How others do it

Places like Minneapolis using tiered inspection systems

Cities like Minneapolis use tiered inspection systems

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We were identifying the properties that were using the most city resources and recognizing they needed more frequent inspections.

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Kellie Rose Jones

Director of housing inspection services for Minneapolis

As more single-family homes have entered the nation’s rental market, some major U.S. cities are adopting new strategies to ensure landlords are maintaining the properties.

Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit and Minneapolis are among the growing number of cities requiring landlords to license their rentals and undergo regular code inspections. Hotlines are available for tenants to file complaints, and homes that rack up violations are subject to fines and more frequent inspections.

“It’s definitely helped Minneapolis maintain a higher quality of housing for our renters,” said Kellie Rose Jones, director of housing inspection services for the city. “In this tight housing market especially, renters are fearful about making complaints about their rental properties for fear of retaliation or other negative consequences.”

In the Las Vegas Valley, no city or county government proactively inspects rental housing. Instead, homes are typically scrutinized only after a complaint is lodged.

And most valley governments don’t even track which houses in their jurisdictions are rentals. The city of North Las Vegas is the only one trying; it requires any company that rents four or more homes to have a city business license.

However, the Las Vegas Review-Journal found that North Las Vegas’ largest single-family landlords were not licensed, despite owning more than 1,700 houses inside city limits as of August. It was only after a Review-Journal reporter asked city officials about the noncompliance in November that they demanded the companies become registered. As of Wednesday, the companies still have not become licensed, city spokesman Patrick Walker said.

The oversight likely occurred because the city does not track private property sales, said Marc Jordan, the city’s director for land development and community services. Historically, North Las Vegas staff have focused on licensing commercial and industrial businesses, not landlords.

“We don’t have the largest staff in the valley when it comes to research,” he said. “We only have two business license officers that are responsible for trying to track down all the businesses in the city that are not licensed.”

Officials in other cities that have implemented rental licensing programs said resource management has been key to making the programs work.

Minneapolis and Baltimore have enacted tiered systems so that rental properties with more problems are inspected more frequently.

In Minneapolis, almost all the city’s licensed rental homes are in its best tier, meaning they are inspected only once every eight years unless a tenant files a complaint. Fewer than 300 homes are in the city’s worst tier and inspected annually.

“We were identifying the properties that were using the most city resources and recognizing they needed more frequent inspections,” Jones said.

Detroit and Baltimore have cut costs by allowing private companies to inspect rental homes. Detroit is rolling out its program across handfuls of ZIP codes at a time through the summer of 2021.

“The goal is to have compliant homes, not to generate revenue from ticketing property owners,” said Julie VandeVusse, project manager for the Detroit initiative.

Officials said tracking down reluctant-to-register landlords is critical to successful rental licensing programs.

Dallas has used a number of strategies — including searching property tax rolls and water billing information — to register close to 20,000 rental properties, or about one-third of what the city estimates exists, since efforts started in 2017. The work can be tedious, but city officials say it is worthwhile.

“The mere fact it gives tenants hope and a way to contact somebody for help so they don’t feel helpless is a big factor,” said Scott McAvoy, a manager in Dallas’ Department of Code Compliance Services. “I think this has helped a whole lot to alleviate those fears and make them feel like, ‘Yes, we can make contact to get things fixed and not lose our property.’ ”