OLYMPIA — Senate Housing Committee Chair Jessica Bateman (D-Olympia) hailed the 2025 legislative session as one that made significant progress for housing affordability.

“We came into this session with a three-pronged housing strategy — expand our housing supply, support homeownership opportunities, and provide stability for renters. On all three, we delivered significant progress,” Bateman said. “This is one of the most productive sessions on housing affordability our state has seen. It’s the result of strong coalition-building in and outside the Legislature, bipartisan collaboration with our Republican colleagues and sustained, long-term engagement with the community and our constituents who are so deeply affected by these issues. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far this year and know that we have more work ahead.”

Rent stabilization

After years of work on the issue, the Legislature finally passed House Bill 1217, a major housing affordability bill to institute rent stabilization in Washington.

Forty percent of Washingtonians are renters, and nearly half of them are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs. Fifteen percent of Washington renters reported receiving a rent increase of more than $250 per month in the last year.

Rent stabilization protects tenants against excessive rent hikes while still allowing increases to cover repairs and other costs. It works for both tenants and landlords — renters gain year-to-year predictability, and landlords retain the flexibility to reasonably raise rent to cover their costs.

The bill caps rent increases at 7% plus inflation (CPI) or 10%, whichever is less, and up to 5% for manufactured homes. Landlords can reset rents to market-rate upon a tenancy’s end. It also requires at least a 90-day notice before rent increases caps late and move-in fees for manufactured homeowners.

Expanding our housing supply

The Legislature passed a long list of bills to expand the state’s housing supply, cut tape and lower construction costs, and increase density and middle housing options, including:

SB 5148: Enforces housing mandates to ensure affordable housing legislation is actually implemented and establishes a builder’s remedy for noncompliant cities, so more housing is built.

HB 1491: Supports transit-oriented development by requiring denser housing near major transit stops with affordability requirements and offsets, including a 20-year property tax exemption.

SB 5184: Creates flexibility for minimum parking requirements and eliminates them for affordable, senior, and small-scale housing. This reduces costs and creates more affordable housing.

HB 1403: Updates condo warranty law to reduce risk and make construction of affordable ownership housing more feasible.

SB 5471: Allows up to four units of middle housing per lot in urban and rural areas.

HB 1096: Requires cities to allow administrative lot splits and concurrent permit review to support small-scale infill.

Record-setting Housing Trust Fund investment and covenant homeownership

The final capital budget includes a record-setting $605 million for the construction of affordable housing projects through the Housing Trust Fund. This landmark investment directly builds affordable homes for Washingtonians of all income levels, from shelters and recovery housing to senior living and homeownership opportunities.

The Legislature also passed HB 1696, to strengthen our landmark Covenant Homeownership Program by expanding down payment and closing cost assistance for first-time homebuyers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

“We have to build more than 1 million new homes over the next 20 years to meet our housing needs, and more than half of them need to be affordable for residents at the lowest income levels,” Bateman said. “The bills we passed this year won’t solve this challenge alone, but this is a major step forward. Going forward, we can’t afford to have this or that year be a ‘year of housing’ — every year must be the year of housing.”