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Asset Management

Becoming Pet Passionate

Spread the Word – and Stay Pawsitive By Victoria Cowart, CPM Are you acquiring residential rental property and wanting to start on the best foot? Here’s a question that will impact approximately seventy percent of your renters. How will you respond to pets in your rental properties? Will you prohibit pets? Will you become pet-friendly? Or will you push yourself and your success by becoming pet passionate? Available data today says 76% of the property management industry consider themselves and their rental properties pet-friendly. Contrast that with those seeking pet-friendly housing, with 72% saying it’s hard to find. Also, consider that somewhere north of 90% of residents and property management professionals agree that pets are important family members. The Industry Response The rental property management industry today has a wide variety of responses to pets. Some companies prohibit cats and dogs in their rentals, some permit pets, and even have no restricted breeds of dogs. In contrast, other companies have ten or more restricted breeds. Some companies have no weight restrictions, while others have varying weight restrictions from 25 to 100 pounds. These policies are all over the map. So again, what will your pet policies and pet restrictions be?   And if you’re willing to permit pets, where do you stand on pet-related fees or deposits? The industry has pet rents, nonrefundable pet fees at move-in, and occasionally additional deposits as well. Some areas of the country have regulations on these rents, fees, and deposits. How will you structure those? As you continue or begin new property management endeavors, these are great questions to ask yourself. But you may ask yourself again, “Why is it so important?” From a human perspective, pets promote relaxation, reduce loneliness and depression, and reportedly caused their pet parents to report a higher life satisfaction than non-pet owners do. One study showed that 80% of pet owners say their pet makes them feel less lonely, and 54% connect with others more readily. Pre-pandemic, one in ten adults would raise their hand and admit to being people living with a mental or emotional disability. Would it surprise you to learn that it is now four in ten? And where does, if it does, that factor into your policymaking in this arena? Pawsitively Exciting But let’s not shy away before we’ve given this a full once over. Let’s quantify this a bit further. Twenty-seven percent of households in the country have children, whereas 70% of households have pets. This means that today’s households are more likely to include pets than children under the age of 18. Our most extensive group of renters, millennials, are very pet enthusiastic. Seventy-five percent of people in their thirties own a dog, and 50%  of people in their thirties own a cat. The resulting pet population is astonishing, at 230M+ cats and dogs in our country in 137M+ households. Those are statistics that are hard to stare at for long if you’re thinking of being less than pet friendly, but pawsitively exciting if you’re on the road to becoming pet passionate. As you read this, you may be saying, “But they make such a mess in rental properties.” And while many share that sentiment, there are statistics on this as well that are worth considering before you decide on your pet policies. One source said, “Pets are a safe bet in the rental housing industry.” “How so?” you might ask. The statistics show that only 9% of pets caused damage and that the national average value of that damage is only $191. With that said, what do your customers, renters, really think about pets in rental housing? Seventy one percent of renters know that pets create community—bringing people together. And not surprisingly, there was a better than seven out of ten correlation between the presence of pet-related amenities and the likelihood of rentals and renewals. Beneficial Results of Being Pet Passionate Studies show several beneficial results when we become more pet passionate about our policies. Among them, an increased disclosure about pets, leading to fewer unauthorized pets, a decrease in the risk of unvaccinated bites, and the creation of a tie that binds — community. Additionally, you receive more applications, more potential renters per available rental, a competitive edge, and faster and easier leasing. Eighty-three percent of property managers say their rentals rent faster, and 79% say their rentals are easier to fill with more inclusive pet policies. Are your levels of pet passion on the rise yet? Let’s get even more specific about the areas of enhanced performance. Turnover is lower in more pet-inclusive rentals. \Pets are a reason for turnover 24% of the time. With more inclusive pet policies, the occupancy duration is longer as well. Instead of 18-month tenancies in more pet-prohibitive rentals, pet-passionate rentals can have renters for 27 to 46 months. And with an average December 2022 rent in the country at $2007 per month, every month of additional tenancy counts. With even one extra month on average, that’s $2007 in additional rent and better than a $40,000 boost in property values at a 5% CAP rate. And in addition to additional months, renewals are enhanced as well — with one pet-passionate PetScreening partner reporting a whopping 80% of pet-owning residents renewing their lease. Eighty percent renewals, anyone? With reductions in turnover, you will save money marketing your vacancies. The National Association of Realtors says landlords spend less than half as much money advertising their pet-friendly units. And let’s be sure to address the ever-present pressure — vacancy. One study revealed that pet-friendly rentals have a vacancy rate that is 4% lower and that their vacancies rent ten days more quickly. With all these statistics, what are your reasons for remaining pet-prohibitive? Or are you already pet friendly? Pets make our renters happier, create community, increase their length of stay, increase revenue, decrease vacancy, and do wonders for your bottom line. Become pet passionate, spread the word — and stay pawsitive.

