Letter to the Editor: How About Asking a Different Question
Seattle Times reporter Mike Rosenberg is out looking for more renters to tell their stories about “how high the rent is.” There doesn’t seem to be any interest at the Times in getting any better about doing the basic job of reporting what’s going on with housing. Of course rents are going up; the question is why and what do we do about it? I invited Rosenberg to meet with me when he first started and I said we had plenty of real human beings, not corporations, that could speak to many different issues associated with rental properties, including why rents are going up. He’s never taken me up on that. So I wrote this e-mail and suggested to the editors of the page that, well, they try something new. You can make the same or similar request of the editors by e-mailing them too, at rgrunbaum@seattletimes.com and slaviolette@seattletimes.com.
Hello Rami and Suzanne,
I have never really complained to editors before. So rather than complain, I’ll make this in the form of a request.
Over the last couple years or so the housing issue has become even hotter than it was before. I commend the Times for making the effort to stay on top of that story from various perspectives.
Rents have an origin in the economy, that is, there is an explanation for why rents and housing prices are what they are. When housing supply is low, and demand is high, prices go up. Often there is a tendency to report on the increase (i.e. “Rents in Seattle have increase by X percent over Y period of time.”) This formulation isn’t helpful. It simply isn’t news. The real question is, “What accounts for rent increases? Are they higher than anywhere else? Are the increases different in new construction and in older stock.”
Rents are going up. The question is why and what lies ahead for the rental market. I met with Mike Rosenberg and asked him as plainly as I could to please include this perspective in stories. I haven’t seen that. I’ve even seen him, as a reporter, writing about his own experience with “skyrocketing rents.”
I understand that people like to read the latest story opining on how much rents have gone up. Give me the numbers and I can write that story blindfolded. What matters is getting into the details of the increases (e.g. prices for new housing always are higher than older housing, just like anything else) and to also look at the cost factors in the industry pushing up rents, like taxes and utilities and the doesn’t even consider the regime of legislation being passed at the Council. Maybe it’d be even kind of interesting (just maybe) to interview a landlord and a building manager and get their perspective on what it is like to run a rental property. That’d be nice.
At a minimum, please include something beyond the standard “base on the latest report, rents went up X percent over Y period and here’s a renter who’s upset about it.”
We know that already. Why? And is there a solution?
Roger–
PS We have many people who run rental properties who’d be glad to tell their stories.
