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Hello, and greetings from Colorado Springs. My name is Lance Kohler. I'm the president of the Cornerstone Real Estate team. Today, I'd like to talk to you about a new organization: the Colorado Landlord Legislative Coalition. What that is? Colorado Landlord Legislative Coalition, it's quite a mouthful. So I'll probably use CLLC while I'm talking about it in this video. It was just established last year. The purpose is to represent the single family rental market and the small multi-family rental market. It's open to independent landlords, do-it-yourself landlords, independent rental owners -- whatever term you follow -- and professional property managers. The purpose of this organization is to educate legislators about the rental industry and give us a united voice for investors and owners and property managers. It gives us one voice at the state Capitol.
So a little background on that: as you may know, if you're watching this video, you may know that over the last two years (especially) there have been multiple bills presented, proposed, and discussed at the state Capitol. And several of those bills have been passed in the last two years. Some of those bills may be considered “anti-landlord”, as in not favorable to the rental industry or to the rental business or property management business. We expect that there will be more coming this year, and that definitely has an impact on our industry.
What we found over the last two years is that we don’t have a unified voice. We don't really have a seat at the table. “We” being small property management companies or independent rental owners that may have multiple rental properties or just one and you're managing those yourself. We don't have a unified voice. In comparison, there's an Apartment Association, which is a national organization and they have a voice at the Capitol. Their population - their audience - tends more towards large multi-family properties.
So we kind of felt that the single family owners, the small rental or the small property management company owners, didn't have a unified voice. So we would have individual property managers that would go up to testify on bills or provide perspective or attempt to provide education, or try to inform our legislators of the impacts of what they might be considering would have on the availability of rental housing or the availability of affordable housing. But those were individuals, and if they got a chance to testify or present their case (which is fantastic!) but they didn't always, and we didn't have anyone lobbying on our behalf. We didn't have that unified voice. So there were some folks here in Colorado Springs that looked at it with the intent of finding a way where all across the state, we could have a voice.
This is not limited to Colorado Springs. That's the market we're in, but we have members from Northern Colorado, members from the Western slope, and members from Southern Colorado as well in the coalition.
This is a nonprofit organization and, like I've said, it's open to all. Whether you're an independent rental owner, a do-it-yourself landlord, a professional property manager – anyone can be a member of the coalition. There are membership dues that are considered a donation to support the lobbying and admin costs, and you can join for as little as $5 a month. The more members that we get for this organization, the greater impact we can have, the more representation we can have. So rather than our legislators looking at one or two property managers at the state Capitol testifying on a bill and thinking, “Well, it's only one or two people that feel this way”, we could be an organization of 400 or 500 or 600 or more members and that's who's being represented at the state Capitol.
So this is an opportunity for us to have professional representation regarding property management and investment properties, the investment rental market here in Colorado. I'll tell you, we identified this last year, it was apparent that we were outgunned, so to speak. We didn't have the same representation there. Some of these bills that are being proposed are certainly from tenant-friendly groups or pro-tenant groups and some of what they've discussed for example, fees. One of the bills I just discussed, we have another video on two new laws that came into effect, commonly known as the immigration tenant protection act. Those are all good things, but there are also a lot of restrictions that were considered; rent control is considered. We expect to see that come up again. And that may have a very negative impact on not only the rental industry, but also on the availability of rental properties. I feel it's important for us to have a voice at the state Capitol. I highly encourage you to check out the organization, if you can. Like I said, it's $5 per month to join. Please become a member.
Again, Colorado Landlord Legislative Coalition (CLLC) and you can find them at this website, Coloradolandlordlegislativecoalition.org.
I hope this was good information for you. If you have any other questions, please go to their website, or reach out to me; we'd be happy to talk about it. Thank you for your time today. Make it a great day.