Asset Management

Assistance Animals

Legal Obligations When Managing Rental Housing By Victoria Cowart In operations, we all feel pressured to have a certain depth of knowledge on critical topics. This pressure rises to another level when the subject touches the work of our on-site, centralized, supervisory, and corporate team members. That pressure increases to a whole new level when it touches the lives of our applicants, residents, and possibly even our guests with disabilities. And if that was not enough, this particular topic makes up approximately 60% of HUD complaints. With that, the pressure for operational knowledge and excellence rises fourfold. I am speaking of the rights of our disabled applicants and residents, and yes, those disabled guests “associated” with our residents, to request reasonable accommodations. These rights are afforded to the disabled by the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the Fair Housing Amendments Act (FHAA). But let’s stop there for just a moment. What is a reasonable accommodation? An accommodation is defined as a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, or practice in your rental housing—but “reasonable.” That is a more subjective point of consideration. So, what is our obligation when managing rental housing while considering the FHA and the FHAA? Let’s start at the beginning. We are legally required to consider all requests for reasonable accommodation, and the requests do not have to come in a particular format or contain specific language. So far, this sounds straightforward. But how do we begin to understand what to do with these requests? In 2020, HUD released its first Notice regarding this topic in seven years. It is the HUD 2020–01 Assistance Animals Notice. It offers the industry excellent guidance, language, and opportunities to improve our work in this subject area. The new Notice did offer the industry clarity on the common language. The over-arching language to use in this topic is “assistance animals.” There are two types of assistance animals: service animals and support animals. Each of these two types of assistance animals requires a different approach when we process the requests. You can think of them as different paths we will travel based upon the type of assistance animal requested. Let’s travel along the first path, that of the service animal. The definition of a service animal is an animal trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the disabled. Throughout the country, except in California, a service animal is simply three things: a dog, trained for a task, for the disabled. In California, other animals can be service animals. Support vs. Service Let’s dig further into the specifics of the processes. For a service animal, we are permitted to ask two questions. Those two questions are: is the animal necessary for a person with a disability, and what work or task has the animal been trained to perform? We can then evaluate those answers to see if they indicate an actual service animal. Occasionally, the answer will lead you to engage further in the interactive process. HUD defines an interactive process as a good-faith dialogue between you and the requester. This dialogue may reveal a possible support animal. This could be the case when a requester says yes to the disability question. Still, their answer to the task question makes it evident that the animal has not had any training to ameliorate one or more of the symptoms associated with the disability. Remember, though, it is impermissible to require any documentation supporting a service animal request. You are not to obtain, or to even ask for, training certificate(s) or documentation from healthcare providers. That said, if the first answer is “yes”; and the second answer is, “Yes my service animal has been trained to wake me during night terrors,” you have a service animal. Conversely, if the first answer is “yes”; and the second answer is, “Yes my service animal sits in my lap and comforts me during intermittent explosive outbursts,” you likely have a support animal. That leads us to our second type of assistance animal, the support animal. Support animals may be animals that perform a task. But because they are not a dog (in states other than California), by definition, they become a support animal. Support animals can also be animals who provide therapeutic emotional support, hence the ESA that we hear about most frequently. On this path, we are permitted to seek documentation from the requester — unlike in the service animal process. We are permitted to look for five things in that documentation. HUD says we have a right to reliable documentation, from a healthcare provider, with an indication of personal knowledge and *confirmation of disability and disability-related need for the requested support animal. Let’s stop for a moment and visit the confirmation of disability. You have a right to require this documentation to include confirmation of the disability only when the disability cannot be visually confirmed or when the individual is not on record or regarded as disabled. So, what does that mean in practice? It means your frontline team members should let you know if they were able to visually confirm that the requester is disabled. If that is the case, you are not looking to confirm the disability in the documentation. Likewise, if the individual is receiving disability benefits or income, as noted in their application, they are considered to be on record or regarded as disabled. Again, if that is the case, you are not looking to confirm the disability in the documentation. Responding to the Request So, with a request for a support animal, you can request documentation. You can look for the items noted above, including the specificity of whether or not to confirm the disability and the documentation in accordance with HUD’s Assistance Animals Notice. If you find the documentation is missing one or more of the items you are allowed to have, you should consider continuing the interactive process and requesting the information in accordance with HUD’s Notice. Please be prompt in your

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