The Scottsdale Housing Agency on Jan. 9 outlined new landlord outreach and technology tools aimed at easing rentals for landlords and Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) participants as the Phoenix metro area implements HUD’s small area fair market rents (SAFMR).

Agency landlord liaison Ethan Whitman told the Housing Agency Governing Board the office held its first “landlord connection” event Sept. 18 at the Paiute Neighborhood Center and plans to hold the forum twice a year, with the next scheduled for April 2. "We had our 1st landlord connection event on September 18th at our offices at Paiute Neighborhood Center," Whitman said, adding that about 20 housing partners attended and others expressed interest.

The agency also described upgrades to its courtesy property listings page on the city website. Whitman said listings moved from monthly updates under the old site to daily updates after a July website relaunch, and that landlords can currently provide unit details to staff by phone or email for posting within one business day.

To reduce staff processing time, the agency is testing a landlord portal that will let landlords submit and manage listings directly. Whitman said the form will include fields for housing type (single-family, multi-family, apartment), floor level, ZIP code, utilities and links to external listings. "The goal is to decrease the amount of time it takes for get a unit to get listed," he said.

The agency presented several tenant-facing tools to help navigatethe SAFMR change, which requires payment standards to be set by ZIP code rather than municipality. Staff said payment-standard charts for landlords and tenants, an interactive ZIP-code map, and an affordability calculator are in testing and will appear on the housing pages soon. The affordability calculator will accept voucher size, ZIP code, tenant income and contract rent and return affordability determination and a utility breakdown.

Staff said outreach materials — postcards to current tenants, mailings and social-media posts for landlords and the general public — have been distributed. The board was told city council and council-elect members also were notified about the SAFMR implementation for 2025.

To increase ongoing landlord engagement, the Housing Agency is forming a landlord advisory board of five to seven housing industry professionals who will meet roughly twice a year. Applications were sent in December and initial reviews of returns are underway; staff said the board should be ready to meet by the end of spring 2025.

Board members asked about whether advisory-board meetings would be public and whether the listings page will track web hits; Whitman said meetings will be internal to board members and agency staff and that staff will work with IT to add website analytics. Commissioners also asked whether pictures or MLS feeds would populate listings; Whitman said photos are not currently supported on the city listing but external links to listing pages can be provided and no MLS integration had been proposed.

Why this matters: SAFMR changes how subsidy levels are calculated for HCV-assisted units, which can alter landlords’ reimbursement and tenants’ search area. Scottsdale’s tools are intended to reduce landlord friction and shorten vacancy periods for voucher holders.

What’s next: staff said the landlord portal, interactive ZIP-code map and affordability calculator are in testing and will be published on the housing website when ready, and the agency will run the landlord connection event on April 2.