What happened in eviction court late in the afternoon of Sept. 8 was ordinary — the Multnomah County Circuit Court docket held a roster of tenant-landlord cases.
In succession, representatives from two locally-based property management companies — Affinity Property Management and Legacy Property Management — made cases that a tenant illegally sublet a rental, and failed to pay rent, respectively.
The tenant was not present in either case. The petitioners talked comfortably and bantered with the judge, presenting documents and laying out their arguments for eviction. Unchallenged, the cases were automatically found in favor of the landlords, and the tenants were evicted.
It’s a familiar scene. Both tenant and landlord are absent; the fate of the renter is decided in a quiet courtroom by a judge and a property management company.
The state’s top 30 evictors — which are only a small segment of the thousands of different plaintiffs in Oregon eviction cases — account for nearly 18% percent of all eviction filings in the state this year.
A Street Roots analysis of Oregon Law Center data shows 22 of these 30 evictors — the vast majority — are property management companies. Collectively, these companies filed 1,193 total evictions as of Aug. 21 — more than 12% of all evictions filed in 2022.
Often overlooked, these companies are now an integral component of the eviction system, in some cases owning and managing increasing numbers of rental properties and in other instances offering legal representation and bureaucratic expertise to landlords that tenants typically can’t match. In the midst of a housing and eviction crisis, property management companies emerge as the lead arbiters of eviction, and the larger among them are now among the most prominent evictors in the state.
The year began with a spike in eviction filings. In January, property managers and landlords filed 806 evictions in Oregon circuit courts — more than double the 306 filings in January 2021 when the state's eviction moratorium was still in effect.
As of Aug. 21, the number ballooned to 9,255 residential eviction filings since the start of the year — more than double Oregon Law Center's estimate of 4,080 evictions between Jan. 1, 2021 and Sept. 7, 2021, as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting last year.
Property management companies loom large in the eviction process, explains Colleen Carroll, a lead organizer for Eviction Representation for All, or ERA, a coalition of tenants and community organizations advocating for tenant legal representation within Multnomah County.
“What I can say is that the property management companies do a ton of the evicting; they're kind of the Pac-Man, so to speak,” Carroll said.
Rental law is stacked against tenants in myriad ways, Carroll said, and property management companies representing landlords in eviction court create a significant advantage tilting the scales in favor of landlords.
If a tenant doesn’t show up, the judge automatically rules in favor of the landlord, something known as winning by default. This alone propels many evictions. In some cases, tenants don’t know they can fight eviction or whether or not the eviction is even lawful.
“Tenants — we're ourselves,” Carroll said. “If we happen to be in a tenant association or union, we have some people working with us. Our landlords are supported and in a strong coalition with property management companies, the lawyers who represent them, or the agents that represent them, as well as the court and the law enforcement agencies. And so it's not fair.”
Court is both time-consuming and costly, two significant barriers for low-income renters — a group facing a much higher risk of eviction. Many tenants can’t afford legal representation, and for some, it’s a battle to even make it to the courthouse because they may not have child care or the time off work. In these cases, they don’t make it to their court date. When this happens, the landlord wins, sometimes in clusters.
Because landlords often hire property management companies, they are able to file multiple — perhaps dozens — of evictions at once, and the company will maintain the necessary paperwork and show up to represent them in court.
“Landlords don't go to court,” Carroll said. “(Property managers) go to court for them, which is one of the huge reasons that there's an imbalance. Because if a tenant doesn't show up, or a family member or whatever (represents them), that’s not a lot. The landlord can have an agent represent them, and so managers are doing the work of going down to the courthouse every day.”
Another result of property management companies, Carroll points out, is the separation between tenants and landlords. In instances where properties and renters are numerous, the decision to evict becomes more automatic — companies are just looking at whether or not a payment was made, potentially without considering context or working to avoid an eviction.
“They're more likely to have (tenants) paying their rent using a portal,” Carroll said. “And that portal system is computerized and automated, right? And so as opposed to a manager walking in on the sixth of the month, and saying, ‘Okay, who put a check under my door,’ the computer program just automatically sends out eviction notices.”
— Colleen Carroll, organizer for Eviction Representation for All
An individual property management company typically runs all its rentals the same, and business models aim for efficiency, so missed payments generally spur an automatic eviction notice and eviction filings happen the same way.
“You see these, like, automated systems where on one day, you know, we'll see 10 or more filings from one site, which means they filed them all the same day,” Carroll said.
