In California, it’s perfectly legal for landlords to ask renters to cough up more than $10,000 before handing over the keys to a new apartment.
That’s because under state law, property owners can charge up to two months’ rent as a security deposit, on top of the initial lease payment. For a furnished unit, deposits can be as much as three months’ rent.
But a new bill making its way through Sacramento aims to put an end to those high charges, capping security deposits at one month’s rent for most apartments, condos and single-family homes.
The measure would provide relief to many of California’s roughly 17 million renters already struggling to afford the state’s exorbitant rental prices, said Matt Haney, the Democratic state assemblymember from San Francisco behind the bill.
“The result of these high security deposits is families are either taking on debt to afford them or staying in housing situations that are crowded, insufficient or even unsafe,” said Haney, a member of the Legislature’s recently launched renters caucus.
The proposed legislation, known as Assembly Bill 12, passed the state Assembly with overwhelming support last month and is currently being considered by the Senate. Most Republican assembly members, who make up a small minority in the chamber, voted against it. Some argued the new regulations would only exacerbate the state’s dire housing shortage by convincing landlords to get out of the rental market.
But backers of the measure say it’s needed as rent prices are on the rise after cratering in many cities during the height of the pandemic when many people fled urban centers. Today, the median cost of a two-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area ranges from more than $2,500 in San Jose and San Francisco to about $1,750 in Oakland, according to rental listing site Apartment List.
Across the nine-county region, almost half of all renters pay more than 30% of their income on housing costs, classifying them as “rent…
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