A Successful First Housing Provider Workshop!
This year, RHAWA brought our spring workshop around the state with three different locations renamed to our Housing Provider Workshop Statewide Tour! Our first workshop took place on May 8th in Federal Way, filled with excited members, engaging speakers, and valuable vendors. We want to extend a big thank you to everyone who attended. Trying out a new format for a legacy event always poses some challenges, but our membership made this event a one-of-a-kind experience for all those who showed up.
The event took place at the Federal Way PAEC (Performing Arts and Events Center), a large, light-filled event space with modular classrooms that allowed us to change the event space as needed. The morning began with networking and vendor engagement as attendees explored the main event space with views of Mount Rainier and the surrounding areas.
Our keynote began promptly with Dana Frank sharing her experience learning from her father as a leader in the rental housing industry. Dana’s story was an inspiration to attendees, showing how the real estate industry can be used to build generational wealth and how priorities sometimes have to be shifted in order to be successful in this industry. Dana also brought copies of her book: Get Up And Get On It: A Black Entrepreneur’s Lessons on Creating Legacy and Wealth, which several attendees of the event were able to pick up after her keynote. Considering that we were fresh off the heels of the 2025 Legislative Session, our second presentation was crucial for attendees of our event.
Sean Flynn and Christopher Cutting gave an overview of the history of rental laws in Washington and updated the crowd on all the bills that died and passed during the Session. Daniel Bannon chimed in at a few points to provide insight as to the membership engagement the RHAC engaged in throughout the session, which blew previous years out of the water. This presentation was dynamic, with members throwing out questions about the new laws while Christopher and Sean bounced off each other to provide their expertise and insight as to where we go from here.
Following lunch, we had two different tracks for the rest of the day. Track A focused on rental operations, specifically how to reduce liability in your rental business and how to get the most out of your rental investment. Despite some technical difficulties with the PowerPoints, presenters Chris Benis, Matthew Layson, Kathryn Shabalov, Julie Martinello, and Austin Bowlin were able to keep attendees engaged with their wealth of experience and insight into both of these topics. Track B was an open legal forum hosted once again by Christopher Cutting and Sean Flynn. Attendees of this track had the unique opportunity to pick the brains of two top attorneys in the landlord-tenant legal landscape. Having an open dialogue with two attorneys for nothing more than the price of admission to our event is something that RHAWA is proud to be able to provide to attendees, and our members found both of the aforementioned sessions incredibly helpful and entertaining!
The event wrapped up with a happy hour where members could once again engage with the vendors in attendance and network with other members. Staff wandered around the hall to follow up with members who had additional questions or simply wanted to provide their feedback on how valuable this event was for their business operations. Once again, a big thank you to all the attendees, presenters, and vendors who devoted their time to improving the operation of their rental business and engaging with other like-minded individuals at this event. We also want to give a special shoutout to one of our dedicated members, Allen Hirst, and his wife Sandy, who drove all the way from Spokane to attend the workshop in Federal Way. Their commitment to staying informed and connected with our community is exactly the kind of member engagement that makes RHAWA events so impactful. Thank you, Allen and Sandy, for going the extra mile—literally! We look forward to expanding our spring event offerings in 2026, and we hope to see you all there!
The Housing Provider Workshops are only the beginning of our events this year. We have several fundraisers scheduled over the next several months, as well as ENGAGE 25, which will be our largest event ever. ENGAGE 24 was one of our most highly reviewed events RHAWA has ever put on, so much so that we are expanding this event to two days for its second run. Planning for ENGAGE 25 is already
well under way and we look forward to seeing you there in October.