Oh, and we'll be increasing rent 4% a year . . .

[pulykamell]

@Zebra

NOoooooo Landlords make the same profit every year. No matter what. Any and all new expenses are pass on to the tenants. In fact, we should feel sorry for them as I’m sure they are traumatized by raising the rents.

Of course the face that people are lucky to get a 2 or 3 percent raise a year is their tough luck. Maybe I should go to my boss and tell him that my expenses have gone up 4% so my salary will be going up 4%.

Well, if you’re in a field that would support that kind of increase, go for it!

If the market can support a 4% (or higher) increase in rents, then what is there to complain about? As a landlord (well, it’s more my wife, really), I would probably not increase rents 4% every year, because if I find a good tenant, that’s worth it for me for the 4% increase. I’d only raise rates after a couple years or a new tenant. But if my business model is such that I decide the risk between one tenant and another is negligible, and the 4% increase in rent is supported by the market, then why the hell wouldn’t I do it? It’s just good business sense.

[Algorithm]

@Zebra

Maybe I should go to my boss and tell him that my expenses have gone up 4% so my salary will be going up 4%.

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before in the thread, but it’s pretty simple math. If you keep rent at around 1/3 of your income, and rent goes up 4%, you don’t need a 4% raise to cover the increase in expenses.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Algorithm

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before in the thread, but it’s pretty simple math. If you keep rent at around 1/3 of your income, and rent goes up 4%, you don’t need a 4% raise to cover the increase in expenses.

Yes, good point. A 1.3% raise should about cover it. Simple math seems to be beyond many folks though, sadly.

[Gorsnak]

@Algorithm

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before in the thread, but it’s pretty simple math. If you keep rent at around 1/3 of your income, and rent goes up 4%, you don’t need a 4% raise to cover the increase in expenses.

He didn’t say his rent had gone up 4%, but that his expenses had gone up 4%.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Gorsnak

He didn’t say his rent had gone up 4%, but that his expenses had gone up 4%.

We’re referring to the OP, who is complaining about getting a years notice that his rent will be going up by 4%

[astro]

@mhendo

But as i suggested before, it’s not really “Duh!” if the market won’t support your price increases.

If your costs, as a landlord, go up (for example) 6 percent in a given year, but rents in your area stagnate, then you can whine all you like about wanting to pass your cost increases along to the consumer, but you’ll have a hard time raising rents if the market itself won’t support the increases.

This is true in some areas, but the market reality in many areas of the US (obviously not all) is that the residential rental market, and apartments especially, are doing quite well over the past year or so as getting starter home mortgages has become considerably more difficult and people are sticking with rentals.

Another factor is sticking with rentals is that the rationale and motivation in acquiring a home to build equity seems like bad joke these days.

[elmwood]

@Eonwe

I profess my interest to the land-lady, who tells me as we’re finishing the conversation to “not be surprised that we raise the rent about 4% every year. Our expenses keep going up; to operate the building and such.”

I"m somewhat sympathetic. I live in a college town, too. There’s a severe housing shortage, in part due to very strict zoning that reflects the NIMBY mindset of the thousands of back-to-the-land hippies and garden ladies that live here. (FWIW, I was bought here to help change this, among other things.) The missing middle in the housing market is more like a Grand Canyon-like chasm - plenty of large-lot subdivisions and gentrified in-town houses for for the well-off, and no shortage of subsidized developments for the low-mod income working class, but almost nothing for the middle class, which includes many in academia. Leases all run on the student cycle - everything is August through July, and you’re asked to renew in February. Rents are among the highest in upstate New York, and the standard of rental housing leaves a lot to be desired.

Still, I expect that every March, when my landlord asks me to renew my lease, the rent will go up. Inflation happens. Be lucky it’s only 4%, given the constraints of the housing market in many college towns. I have the down payment for a very small house here, but even with great credit I have to be here a couple more years until I can get a mortgage. Also, with the rental cycle, home prices make seasonal jumps.

I still own my old house in a suburb of a Rust Belt city, and I’ve kept the rent the same for three years. The tenants take good care of the place, and I don’t want them to leave. I lose a bit of money every year from maintenance, but it’s a much smaller hit than having the place stay empty for a couple of months while the management company finds new tenants. It’s a much different housing market, where as a landlord, I don’t have the luxury of being able to raise the rent a lot. Maybe next year I’ll up the rent by $50.

[PunditLisa]

Reason #623 why I don’t want to be a landlord: See OP