By Sage Coleman, Oregon Rental Housing Association President
December 3, 2019
To our Valued Members around the state of Oregon, I am excited to be your new ORHA President, and want to get you up to speed on our direction as we head into 2020. Legislatively, we had a major change this year (Senate Bill 608) that was a hard pill to swallow, but with ORHA Legislative Director Jim Straub, and ORHA Lobbyist Shawn Miller, leveraging a reputation of good will and reasonableness in negotiation, our influence resulted in a more balanced outcome than we thought was possible. While many landlords around the state felt we should have dug in our heels, the political reality was that any effort like we expended to defeat HB 2004 in 2017, was doomed to failure given the legislative makeup and so time was better spent building a collaborative work environment. ORHA was the only entity that Speaker of the House Tina Kotek was willing to work with to craft the bill, speaking highly of our reputation in Salem. It was YOUR INVOLVEMENT to defeat HB 2004 which helped earn our seat at the SB 608 planning table. Please read Jim’s article, “SB 608 - What the Heck Happened?: The Inside Story” to get the inside scoop on how the negotiations played out.
We published our new ORHA 2019 Forms Manual with new and updated forms to great acclaim, and the ORHA 2020 Law Book is in process. Forms Committee Chair, Tia Politi, is accepting suggestions for the next round of new forms and updates to current forms to compile ahead of the 2021 revision. Please email your suggestions to the ORHA office: office@oregonrentalhousing.com.
The Forms Store/Technology Committee, headed by Cloud Miller, has made incredible progress on updating and modernizing the ORHA Forms Store. The updating and quality control testing consumed hundreds of hours of time, but the results are truly spectacular. That effort did not come without some major bumps in the road and we appreciated your patience when our store was down a couple of times. Fortunately, the interruptions in service were short because of the tireless efforts of Cloud and Brad Clemens at Sunriver Computer Services, and our site is now better than ever and ready to help landlords across the state operate a successful business. Currently, they have added new categories of forms to make your search for the correct form easier, and are working to create packages of forms, making the move-in process easier. Forms store quality-control testing continues with vetting across mobile and stationary platforms to ensure that we reach all of our customers and their favorite technology – stay tuned for more. Check it out now!!! https://store.oregonrentalhousing.com/
The ORHA Board, led by Dennis Chappa of Lane County, recently completed a SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis to help guide our long-range planning and I am excited about implementing this tool to help direct the future of ORHA. I am honored to serve with such a dedicated board and I look forward to robust collaboration with our dedicated State Board members and the talented associations around the state in achieving our next level of success.
Keep your eyes peeled for a call to support legislative efforts with your dollar-for-dollar tax credit to ORH KEY PAC. If you are looking for tax deductions as 2019 comes to an end this group may be a good choice. https://oregonrentalhousingpac.org/donate
Thank you for the opportunity to be of service,
Sage Coleman
President, Oregon Rental Housing Association
Broker, Pacific Properties
TeamPacPro.com
Oregon Rental Housing Association (ORHA) is a volunteer, nonprofit association consisting of 15 local groups throughout the state, comprising of more than 5,000 individual members. We provide landlord/tenant education and legal forms, lobby for fair and equitable laws and regulations, and support ethical property management practices throughout the rental housing industry.
