2025 Washington State Legislature Session Preview
RE Magazine, Autumn 2024
2025 Washington State Legislature Session Preview
By Bill Clarke, Washington REALTORS® Director of Public Policy
Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 elections, the 2025 Washington State Legislative Session will present both opportunities and challenges for real estate and the business community. The biggest opportunities lie in the Legislature’s continuing interest in addressing our state’s housing supply and affordability crisis.
During the 2023-24 Legislature, numerous housing supply bills passed that will assist in adding more housing supply in future years. However, legislators in both parties know that work on housing supply is not finished and more must be done. Priority housing supply issues that will see action in the 2025 Legislature include:
- Reforming the subdivision act to streamline the process and allow lot splitting;
- Improving the implementation of recent Middle Housing and Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) legislation;
- Rural housing issues including ADUs;
- Addressing condominium supply challenges due the state’s complex homeowner association statute and liability laws;
- Increasing Transit Oriented Development (TOD);
- Incentives for conversion of commercial buildings to residential use;
- Creating state-level review or approval requirements for local Growth Management ladn use and housing plans to ensure increased housing supply;
- Creating a new state office or agency to centralize state housing supply programs.
In the months leading up to the Legislature, REALTORS® will be working with our allies and legislators to develop our 2025 Legislative Agenda, which will be approved by the Legislative Steering Committee. These housing supply bills will be among the hundreds of bills that REALTORS® legislative team and Legislative Steering Committee track during the session.
While increasing housing supply will be a priority, many legislators and housing stakeholders will also be seeking consumer protection legislation that could negatively impact housing supply efforts. Most significant in this regard will be statewide rent control legislation, which during the 2024 Legislature passed the House of Representative and failed to advance through the Senate Ways & Means Committee only because of a tied vote. It is likely that the House will again have a majority of votes in favor of passing rent control, and it is notable that the two key votes who deadlocked the Senate vote will not return to the Legislature in 2025.
Rent control advocates also gained momentum through the Biden Administration’s federal rent control proposal focused on large corporate property owners. While most analysis of rent control from other states or cities concludes that the policy would result in diminished investment in housing supply over the long term, rent control supporters will continue to press the issue as a consumer protection issue, regardless of the impact on long term supply.
The 2025 Legislative Session is the long 105-day Session that requires adoption of a new 2-year Operating Budget. It is certain this the 25-27 budget will be far more difficult than in recent years when state budgets benefitted from federal COVID stimulus funds. Overall, the growth in state tax revenue has slowed and new state employee union contracts (that the Legislature must either accept or reject but cannot modify) will drive more spending. In addition, COVID-era stimulus payments also propped up budgets for school districts and local governments, and statewide major transportation projects thought to be fully funded are costing up to twice their original estimate.
Finally, add to these structural budget challenges two initiatives on the state ballot that if passed, would eliminate billions in state funding: I-2117 would repeal the Climate Commitment Act, the state’s carbon cap & invest program, and I-2109 that would repeal the state’s Capital Gains Income Tax, which raises hundreds of millions on high-income financial investments (though real estate capital gains are excluded from the tax through an exemption achieved by REALTORS® when the law passed).
This combination of fiscal challenges means the 2025 Legislature will undoubtedly consider increasing tax revenues, likely turning to tax proposals considered in recent years. These include an increase on high value real estate transactions; increasing the annual 1% plus value of new construction limit on property tax; and the state’s business and occupation (B&O) tax.
How can you help with our 2025 State Legislative efforts? Check out our list of endorsed candidates on page 16 and give them your vote before November 5. And keep investing in RPAC! REALTORS® Political Action Committee is the largest and most bi-partisan PAC in the business community and your RPAC investments make a huge difference in supporting great REALTOR® Party candidates that will help on housing supply and other issues important to your clients and your business.
2024–2025 Elections & Legislative Session Calendar
- November 5, 2024
- Election Day
- Late November
- Legislators meet to select 2025 leaders and committee members and chairs
- December 1, 2024
- Prefiling of Bills for 2025 Legislative Session begins
- January 13, 2025
- First Day of 2025 Legislative Session
- January 30, 2025
- REALTORS® 2025 Legislative Hill Day
- April 27, 2025
- Sine Die (Last Scheduled Day of 2025 Regular Session)