their petition, and if they file the required number of signatures by July 30, the measure could still appear on a later ballot, likely in March 2020.

The Housing Long Beach measure would limit annual rent increases to the rate of inflation and establish “just cause” eviction policies. The measure also would create a rent board and roll back rents to January 2017 levels.

CAA will continue to work with its allies to defeat any rent control attempt in Long Beach and elsewhere in California.

Efforts to place rent control measures before voters this November remain underway in Southern California cities including National City, Santa Ana, Glendale and Inglewood. A signature-gathering effort to place rent control before voters in Pasadena fell short by more than 2,000 votes.

If you are interested in helping prevent rent control in Long Beach and Inglewood, please reach out to Fred Sutton, CAA’s vice president of public affairs for these cities, at Fsutton@caanet.org.

Five Ways to Highlight Every Rental Property’s Most Sellable Features

Every property is different—and each one has features that make it stand out from the rest of the rental opportunities nearby. Knowing how to bring those to the forefront to attract new tenants, however, is the challenge. Luckily, there are a few simple ways to highlight these features with minimal photography skills and budget.

If you do it right, you can also start building a brand for yourself, thanks to engaging videos, improved Instagram posts and more. Keep these tips in mind as you prepare for spring and summer rental season.

Photograph the right features

The first step in highlighting your property’s most sellable features is to share photos of the right features—a.k.a. the features your potential tenants will care most about. These features can be both design-focused and functional; a mix of the two may appeal to the widest audience. Focus on features like crown molding, new appliances, large outdoor or patio space, and newly renovated areas of the home.

To make sure tenants see the property from every angle, put the images into a collage: “This allows somebody glancing through listings to see interior and exterior shots all at once. Because our homes are so beautifully staged, the split photos get a lot of attention and sets it apart from every other listing,” says Paul Moore, of Smith Mountain Homes.

You can also add multiple images to Facebook Carousel ads or Instagram’s new multi-photo upload feature to create a well-rounded view of the property.

Do virtual home tours

What better way to highlight your property than with a virtual tour? You can do this by taking a phone video and uploading to YouTube, or take live video with your Facebook or Instagram business page. Either way, this is also a great opportunity to engage with potential renters, so while giving the tour, ask questions. You might say:

“We just finished this bathroom, and added the brand new clawfoot tub. Do you like that vintage style? Tell me in the comments!”

“Tenants love using the back yard for grilling and hanging out with friends—the grill over there comes with the property. How often would you use this area?”

If creating all videos on a social platform, be sure to download them and upload to your YouTube channel. You can begin creating different sections for each rental property, so anyone interested in your listings can get walking tours whenever they want.

Share high-quality images

Photographing the right features is important, and the next step is taking high-quality photos. Luckily, you don’t need an expensive camera or photography experience to do that. The new iPhone 7, for example, has made it even easier for you to get expert-quality photos all on your own, thanks to its new dual lens camera, which features a wide angle and telephoto lens, according to iPhone 7 Rumors Confirmed.

Other new phones like the HTC M8 also have this feature, making it possible for you to take photos with depth of field. This is a feature traditionally found only in expensive SLR and DSLR cameras, providing you with a great opportunity for you to get high-quality photos without spending a lot.

Be a data-head

It’s hard to argue with facts, which is why using data to highlight the most sellable features is a great tactic for attracting new tenants. Here are a few data points to include in your listings and ads:

Walkscore: Use this to attract tenants who care about accessibility to nearby retailers, grocery stores, restaurants and bars. The key is to know when to highlight it and when to leave it out.

Alexa Collins, with Homelight, suggests leaving the walking score out if it’s not high enough: “Buyers who really care about Walkscore are people who want a place with tons of resources nearby, so if you have a score under 70 don’t add it to your listing but anything over 71 is advertising gold.”

Crime stats: If a tenant is moving to your area from another town or city, they’re likely unfamiliar with the local crime rates. If yours are notable or lower than average, be sure to include them. This will especially appeal to families and people looking to live alone.

Check sites MyLocalCrime and CrimeReports to get the information you’re looking  for.

