Creating a rent database is complex, but not impossible, and could solve some renter challenges.

Finding a place to rent in Monterey County can be a full-time job. The search often involves scouring web listings and word-of-mouth options, and sometimes waiting in line at a busy one-hour open house in the middle of a workday. Rental-hunters might spend hours searching for available units and pay $30 to $50 in application fees for dozens of units, only to be denied. These fees can add up, totaling hundreds of dollars.

Is there a way to streamline the process? At least for affordable units, there are ideas in the works. At the state level, Assembly Bill 1961 seeks to create an online application system for affordable housing. The bill, currently in committee, would require the California Department of Housing and Community Development to create an online database of affordable housing listings, information and applications. Tenants could submit applications and track the status of those applications online.

This idea isn’t new; San Francisco and Alameda counties both have portals for affordable housing listings where prospective tenants can search for available units and income requirements all in one place.

Scaling this concept from affordable units to all market-rate units would not be easy, says Monterey County Housing Program Manager Darby Marshall. Imagine a one-stop website where people – both renters and landlords – can find apartment listings with information like pet restrictions, submit applications and request credit checks.

Creating a system like this is not impossible, but it would be challenging, Marshall says, because of the lack of a central database providing information about what is currently available and the need of a strong security system to keep information safe. It would require funding to set up a portal.

Marshall says his office has tried to create a countywide database for affordable housing. Not only would that require funding, but also working with all affordable housing agencies in the county, gathering information about the available units – effectively operating like a property management company.

An incremental step in this direction could be creating a rent registry. A rent registry can help a jurisdiction know the number of rental units it has in stock and track rent increases. Earlier this year, both Monterey and Salinas city councils considered developing rent registries; only Salinas is moving forward with the creation of such a system, after a 6-1 vote on Jan. 18. City staff are finalizing the ordinance, which is expected to come back to the council in the fall for final approval. (A study session in Monterey revealed little support, so the idea was tabled.)

The rent registry in Salinas will list the landlord’s information including name, contact information and the number of units they have available.

Under a preliminary budget, a property owner renting a single-family unit would pay $20 per year, or about $1.66 per month. The most a landlord would pay, for a property with 100 units or more, is $350 per year.

The fees will cover the costs of running the rent registry and also the cost of a mediation program for tenants and landlords.

In council discussion, people voiced concern about landlords increasing rents as a way of passing along the fee. But Councilmember Carla Viviana González said the benefits of the program would outweigh that, especially for the city’s non-English-speaking or undocumented residents: “We [would be] doing them a disservice by not giving them an entity or a resource to have safe ways to call upon their landlords.”

In Monterey, where about two-thirds of residents are renters, the proposed fee discussed in February was $66 per unit, for a program that would cost an estimated $400,000 to create. Councilmember Tyller Williamson, who proposed the idea, says a rent registry would increase transparency. It would help renters know beforehand about all associated fees and policies.

“Saying you have to advertise the actual amount that you’re going to charge, that’s changed with the airline industry,” Williamson says. “Why can’t we do something similar with rentals?”

Even if such a one-stop portal were built, Marshall notes that it won’t solve the underlying housing crisis. “There may be opportunities to do something like that,” he says. “But it’s always going to be the challenge of not enough units for the demand.”