CORE, the Center for Owner-Occupied Real Estate is an arm of the Bipartisan Wing, a Washington State PAC focused on rebuilding the political center.

CORE’s 2024 focus is to gain exemptions from rental housing laws for owner-occupant small landlords. Exemptions will reduce risks for small landlords, encourage more rental housing, and enable more homeownership.

Gene Balk at The Seattle Times estimated that there are over 200,000 vacant rooms in empty nesters’ owner-occupied homes in King County alone and perhaps as many as a million state-wide. Those rooms could potentially become shared housing rental opportunities to the benefit of the owner-occupants and tenants if only rental housing laws for owner-occupied small landlords weren’t so onerous and risky.

Additionally, more exemptions for owner-occupant small landlords will incentivize not only shared housing in spaces that already exist, but also other kind of rental units that can be created in basements, backyards, and elsewhere.

To begin, we are working on exemptions from City of Seattle rental housing laws for owner-occupied shared housing, ADUs, DADUs, duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes. We are developing a table that will make it much easier to see all the rental housing laws, current owner-occupied exemptions, and areas where more exemptions are needed.

Your support of CORE and The Bipartisan Wing allow us the resources we need pursue these important exemptions.