Seattle’s Rental Housing Survey: Fact or Fiction?

Review of the results from the city’s commissioned Rental Housing Survey reveals new opportunities to bridge the gap for landlords and renters.

Alex Evans
Sep 5, 2018 · 6 min read
Fremont Bridge Photo By Peter Swanzy

Introduction

In recent years, we’ve seen housing prices soar along with a rising demand for cost-conscious rental options. In response, The City of Seattle has passed new ordinances regarding limits on move-in fees, first-in-time, and criminal background checks, in an effort to remove barriers to housing. To date, it is unclear whether these ordinances have an impact on affordability or accessibility to housing in Seattle.

Research surveys that are conducted to provide a snapshot of current housing dynamics are often done in order to increase the ability to evaluate the effects that the changes in housing ordinances and regulations have had on the rental housing market. While this study makes strides in creating awareness of the mounting housing crisis, recent reports present data of questionable validity.


Overview

The Seattle Renter Housing Study (SHRS) commissioned by the City of Seattle and executed by the University of Washington is one such study. The study aimed to “gather baseline data that could be used for future evaluations”.

We tend to see conflict about affordable housing as two-sided: landlord vs. tenant, landlord vs. city, affordable vs. unaffordable. However, grasping the nuances of affordable housing is multi-faceted and only possible if the study accurately reflects the lived experiences, attitudes, and behaviors of the populations it seeks to understand.

In Greek mythology, the two-headed Janus figure is used as a symbol of duality and represents the need to simultaneously see the past and the future during times of change and transition. This symbolism is appropriate as Seattle attempts to better understand the current state of the housing market.


Design Quality

Building a quality research survey isn’t easy. Surveys are a powerful tool that can highlight political, social, and economic relationships that may otherwise go unnoticed. Their study methods involve a complex myriad of data, topics, issues, and research areas. At the core, the most basic goal of these types of social science surveys is to be reliable.

The norms of science are clear. Science is an “objective, logical, and systematic method of analysis of phenomena devised to permit the accumulation of reliable knowledge (Bernard, H.).

These three key terms are equally essential and build upon one another: objective, methodical, and reliable.


Key Insights & Analysis

Notably, property owners with rental buildings containing 20 or more units increased their rents between 1% and 5 %, more frequently than landlords with smaller properties, roughly 7% more often than their peers. Additionally, the smallest group of landlords reporting having increased their rents by 25% or more were those with 20 or more units, compared to landlords with much smaller properties.

Furthermore, only 3% of landlords reported rents for $1,000 or less (per month) for their rentals, which is roughly 120 respondents. Without any consideration for variation in the monthly rent amounts of the landlords from the survey, this supports the increasingly common opinion that higher density properties (such as those with 20+ units) outperform rentals with fewer (and often more expensive) rental units. This is likely due to their capability to stabilize housing costs more effectively, as evidenced by their ability to minimize their rent increases remaining within the economically ideal range of 1%-5%.


Explore other insights from SRHS below:

Infographic by Alex Evans (Data Source: SRHS)

Methodology Concerns

#1) The Sample Size Is Unclear For Two Groups
The tenant sample size defined for this study was roughly 1% of the size of the landlord sample. While there were over 4,000 landlord respondents, the tenant sample size only ranged from 36–49 people.

The sample size is very important in statistical analysis. With the imbalance in this study, neither of the population studies can be considered an accurate representation of renters or landlords. Furthermore, the results cannot be generalized for either population because correlations cannot be made from the survey data.


#2) Interview Modes Varied for Each Group Studied
While the landlord survey was administered online and in focus groups, the tenants’ survey was solely administered through focus group interviews (no online survey was administered). Statistically, it is common best-practice to have the same survey instruments for both population groups.

For the tenant population, there was a physical impediment to provide feedback, due to the fact that tenants did not have an opportunity to provide input via an online survey and were only able to share feedback through in-person interviews.

#3) Landlord Sample Had a High Non-Response Rate
There was a frequent occurrence of participants from the landlord sample not selecting any answers at all via the online survey. At face value, non-response patterns reduce the ability for accurate survey estimates and conclusions. In social surveys, when responses indicate a pattern of non-response it is not always clear if respondents were unwilling or unable to provide answers.

In the landlord survey, participants are able to continue to click “next” until the entire survey is “complete” without providing all the answers. Without input requirement/validation on each question, it is difficult to maintain perspective for this sampled group.


Limitations of The Study

The challenge is not in the actual conducting of the survey but in the ethical selection of the appropriate (and unbiased) measurements. What this study unambiguously shows, is that there is a high probability that selection bias was present in this study.

Though mix-mode survey approaches aren’t entirely uncommon, mixed mode approaches are often frowned upon in the social science research due to the potential for variation to lead “to differences in substantive responses due to mode favoring a certain sociodemographic over another” (Stern et al., 2018). Uniformity of the measurement conditions (i.e. online and in person surveys) ensures that the procedure measurements were consistently applied across the entire population of survey participants. Hence the reason that standardization is regarded as essential for reliability to exist in any study.


Bridging the Gap

Housing is important. The City of Seattle and the University of Washington need to work together with the community to develop a more effective strategy for surveying topics like this, as well as designing around the limitations of what can be learned from this study.

Investment in a better understanding of the nuances of cost-conscious housing involves multiple social objectives. Though not fully quantifiable, the available evidence indicates that higher density properties may be the cost-cutting rental solutions the City of Seattle needs. Perhaps this is further proof (or just another conversation-starter) that smaller apartments (micro-housing and small efficiency dwelling units, etc.) have the key to success in stabilizing lower rent increases.

While there is still immense opportunity to develop best practice methods for further research studies, information gleaned from this “final report” should be considered a starting point.


References:

“Survey Analyses for City of Seattle: Appendix B. Analysis of Data From Landlord Owner Survey” by University of Washington. June, 2018.

“Seattle Renter Housing Study” by University of Washington, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. June, 2018.

Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches” By Harvey Russell Bernard. Sage Publications, 2013.

“Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda” by Stern, et al. The National Academies of Science, 2018.


Alex Evans has served at the Director level in Seattle’s multifamily real estate market. She earned a Bachelors of Arts (B.A.) degree from Seattle University with a major in Psychology and minor in Sociology


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