If you’re wondering why housing in Washington is getting harder to find and even harder to afford, look at what happened when Olympia passed House Bill 1217. Far left politicians promised it would protect tenants, but the hidden mechanics are actively crushing new construction and freezing repairs on older buildings across the state. Why would a person invest in building a new mobile home park (the best housing for fixed and low income folks) when you are guaranteed to lose money? Why would a landlord spend tens of thousands to repair an apartment building if they can’t increase the rents to pay for it?
The biggest issue is how the law treats standard apartments versus mobile home and RV parks—and in the process, it completely crippled Washington’s most affordable housing.
APARTMENTS:
For standard apartments, the rent cap sits at 9.68% for 2026. While brand-new apartment builds get a 12-year grace period before the cap kicks in, major renovations and rehabs get zero exemption. If an owner wants to buy a rundown complex and sink real money into modernizing it, they can’t re-price the units to recover those costs. The result is simple: nobody remodels, and older buildings just sit there and deteriorate.
MOBILE HOMES AND RV PARKS:
Mobile home and long-term RV parks were slapped with a strict, permanent 5% cap—no inflation adder, no sunset date, and zero exemption for new builds.
When property taxes, insurance, and utility costs in Washington are jumping way faster than 5% a year, no private developer can make the math work to open a new park. On top of that, the state Attorney General is already handing out massive penalties—like a $400,000 fine on Suntides RV Park in Yakima County over notice timelines. Small operators are being pushed to the brink.
INVESTMENT LEAVES FOR IDAHO AND TEXAS:
Washington’s 12-year exemption on new apartment construction is shorter than California’s and Oregon’s 15-year windows. Institutional buyers know that an asset in year 8 or 10 is about to run into a strict regulatory ceiling, which tanks the property’s future value. Lenders are tightening up, and developers are simply taking their money to states without rent caps.
In Longview, a park that had a $7 million offer before the law passed saw the buyer drop their bid to $4.9 million almost overnight.
When you cap revenue below the rate of inflation and remove any incentive to upgrade older properties, you don’t magically get lower rent. You just get less housing, worse conditions, and higher costs for everyone trying to find a place to live.
Now, local cities are forced to pass emergency zoning bans just to stop park owners from shutting down and selling off the land entirely.
Hypocrite Government Bob Ferguson then put $244 million that goes into a “Task Force” (aka his donors and buddies) to supposedly address the housing shortage he created. Share this to spread the word on what’s really driving Washington’s housing supply into the ground.
I am an investor and I know a lot of investors, and all of our money will be flowing to Idaho or Texas or other states. Would you want to invest here if you are guaranteed to lose money?