COVID affecting housing
‘It’s tough to find a rental, especially with rents being so high’
From affordable housing to higherend options, the Yuba-sutter area has a housing shortage and the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t helped the situation.
Due to the shortage, high demand has led to significant increases in rental prices.
More families are turning to roommates to bridge the gap, and in some cases, the increases have priced out those going the Housing Choice Voucher route.
“We have had several vouchers who have been unsuccessful in finding a place,” said Alisha Parker, manager of the Housing Choice Voucher Department through the Regional Housing Authority. “It’s tough right now to find a rental, especially with rents being so high. That’s the case in all four counties we administer vouchers to.”
Also, because of the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic, more renters are staying in place until the situation stabilizes.
“I’ve seen a lot less movers in properties
that we own or manage, because people are staying in place,” said Gus Becerra, executive director of the Regional Housing Authority. “In the past six months, our turnovers have decreased significantly.”
Becerra said just this week he heard of a local resident searching for an affordable one bedroom apartment in the area. After being unable to find one in Yuba City, they were able to locate an available one-bedroom apartment in Marysville, though the rent was $1,175 per month.
Applications for housing units through the Regional Housing Authority have gone up in recent months, which has led to long waitlists — some of which have been closed temporarily. Becerra said if
someone in need of housing were to walk in today, there’s nothing available for them, though he encouraged people to still apply. Where his team cannot help, they will help those applying find resources available to them.
“If there are folks out there that are maybe disheartened because they don’t have the security deposit or first month’s rent, we still encourage them to apply, because there could be some nonprofits out there that can help them, like Bridges to Housing or the Salvation Army,” he said. “We have relationships with these agencies that we can help them get in contact with.”
The authority has several projects either recently finished or in the works that are adding affordable housing options in the area, but nowhere close to what would be needed to meet
the area’s demand.
More information can be found about available resources at www. regionalha.org.
Higher-end options
It’s not just affordable housing that is seeing a shortage in the Yuba-sutter area.
The Plumas Lake area is highly sought after due to its proximity to Beale Air Force Base and Sacramento. Desiree Hastey, broker and owner of Plumas Lake Properties, said her team oversees 85 rentals, and at the moment there are zero vacancies.
When a renter turns in a notice, the property is almost immediately filled with another tenant. She said rent prices have also gone up astronomically
— in one recent example, a 3-bedroom rental was going for close to $2,000 per
month.
“It’s gone up a lot in the last five years. This year, we’ve already seen an increase of more than 10 percent in rental rates,” she said.
For many families, that’s not doable considering that in order for them to qualify they must make more than three times that cost a month.
“I think one of the bigger challenges moving forward is that you have a lot of people affected by COVID that don’t qualify, whether it be because they don’t have the income or because they’ve been evicted before,” she said. “Right now, there are no evictions because of the state moratorium, which is a huge challenge for many people. Some of our landlords that only have one or two properties have experienced challenges. In
one case, the tenants had an unauthorized dog, so we told them they needed to vacate and they stopped paying rent, so right now we are in a sort of holding pattern.”
She said those property owners are taking a hit because they still have to pay the mortgage without that income coming in. Those challenges will only become worse if the state extends the moratorium into 2021, she said.
On the home sales side of things, her team has also seen inventory drop off dramatically. Normally, there would be about two new listings a week in the area, but right now it’s closer to one new listing every other week.
“There is a ton of demand and the supply is really low, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens moving forward,” Hastey said. “This market usually has about 225 transactions a year in sales, but I don’t think we are even at 150 for the year so far.”
Because the demand is there, those that are selling are doing so over market value. Hastey said those looking to buy a house should have a good cash reserve ready — she’s seen buyers putting down up to $15,000 in cash over what they normally would in order to make an offer more enticing and beat out the rest of the applicant pool.
“COVID has affected the supply of rentals and houses for sale. We’ve definitely seen an increase in demand, which has seen prices increase. All of the pieces of the puzzle line up across the board,” Hastey said. “It has had a huge impact on the housing market, especially for the Plumas Lake area.