As I have pointed out before, Landlord Licensing is nothing more than a TAX!

While we were able to keep it from becoming a tax in Kansas City, MO they still did enact a requirement to register your rental property.
Don't Forget -- Rental Registration is required for rental properties in
Kansas City, Missouri.

The City of Kansas City, Mo., is issuing a reminder to owners of rental dwellings
located in the City in an effort to let them know they must renew or establish registration of their rental properties with the City's Neighborhood and Community Services Department on an annual basis. Annual registration of rental properties is part of the Rental Registration and Inspection Program that was established by the City Council, with passage of ordinance No. 071046 in October 2007.

Registration may be submitted anytime during the month of January without incurring
a registration fee. All rental properties must be registered within 30 days of becoming
a rental property. Failure to register a rental dwelling within 30 days of the property
becoming a rental will result in the issuance of an administrative citation fine of $50.
For each month (or portion thereof) that a rental dwelling is not registered, an
additional $50 fee will be assessed. For example, a property that was a rental in
January, and not registered until August, will be assessed a fine of $350.

Registration is required on a calendar-year basis and expires each Dec. 31.
Online registration is available at http://www.kcmo.org/neigh. Registration forms can
be downloaded and submitted by mail or in person. For more information about the
Rental Registration and Inspection Program, visit http://www.kcmo.org/neigh or
contact Shalisha Boles, Neighborhood and Community Services Department, 816-
513-3200.

 In October 2007, ordinance No. 071046 was passed requiring that all occupied rental housing units within the City limits of Kansas City, Mo., be registered with the City starting Jan. 1, 2008, and renewed each year.  A $50 per month fine for failure to register began Feb. 1, 2008. The current ordinance is online at municode.com.

Registration renewalRegistration renewal may be done anytime during December or January and there is no registration fee. Failure to renew registration of an occupied rental dwelling before February 1 of each year will result in a fine. For each month (or portion thereof) that a registration is not renewed, a $50 fine will be assessed.

What is the root cause of Kansas City crime, and what can be done to stop the violent trend?  Since 1990 I have lived and worked in Kansas City, in that time I have been the victim of numerous crimes. The odd thing is the perpetrators of these crimes never went to jail! Arson, burglary, theft, forgery, etc.

That is the underlying cause of Kansas Cities' violent crime spree. Having worked in the suburbs and also in the inner city, I see that most residents in the suburban neighborhoods have a cavalier attitude toward crime, that stuff happens to other people... I live in a "nice Neighborhood". The scary truth is you are anything but safe. Criminals have cars, what's more, criminals steal cars, and they can come visit your neighborhood anytime they wish. 

I bet you think that if a criminal gets caught in a stolen car he will go to jail! Wrong! A criminal driving a stolen car... your stolen car, will be charged with auto tampering. That is the same charge I would get if I keyed your new paint job. You see the criminals know all they have to do is say I didn't steal it, some guy let me drive it.

The same applies to most other crime in Kansas City. I have had drug dealers arrested inside a vacant apartment that they had broken into to sell crack cocaine out of. During the arrest they were found to have huge quantities of drugs and drug paraphernalia. They were not charged with drug dealing, not breaking and entering, not possession of a controlled substance, not even disorderly conduct. No! They were charged with trespassing! That's right, trespassing. 

Every crack head and crack dealer I have had arrested in the past decade or more has been charged with trespassing. The most common sentence for this offense was a 30 day SIS. SIS is suspended imposition of sentence. They never went to jail! But wait there is more! If they are a resident in one of my properties, they can not even be charged with that because they live there.

Why? You ask, because if they had to jail all the crack dealers, pimps, prostitutes, crack-heads, car thieves, burglars and shoplifters there would be no room for people like you for not mowing your yard or driving while drunk! You see they have to pay to keep those people locked up. They simply do not have the jail space. But you! You see, you will pay if you get fined for not mowing your grass. You will pay if you want to get your license back. You will pay if you drive 37 in a 25.

It's all about revenue; Jackson County and Kansas City don't want to pay for it. If the crack dealer doesn't go to jail for his crimes, and the thief doesn't go to jail for his crimes then he just graduates to a higher level of criminal activity until finally he kills someone and the State has to house him and feed him.

We need Jails and Cops not arenas and arts. It is no longer just revenue it's lives at stake here. Tell your elected officials we want more jail space!

Kansas City Crime Blog This is a blog I created because the filtered version of the news at Crime Scene KC is just not doing it anymore.

