The Oregon allowable rent increase percentage for the 2020 calendar year is 9.9 percent, down slightly from 10.4 percent in 2019, announced by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis (OEA).
Oregon’s new rent control law, SB 608, passed in February 2019, ushering in the first-in-the-nation statewide rent control. SB 608 created two major changes to the Oregon Residential Landlord Tenant Act by limiting the scope of termination notices without stated cause and implementing rent control.
Each year, the OEA is responsible for calculating and publishing, by September 30, the maximum annual rent increase percentage allowed by statute SB 608 for the upcoming year.
The OEA calculates this amount as 7 percent plus the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for All Urban Consumers, West Region (All Items), based on the most recent published data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period September thru August.
The CPI went down slightly from 3.4% to 2.9 percent. This results in the annual allowable statewide rent increase cap of 9.9 percent for 2020, and will go into effect on January 1st, 2020.
Attorney and Rental Housing Alliance Oregon Board Member Charles Kovas cautions, “Landlords with outstanding 90-day notices should be aware that those notices may need to be hand-delivered in order to comply with the January 1st rate change.”
The cap on rental increases applies to all renewals and to all rent-increase notices delivered on or after February 28, 2019. Under this law, if landlords terminate tenancy of a prior tenant with a notice of termination without cause during the first year of occupancy, the landlord may not increase rent for that unit by more than 7 percent plus CPI when the subsequent tenant moves in.
The only exemptions to this Oregon allowable rent increase limit are:
- Properties with a certificate of occupancy less than 15 years old, or
- Properties providing reduced rent to the tenant as part of any federal, state or local program or subsidy.
For more information, contact Attorney Charles Kovas at CharlesKovasLaw@gmail.com or call 503-496-5543.
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