These companies also have long-standing relationships with law firms or have their own legal services provided, making it more likely they will prevail in court. In this way, property management companies are integral to the power imbalance that favors landlords over tenants, Carroll said.
“Property management companies are a huge part of the eviction story,” Carroll said. “We don't talk about them too much because we talk a lot about tenants versus landlords, which makes it seem like we're two sides … in a bilateral fight. And it's really not true, right?”
Of course, some property management companies operate differently. These entities vary in size, can manage their own properties, provide third-party management, or both. Many also serve small landlords — property owners with one or a few properties.
Some property management companies try to work with renters, explains Hollie Forsman, vice president of property operations for Guardian Management, LLC, a prominent property management company in Oregon.
A 2022 industry study found property managers have seen their role in a new light as a result of the pandemic. Unprecedented financial issues — and federal funding responses to them — meant property managers became key arbiters of information for tenants and essential collaborators to help them avoid eviction.
“Our goal is to try to get them to pay their rent and stay; our goal isn't to evict them,” Forsman said. “So in a lot of cases, our managers are just filling up that paperwork and then working with folks to, you know, get outside funds, whatever is available.”
While this may be the case with Guardian Property Management, it doesn’t hold true for all property companies. It also doesn’t mean evictions won’t happen.
Guardian Property Management is among the top 10 evictors in the state and filed for 77 evictions statewide so far this year.
These evictions have been for a variety of reasons, Forsman said.
“Sometimes the misconception with the world is that if you are in a legal proceeding, and you're involved with property management, it is because they didn't pay rent,” Forsman said. “Sometimes it's because of events that have happened with different households together — I mean, if you've committed a crime on the property, or you're not following the rules.”
Still, the great majority of evictions are owing to unpaid rent. Since August 2021, at least 50% of all evictions have been from nonpayment. This year, that percentage has continued to rise and climbed to 72% in July.
Data Source: Oregon Law Center
According to Forsman, landlords and property management companies faced their own vulnerabilities during the pandemic. As tenants couldn’t pay rent, many owners — especially small owners — had to scramble to pay bills, too.
“There's a lot of properties during the pandemic, and we didn't have people paying their rent consistently (for months),” Forsman said. “We had to get really creative with how we were just gonna pay utilities.”
While it’s true that not all landlords are stockpiling profits, broadly speaking, real estate and property management are profitable industries. In 2009, the property management industry reaped $61 billion nationally, according to iProperty Management research. By 2021, property management revenue climbed to $99 billion in revenue nationally.
Property management companies typically charge around 10% of rent paid to landlords in exchange for management services, slicing into a profitable industry — the GDP of Oregon’s real estate industry topped $40 billion in 2021. While landlords did face setbacks during the pandemic, they also received support from the government. In 2020, Oregon lawmakers established the Landlord Compensation Fund, allocating $150 million to prop up rental owners struggling financially. The stage was also set for large-scale investors to expand and scoop up more properties, consuming a bigger share of Oregon real estate. Real estate investment is ballooning, and the property management industry is expanding to meet the need.
Court is both expensive and complicated, and property management companies ensure landlords are better equipped to meet that challenge.
Eviction Representation for All is looking to offset that imbalance by campaigning for a county code that would ensure all tenants in eviction court are provided legal counsel. The proposal, which would be funded through the addition of a 0.75% capital gains tax on Multnomah County residents, is being introduced through an initiative petition process.
According to Carroll, ERA surpassed the required number of signatures and is continuing its signature drive. ERA will submit signatures for verification later this year, aiming to have the initiative on the ballot in 2023.
In the meantime, evictions continue at a rapid clip, and the outcome for many who get evicted is housing insecurity or homelessness.
Terry McDonald, executive director at St. Vincent De Paul Society of Lane County, said requests for shelter and housing assistance are on the rise and surpass what is available. These people, McDonald said, are being pushed into economic vulnerability they may not come back from.
Notably, St.Vincent De Paul of Lane County, which provides low-income housing, is among the top evictors: the organization filed 53 evictions as of Aug. 10 this year.
“Those populations are increasingly marginalized,” McDonald said. “What that will lead to is more of the continuing crisis. Because if you can't afford your housing, you'll end up probably in some use of substandard housing, or trying to double or triple up with some others.”
And still, others end up homeless, McDonald said, a lifestyle that is filled with hardship and threats to health that ultimately shorten a person's lifespan.
“What you're leading to is a bifurcated society, where those that have the resources are getting housing, but those without those resources are actually being condemned to die,” McDonald said.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the status of signatures required to place eviction representation for all on the ballot in 2023.
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