Very often about laws and how they are heavily in favor of tenants in many states, and I suppose that's because politicians know there a lot more tenants than LLss and perhaps they vote.

But I seldom see that LLs or many LLs try to be organized to influence politicians or the public (in the public why they have to charge rent that some people think goes directly into LLs pocket so they become rich) I know over the years my office workers felt that when they first worked here until I made them responsible for paying the outgo bills.

We definitely have poor public image and need image building corrections. (A national ad agency?) Not sure how it would be funded,..

And maybe the fact so many bad laws really don't cost only the LL but of course that cost has to be passed on to good tenants. Part of THEIR "tax" of the burden of bad tenant behavior,

Note their are now books out there of how to stick it to "the man" meaning a LL which they think is justifiable as its we who keep them downtrodden with our rents.

But I doubt LLs will ever get together enough or in numbers enough . as Its like trying to herd cats, ,

IN many cases, the interests of the tenant and the LL align.

Neither tenant nor LL want intrusive city inspections

Neither tenant nor LL want higher property taxes on rentals

and so on

In these cases, it is NOT the tenants that are pushing for these laws burdensome to LLs. It is in fact homeowners who despise rentals next door. They are the ones who vote and the politicians listen to. Most of us are in bread and butter areas , not high tenant concentrations like NYC, where homeowners well outnumber the tenants.

There are state organizations that do lobby, often because state laws on LL/T issues are very different. For example, the OREIA (Ohio Real Estate Investors Association) hosts a conference each year that I've attended that is somewhat similar to the Mr. LL Convention in that there are speakers on various topics. Not as much going on in Missouri, that I'm aware of.

That said, we've heard this phrase many times before: "Real Estate is local." Even various cities have different laws, ordinances, and regulations.

We also know that over 40% of rentals are owned by mom and pop operators that have between 1-4 units. They are not going to bother joining an association most times. Think of most large lobbying groups: they are funded by large industries that have billions of $$ at stake. Each member has a large voice of tens of millions of $ or more. They have full time lobbyists who do nothing but schmooze the halls of power.

By comparison, the average land lord owns 1-4 units and has maybe a couple hundred thousand. He has a day job and other things to think about and attend to. His voice is lost among the hundreds of thousands of others.

Please hear me: I'm not saying don't get involved. It's actually a really good idea so you can keep tabs on what's coming up. But I believe I've outlined some of the issues as to why we don't have a large, powerful voice in our favor. The nature of our business is very fractured and disorganized. We're mostly part-timers. Sometimes, that's good! It makes it very hard to issue regulations that broadly sweep all of us. But it also means we probably do our best advocating at the local level.

Unfortunately, I think you are right, hollis.

I am a member of a large investors group and national REIA, but I am not aware of much influential/successful lobbying.

Maybe I'm just not aware of it.

I do know that, a couple years ago, some lobbyist influenced the State congress to not include a couple things in their LL/tenant law changes.

But, they just did it later in the year, quietly.

I don't know what the answer is. I think part of it may be the fear that whatever you say will be twisted and used against you.

My local landlord group, COREE, is a member of OREIA. COREE has kept our group informed of pending legislation and some people have went to the state house and have testified on certain legislation.

Well I’m wondering why in the states I own rentals,.. NY and Ma, things are so bad and in favor of tenants. We have a group of lawyers that purchased a big group of rentals and for instance they no longer will charge security deposits and have just given back those that they collected years ago.

When I asked about this to one of them,,.he said it wasn't worth it,..for a number of reasons,..

It's a real pain these days with the rules in these states. Wondering why the big landlord organizations didn't protect us from some of these stupid laws.after nearly 40 years, I think I'm going to cash them out,.

Not worth the hassle now.

Hollis, for years I would join up with LLs from SPOA & MALLs to meet & lobby our elected reps & senators at the state house in Boston. We would also regularly appear before the vs house & senate committees when they were holding hearing on proposed bills that had an effect on LLs. Other than the usual group of 10 - 20 LLs very few others would bother to attend even when they were given advanced notice. Since Covid closed the state house as well as most other government offices we haven't been able to attend in person.

Our apartment associations have spent millions on legal battles. Like when the City was going to raise water rates by 50% over a 2 year period. We fought and won. Only able to raise rates by 11% per year.

I'll echo Steve. SPOA & MassLandlords (MALL) has been the orgs to go with. I will say the guy who runs MALL, Doug Qual(something), has done a REALLY good job of taking a bunch of regional LL orgs and made MALL a really well organized, professional and viable org. Before they were all disconnected and really not well organized. And came off as a bunch of cranky old property owners who complained, but ultimately did nothing about the issue.

SPOA is the granddaddy, but the ppl running it are getting old and may not be as well polished as MALL. Don't get me wrong, they have fought the good fight. But it might be time to let the new young buck take the lead.