Kansas City continues to make the most dangerous cities in the nation as reported by MorganQuinto

KC made 16th most dangerous but the numbers are skewed! A wide variety of crimes go unreported. Most calls for service by the P.D. never even hit paper. The Police are far to busy to fill out a report for every call they make.

Kansas City has a huge epidemic of property crimes but most never get reported. Why? If I call in and report that your copper plumbing or air conditioner was stolen nothing will happen, nothing good anyway. 

Your insurance will likely not pay, because the house was vacant.

Your premiums will increase or your insurance will be cancelled.

Your deductbale is higher than the damage.

The Police will not investigate, the prosecutors will not prosecute.

Your property values will decline because of the increase in reported crime.

Crime is absolutely out of control in KC and no-one wants to address it. Instead our new mayor wants to punish landlords. Funkhouser has proposed landlord licensing. While the thugs are steailing our HVAC systems and our plumbing Mark Funkhouser thinks we should impose yet another tax on landlords.

City Ratings

KCPD has crime maps and crime statistics on it's web site. If you are thinking of buying a property in KC... Please view the crime maps!

Here's a newer map showing crime in KC http://crime.kansascity.com/

Update, 2007 Sanders, Graves seek regional jail By KEVIN MURPHY The Kansas City StarJackson County should explore building a regional jail for inmates of the county and its municipalities, County Executive Mike Sanders said Monday.

Sanders and U.S. Rep. Sam Graves toured the Jackson County Detention Center in downtown Kansas City, which Sanders said is often stretched to capacity.

Sanders proposed a jail with up to 2,500 beds. He said it also could be used to house some prisoners of Kansas City and other cities in the county that now have crowded jails.

“Clearly, lack of needed inmate space is one of the major public safety issues this community faces every day,” Sanders said.

Sanders said the county could seek federal grants for the project and could also house federal prisoners on a reimbursable basis. The county would continue to operate the downtown jail, Sanders said.

Graves, a Republican representing northwest Missouri and part of Jackson County, said he would help in the effort to find some money to move forward on a regional jail.

“It’s something we have all been throwing around for many years now,” Graves said.

Sanders said there are several potential locations, though he would not be more specific. He did not estimate the cost of a new jail but said he would not want to raise taxes to build it. Sanders said revenue bonds, paid off with income the county gets from cities and the federal government, could help pay for the project.

Finally, there is at least talk of doing something! No doubt Kay Barnes will try to take credit for it. This would be the first positive thing Sanders has been involved in yet. I have many police officer friends and frankly, I do not know how they stand to do their job. Arresting the same people every night to see them released the same day has to be frustrating.

_ What do you consider a good neighborhood to be? The answer to that question may differ depending on your background, your street smarts and your economic status.

 According to MorganQuinto :

Kansas City, MO recently had the dubious distinction of being rated the 16th most violent city in the nation. A few miles east, Lee's Summit had the honor of making the list for being one of the safest.

I’ve lived in some rough and ready environments, fortunately I have learned some street smarts and I know what to avoid and how to act.

But the law says we cannot comment on the nature of a neighborhood or the content of that areas social or environmental makeup. What you consider to be a “safe neighborhood” may not be what someone else agrees with.

How do we answer this often posed question? When I was just learning the ropes of property management I often lived on-sight. I would just say well, I live here and I like it.

We instruct our office staff to tell prospective renters or buyers to drive through the specific areas you are considering living in and make that judgment call yourself. I have even suggested that they visit at different times of day to see what activities might occur there. Talk to the neighbors and see what they say.

In this age of information we live in now we have great tools at our disposal. Web sites like www.KCPD.org offer crime statistics and even maps of crime data. Sites like www.bestplaces.net offer comparative analysis of different communities and link to data from the Census Bureau , which offers a vast range of data on income, economic and social statistics.

Most police departments will provide a record of calls for service for a specific area if you ask. They usually charge a nominal fee for the printing but it can be invaluable in your research.

As real estate agents we are not allowed to express an opinion or direct anyone to a specific area or neighborhood. So if you want to know about the specific neighborhood you are looking at, you will have to do some research on your own. We hope these links help. We are sure there are many others you will find also.  

Make sure that the area you will call home fits YOUR criteria.

_ What is Section 8? And the Housing Authority of Kansas City

What is HAKC? What is Section-8 and do I want to rent my investment property to a section 8 tenant?

Fist we must answer the basic questions of what is section eight. The Section 8 Rental Voucher Program is authorized by the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, Section 8(b) (1) for existing housing and Section 8(o) for vouchers. Regulations are found in 24 CFR Part 982. It is administered by HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing. Its stated purpose is to increase affordable housing choices for very low-income households by allowing families to choose privately owned rental housing.

http://www.hud.gov/progdesc/voucher.cfm

Basically tax payer funded assistance for rental payments for people of moderate means.

