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Registry proposal draws sharp opposition from registrars, realtors and landlords; sponsor says data needed to study rent trends
Summary
Representative Ellen Reed proposed HB 558 for a county-run landlord registry to collect annual rent and unit data and an affidavit barring use of algorithmic pricing; registrars, Realtors and landlords warned of operational costs, privacy and legal risks while the sponsor framed it as essential market data to detect price-fixing.
Representative Ellen Reed introduced HB 558, a bill that would require landlords to record annual rental information county-by-county and sign an affidavit that they do not use pricing algorithms to set rents. Reed said the purpose is to create reliable, landlord‑level data so policymakers can study whether rents are being artificially coordinated or fixed: “What this bill would do would be to ask the register of deeds for each county to create a, method, which I imagine most of them would create an online portal…by which they intake information from every landlord who's renting a property in the county,” Reed told the committee.
Registers of deeds objected to housing the registry in their offices. Catherine Barabee, president of…
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