Agreed, mhendo. I have friends and family who are landlords and all of them would concur heartily that good tenants are worth their weight in gold and they would gladly take a lower rent from one.
Well said, I was coming to post a much more poorly-worded version of this exact sentiment. The landlord is entitled to charge whatever people will pay in rent and doesn’t owe the OP jack shit in terms of an explanation. Giving the OP advance warning was her simply being thoughtful. She could have simply gotten your signature on the lease and waited until the year was almost up to spring the rent increase on you – it’s much easier to walk away now if you find said increase abhorrent than once all your shit is moved in.
Lastly, some areas (e.g. Berkeley) have tried restricting the amount landlords can raise rent. It sounds great in theory, but in practice what it means is that landlords have a strong financial disincentive to make any improvements that aren’t absolutely necessary. So every apartment ends up being a shithole that makes your average college slum look like Park Avenue.
I doubt if she gave a flying rat’s ass about your empathy. She was stating a fact about her business model and the fact that you got your panties well up your ass about it was probably a big clue that she didn’t want your kind renting from her.
Maybe you could contact your mom or somebody else who wasn’t running a business to make money and they could give you a rate that wouldn’t reflect any market fluctuations or business practices.
Doesn’t San Jose have rent control in some areas, too? It’s not just TPRoB. 
I, too, agree with mhendo. But to add.. I’ve been a small-time landlord, and desirable tenets are great. I don’t think I raised the rent at all since I had great tenants, but I only owned the building for about 3 years. It was just 3 units, too.
Not in the area I lived when I rented (my rent went up several times), but San Jose is a big place.
In addition, rent control laws are a strong disincentive to building new housing to begin with. So places which have rent control laws in place tend to have housing shortages. In part this is because places which have housing shortages tend to have high rents, which is what creates pressure to enact rent control laws, but the laws themselves tend to exacerbate the problem over the long term.
As has been said, 4%/year is not an unreasonable amount. Rent increases are based on the increased costs to the landlord, and sadly are not tied to your increases in salary.
Here is an incomplete list of the costs that are rising every year for your landlord:
Insurance (mine is up 13%/year for the last few years)
Repairs - materials and labor
Local taxes (they usually do not stay the same year after year)
Costs to advertise vacant units
Heating/electricity/water/sewage/garbage (if any of these are included in your rent)
Landscaping/gardening (if applicable)
Travel to inspect property
Legal and professional services
So when their costs are rising every year, why do you expect not to have your rent increase every year? I’m confused.
If you want a guarantee that your housing costs won’t go up, you need to buy a place and get a fixed-rate mortgage. That’s one of the real advantages that home ownership has over renting.
Even if you did buy a place and get a fixed-rate mortgage, there would be no guarantee that your maintenance costs wouldn’t go up, though. Nor would there be any guarantee that your property taxes wouldn’t go up.
Some places have rent control or caps on property taxes, but none that I know of make any increase illegal, or tie increases to an increase in the tenant or homeowner’s salary. It just does not work that way.
If landlords couldn’t make money renting out houses or apartments, there would be no rental housing, or very little rental housing. Is that how you think things should be?
I’m working on a deadline today (running my own business to make money) so don’t have time at the moment to type a thoughtful response to everything here so far, but I will say that if I raised my rates every year to match my increase in costs I’d be very shortly out of business because clients would go elsewhere.
I understand that the landlord will charge going rates, and if she can charge more, then good for her.
And, I didn’t get my panties up my ass about it to her; she’ll get nothing but politeness from me, excellent references from my landlord, and nary a complaint from me. I know how the system works, and I don’t blame her for it.
I’m pissed off because my town has turned even more and more into a landlord’s market, thanks to an increase in the student body of the major university by close to 3,000 students over the last decade (as well as enrollment increases in other schools in town). An apartment I used to rent back in 2001-2002 was on the market this year for double what I had paid for it. Incomes locally have not increased proportionally, and I know many people who have become priced out of town.
So, if you own an average, well-worn property that grosses you over $100,000 a year, and you try to soft-sell me an automatic annual rent increase, I’m going to think you’re full of shit.
Oh, and BubbaDog, what exactly is “my kind”? Certainly better than the “kind” who gets kicks insulting people on message boards.
This is the most puzzling part of the OP.
The other part is where he/she expects things to not change in the town he/she lives in. Life’s a bitch. Get used to it.
You did her a favor. She’ll rent to the next person looking for a place and have one less pain in the ass tenant. She should be thanking you for your outrage. :rolleyes:
I’ve seen about 60% (total) rent increase over the last 6 years, so I’m not feeling very sympathetic to the OP.
Well, that’s unfortunate. I raise my rates as my costs rise, and many (I would assume most) businesses do, too. Just because you don’t or can’t doesn’t make it unusual or unfair.
And as others noted, the market price is set by the market, not the landlords. Charge too high, and you go out of business. It’s not like there’s some law that says things are priced at cost + a fixed mark-up. It may look that way after the fact, but only because those still in business have all more or less found the sweet spot.
But then, look at Apple.
Again, what does your income have to do with this? It is entirely irrelevant.
You mean like your OP?
That was only there in response to another poster’s implication that I don’t know what it means to run a business.
Yes. Just like my OP. In which I relate how I called the landlady names. Is it not clear that there is a difference between ranting about a person/situation in a mostly anonymous way on a message board, and directly insulting a participant in conversation on a message board?
True but it was also one of the points in your OP.
Not much of a difference in my opinion but its reasonable to disagree.
Then keep your rates the same and make less money every year or lose money. Looks like you might benefit if you could snag a business 101 course or two from that local college.
OK, so then why are you bitching about it?
…and you would prefer they just keep the prices down and rent to nice people like you? What would you do in their place?
Even though you just stated in your previous paragraphs that you don’t blame the landlord for doing what she’s doing and she (and others) are overwhelmed with buyers? Do you have any gold? It’s selling at an incredibly high price right now but maybe you’d be more comfortable selling yours at prices from a few years ago.
Your kind? Well, apparently you’re the kind that thinks markets should respond to your individual situation instead of external forces. You remind me of a man I worked with who told our boss that he should get a raise because his wife just had a baby. He was shocked when the boss explained to him that his income was based on his work output and not his virility.
And that wasn’t an insult. At this point I really do believe that you might get some good guidance from an older adult in your life.
I think what the OP is complaining about without realizing it is that wages are in decline…the standard of living is falling. The 4% is essentially inflation…which means the landlord is essentially charging the SAME year to year to year…not more each year.
The fact that wages are not going up with inflation (i.e. people are getting paid less year after year) is what the OP is really angry about.
I was waiting for another one of us!
I was with Boardwalk when I lived in Toontown - $50 increase every time possible (IIRC, it was every 6 months under my lease stuff).
I moved to the Vag 2.5 years ago - I’ve had one rent increase of $20. I am terrified of the axe falling. I’m pretty stuck here until I decide to buy anything, because I have such a good deal.