Like all other government programs it continues to grow out of control and has been horribly mismanaged. Those that know how to work the system benefit and those that may really need the assistance are all too often left out. (My personal opinion.)

Locally Section-8 is administered by HAKC or the Housing Authority of Kansas City. There are several other housing authorities managed by local municipalities like Independence, MO, Lee’s Summit, MO and Johnson County, KS.

In all, most of them run relatively effectively except for the glittering jewel of incompetence that is the HAKC. At one point the chaos was so severe that the HAKC was put into receivership. Since that time it has gone through a list of directors, administrators, employees and inspectors that would make your head spin. Rules change weakly, case managers come and go. The person you dealt with yesterday may not be there tomorrow. At one point HAKC issued 750 vouchers and then revoked them leaving people homeless and some who had already moved with no way to pay rent. http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/newsarchive/10837707/detail.html?

One very frustrating problem is the frequent loss of documents that are delivered to HAKC. Documents delivered many times do not get to the intended recipient and therefore are never accounted for. We instituted a policy of requesting a signature for receipt of documents and recently we have been told by Clifford Scott, that they will not sign for any documents.

Turn-Key Properties LLC has implemented a new procedure requiring owners to acknowledge certain terms should they want us to accept vouchers from HAKC. They are as follows.

The process may take up to three months for HAKC to process the Booklet, complete the property inspection, execute the Contract, approve the tenant to move in and begin actual rent payments.

The exact amount of the rent you will receive may NOT be determined until the Contract is executed, which is toward the END of the process….AFTER the Booklet has been turned in, AFTER the expense of the property inspection has been spent and AFTER the property inspection has passed.  At that time, if you are not happy with the amount of rent granted and decline that amount, the entire process of finding a tenant will have to start all over again.

At that point, if Turn-Key has brought forth a qualified, approved tenant and you decline the amount of rent offered by HAKC, the 50% Management fee will still be charged to you, because we brought a qualified tenant to the table and it was your decision to accept the terms of a Section 8 Tenant with the Housing Authority of Kansas City.

The time-frame between the property passing inspection and the Contract being executed can be a month or longer.  This means it could be another month or longer before the Tenant will be allowed to move in and when rent will begin being paid, even after the unit passes the inspection.

While the Tenant is living in the unit, the Tenant’s Voucher can be revoked by HAKC, at any time, for reasons that will not be disclosed by HAKC, rent payments will stop and it will then be your responsibility to get the Tenant out of the unit.  This process is the normal Eviction process in the Jackson County Court system and can take up to three months to complete. 

If the Tenant does not pay their portion of the rent, HAKC will not offer any assistance with convincing the tenant to pay the rent.  If you wish to remove the tenant for non payment of rent, you will need to go through the normal Eviction process in the Jackson County Court system and can take up to three months to complete.  Even after a Judgment is obtained against the Tenant for non-payment of rent, HAKC may still move them into another Section 8 assisted unit. 

If the Tenant completely destroys your unit, HAKC will still allow them to move into another Section 8 assisted unit.  HAKC has no interest in Tenant damages at all! 

That stated the next question is, do you want us to place a section 8 tenant in your home.

Benefits of a section 8 renter:

Your rent is paid by another entity and the checks don’t bounce.

You may get slightly higher rent.

Detriments of a section 8 renter:

Annual inspections: The home will require specific repairs to meet the requirements annually.

Increased cost: The inspections not only require maintenance but also require the presence of a service technician to grant access to the property. HAKC will give a four hour window that the inspector may be at the home. We must have a maintenance technician there during that period of time.

Homes built prior to 1978 may require considerably more maintenance and a great deal of more expense. Because of the potential presence of lead in the paint used prior to that date, any building on the Section 8 program can have NO peeling, chipped, cracked or worn paint surfaces. That means NONE! We will have to repaint, touch-up and repair any worn paint in that home.

What does that mean? Huge costs, painted floors, steps, handrails, or any other well used surface will wear within that time. Those surfaces will have to be repainted. Wooden windows; just the act of opening and closing a window can cause wear on the painted surfaces. Those surfaces must be free of any damaged paint.

Paint dust, chips or peelings are a major hazard, if those elements are found by the inspector, if any peeling paint is seen you may be required to pay for the removal and containment of the substance by a certified contractor. (Turn-Key is certified) You may also have to pay for a test by a certified professional for the presence of lead. This can cost hundreds, even thousands depending on the property.