Age of property: If you’re renting a new building or house, make that clear in your listing and ads. “It’s worth repeating that tenants want to avoid the hassle of tiresome repairs. Oftentimes, this means they will look for new properties with newer plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems that are less likely to break down and require repair,” says Andrea Collatz, with Legal Zoom.

Use tenant testimonials

No one knows what features are most appealing more than the people who have lived in your rental property. If you have a good relationship with tenants, ask them to write a small paragraph discussing the features they liked most about the property. Everyone will like different things, so this allows you to provide a wide, all-encompassing perspective for every potential renter.

Feature these on social media, your website, or better yet—right on the listing page. Include first name, last initial and age range (20-25, 25-30). Age range is helpful because everyone appreciate different features at different times in their lives; this allows potential tenants to qualify the information in terms of whether it’s important to them.

Featuring your properties most sellable features isn’t hard to do. With the right strategy and ideas, you can capture the essence of your rental property, attracting more people and building a brand for yourself.

Register for “Unboxing the Listing Widget” and visit the Listing and Syndication page to learn about Propertyware’s newly enhanced, easy-to-use widget. You’ll discover how you can leverage your listing power to attract and convert more prospects into tenants.

Jessica Thiefels has been writing and editing for more than 10 years and is now a professional freelancer and consultant. She’s worked with a variety of real estate clients, and has been featured on Forbes and Market Watch. She’s also an author for Inman, House Hunt Network, Homes.com and more. Follow her on Twitter @Jlsander07.

Las Vegas, New York Top List of Destinations for Workers Fleeing Large California Cities

The median sale price of a single family home in California is more than half a million dollars, and that’s pushing people to move to places like Las Vegas and New York. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Las Vegas, New York and Phoenix are the most common destinations for people leaving California for new jobs, according to a new report from the real estate website Trulia.

Trulia analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data from the first quarter of 2017 of people moving somewhere for a new job, focusing on people who moved away from San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego and Los Angeles.

“While this means that the data captures job-to-job moves specifically and may not capture the full picture of migration (e.g. those not in the workforce such as recent graduates and retirees) it spotlights moves that are economically motivated,” wrote Cheryl Young, senior economist at Trulia, in a post last week. “We feel this is an adequate proxy for general migration trends.”

The analysis found that 8.1 percent of people moving from one of those four cities in the first three months of 2017 ended up in Las Vegas, where the median home listing price during that period was $260,000, or less than one-half the median home listing price in San Diego, the cheapest of the four California cities for the period.

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According to the California Association of Realtors, the median sold price of a single-family home earlier this year in San Francisco was $1.65 million; $528,550 in Los Angeles; $635,000 in San Diego; and $1,425,000 in San Jose’s Santa Clara County.

Las Vegas, New York and Phoenix are the top destinations for coastal Californians finding new jobs in cheaper markets, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the real estate site Trulia. (Trulia)

Close behind Las Vegas was New York, with 7.3 percent and Phoenix with 7 percent. The rest of the top 10 in order were: Dallas, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago and Denver. Trulia grouped those destinations into large metropolitan areas (New York, Chicago and Atlanta), “less expensive Sun Belt markets” (Las Vegas and Phoenix) and “high job-growth centers” (Seattle, Denver, Dallas and Portland).

A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies study from September 2017 found more than half of California voters surveyed had considered moving, and one in four said if they did move, it would be out of state.

That finding was echoed in a poll from the Bay Area Council released Sunday that found approximately 46 percent of Bay Area voters are ready to leave the Bay Area within the next few years. That poll found 52 percent of millennials were considering moving out of the Bay Area, up from 46 percent in 2017.

The Bay Area Council poll found that of the 461 registered voters who said they plan to leave, 24 percent said they’ll move elsewhere in California, while 61 percent said they would search out of state.

Last fall, Gov. Jerry Brown signed 15 bills designed to help the state work its way out of its affordable housing crisis. But earlier this year, a bill by Democraic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco that would’ve required high-density housing be built near transit died in the state Legislature.

Trulia also tried to tackle the bigger question of whether there’s a mass exodus of people leaving California for cheaper pastures. It did this by comparing the ratio of people using its site to search for these four high-priced California cities and people in those cities searching for listings outside the state.

Of the four cities, only San Diego received more inbound than outbound searches, but it was also the only city with a recent trend of more people looking to leave than to come.