MetaChat - Renter Bunnies: How often is your rent raised?

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05 February 2009

Renter Bunnies: How often is your rent raised? →[More:]Just curious, as I'm raising the rents for most of my tenants for the first time in about 4-5 years and some of them are cranky about it. The majority of fellow landlords I know here in Houston raise the rent every year.

This is perhaps not the best time to raise the rent, it's true, but insurance premiums went way up after Ike and I have to pass at least a little of that cost on to the tenant in the form of a rent increase.

post by: WolfDaddy at: 13:19 | 20 comments

My rent goes up every time I renew my lease. I have the option of renewing it for one year or two years. The increase is larger if I choose to renew it for two years.

Once, I did get a small rent reduction to compensate me for having to live next to a noisy and inconsiderate tenant. I moved to another unit and the landlord reduced my rent by, like, $15.

Most of the time, the increases have been pretty token. The most recent one, was a $60 increase, which, if memory serves, was a result of the landlord's co-op fees increasing.

posted by jason's_planet 05 February | 13:23

Same as j_p for me.

posted by gaspode 05 February | 13:25

When I got that increase, the landlord included a copy of the letter the co-op board sent him about his fees increasing. While I didn't like it very much, I did understand why it was happening.

Maybe if you included some similar information about your insurance, that might mollify some of them.

posted by jason's_planet 05 February | 13:28

Yearly--when there's a lease renewal.

posted by Stewriffic 05 February | 13:28

I'm month to month, and my rent has never gone up.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 05 February | 13:45

I've been here 7 years, never had rent raised. But this place is falling apart, little true upkeep is done, and I do most of the work (shoveling, trash) left to the tenants.

My boyfriend lives down the street and gets a rent increase nearly every year.

posted by Riverine 05 February | 13:46

My rent goes up every year.

posted by halonine 05 February | 13:55

We're tenant-at-will (stayed past the original lease term), and as it's just been a year, our rent went up $50. Not bad at all.

posted by Eideteker 05 February | 14:39

Back when I rented in NYC it went up every year with a teeeny percentage, I'm assuming that you're asking for US perspective (I might be wrong)

posted by dabitch 05 February | 15:16

I'm trying to figure out what it's like where I rented elsewhere but I've always had to move every year or six months - second hand contracts, no firsthand, ever. Man no wonder I'm stressed! I haven't rooted since 1991!

posted by dabitch 05 February | 15:21

In Ontario a landlord can only raise the rent once a year and only by a certain maximum percentage that is set by the government. Most of them raise it every year to the maximum percentage.

I had one landlord who tried to raise it three times a year but of course, if you were in the know, all you had to do was tell him where to shove his rent increase. A lot of people didn't know, so at one point most of the residents in that building found out they'd been paying too much and sued him to get the excess back. He had a lawyer for a daughter so he didn't care. Jerk.

posted by Orange Swan 05 February | 15:47

It is typical for rent to be raised every year, in my experience, proportional to the length of the new lease. Most apartment complexes I know raise the rent up to 20% if the tenant wants to go from a year-long lease to month-to-month.

posted by muddgirl 05 February | 16:28

Used to be like every 2 years. In Asheville you can only raise it I think 5% a year or 7% a year or something so at my longest place (6 years) they just kicked me out, claiming they were going to sell the place and then rented it for roughly double what I had been paying. Nice people.

posted by mygothlaundry 05 February | 16:45

Yearly for me when I was living in apartments. Even when we lived in the RV the pad rent went up yearly.

posted by deborah 05 February | 16:46

Hey Wolfdaddy, how much advance notice did you give them?

In Germany, If you have an open ended lease, if can only be increase once every 3 years. If it is increased, it can only be a certain percent. I forget how much exactly.

posted by chillmost 05 February | 18:10

Mine never goes up. I'm not on a lease and I pay my rent in cash and sometimes labor.

posted by Hugh Janus 05 February | 19:32

Ask me again next year? I suspect my complex does this, but I haven't been here long enough to ask around.

posted by casarkos 05 February | 22:13

Most places I've rented it's been yearly, for a government-set percentage (usually working out to around $10-$25), with three months' notice of the increase. BC's laws are similar to Ontario's in that respect. A few times I've been lucky enough to have a landlord who didn't raise the rent for a few years, but that was rare. It doesn't sound like you're being unreasonable at all, provided you gave them some notice of the increase. Nobody likes to have their rent go up, but it had to happen some time. Seconding j_p about giving them the reason you have to raise it, after which it sounds like you've been more than reasonable.

posted by elizard 05 February | 23:02

In this house, our rent actually went down by 15 euros after we were here for a year... I don't exactly know what that was about - some strange thing to do with taxes or something. Anyway. We signed a three-year lease, so won't have deal with it for another year, and then I wouldn't be surprised if it went up by 25 euros, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't go up, either.

We've only ever rented from private individuals, and somehow it's not usual for us to get increases. Our rent's only been increased once, over five apartments/19 years, and that was maybe 15 euros, and the rent was ridiculously cheap (for the area) to begin with.

posted by taz 05 February | 23:46

I could have sworn I posted a "thank you" for all your reponses, but I just now noticed it hasn't shown up, so my apologies and thank you again for all your input, I appreciate it very much.

FYI and FWIW I give a 2 month notice of a rent increase and do explain in detail the reasons for the increase. Since I took over the "family business" in 2004 this is only the 2nd rent increase I've done, though this is for a different set of properties than the first, and involves different tenants and temperaments than the original set. Anywhoo, no one's moving out or giving notice or anything. That makes me feel better.

posted by WolfDaddy 06 February | 16:49

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