Post # 1
Member
728 posts
Busy bee
For the bees that live in apartments, does your rent go up everytime you renew your lease? My husband and I are still in college so we’ve always lived in apartments. I HATE moving (as I’m sure everyone does) so I’d love to find an apartment and stick with it while we finish up grad school but every apartment hikes up our rent when we renew our yearly lease. We have never been late or have any complaints at any place we’ve ever lived. It seems like the better financial deal is to keep moving but that’s obviously not ideal. I’m wondering if it’s pretty typical throughout apartments or its more because we live in a college town
Post # 2
Member
4242 posts
Honey bee
That’s a fairly standard procedure, although depending on your local tenancy laws there may be rules about how much they can increase it. It should say in your lease what the increase will be.
Post # 3
Member
819 posts
Busy bee
Our rent does go up every year, but it’s always by something tiny like $30 a month, if I remember correctly.
Post # 4
Member
1161 posts
Bumble bee
anonbee4321 : I’m UK so may not be relevant but our rent has gone up every year, rent in the area has increased but probably faster than they’ve increased ours. It’s annoying but to move we’d have to pay agency fees and security checks and moving people so even with the rent increase it’s been cheaper to stay put.
Post # 5
Member
1011 posts
Bumble bee
I think this depends a lot on whether there is rent control in your area and the terms of the lease. I’m in a rent controlled apartment so my rent can only go up 3% each year and once my 12 months are up the lease just converts to month to month so I can move out whenever I want but they can’t make me move unless they are moving back into the apartment themselves. I was at my last place for ~5 years and my landlady never raised the rent.
Post # 6
Member
1043 posts
Bumble bee
Yes, there’s inflation. The rent goes up every year. As long as the rent increases are reasonable, it’s probably still a better deal to stay in your current apartment. The landlord would rather keep a good tenant than find someone new, so even though the rent is going up, it’s probably not going up nearly as much as it would if they were renting the apartment to someone new.
I recently moved out of my apartment after seven years (in Manhattan, so the numbers here are sort of obscene). The rent went up $75 every year, and would have gone up $85 if we’d stayed there for the coming year. Our new rent for starting in September would have been $2710. As they show it to potential new tenants, they’re now asking $2990.
Post # 7
Member
3912 posts
Honey bee
anonbee4321 : Yep, we’ve had everything from $0-350/month in increases. The only time there was no increase is when I lived somewhere that was still under construction, so they thanked us for dealing with it by not inccreasing rent. Try to avoid renting from a big company like Greystar if you don’t want to be forced to move.
Post # 8
Member
1104 posts
Bumble bee
anonbee4321 : it depends on where you live and the type of lease you sign. i’ve lived in a few different cities across the country and i definitelyvthink college areas are often overpriced bc they know kids will just pay it without knowing better. the worst property for value that i ever experienced was in boston…i paid as much for a 2 bedroom there 10 years ago as i pay for a 2 bedroom in nyc now.
ANYWAY, a few things to keep in mind:
1. moving to a slightly less college-y/trendy area can save you a ton of money.
2. signing a multi-year lease can help. usually if you sign for more than a year the increase is either non-existent or set ahead of time.
3. get to know local laws. in some cities there are rules about how much landlords can raise rent each year. these laws rarely seem to be across the board and often seem to be based on the type of property.
4. opt for individual landlords over corporations. when i’ve lived in places where the rent goes up every year they have always been owned by big real estate corporations. they do not care about their renters AT ALL. if you rent from a family or individual, especially one who has a job outside of real estate, they tend to value good tenants more. our current landlord didn’t raise our rent for the first 3 years and just this year raised it very slightly (like $60) because we take care of the place. she could get more money, but she values having non-crazy people to deal with.
5. i find it’s worthwhile to go through a broker. they find better deals, but i do not recommend one who works for a machine-like brokerage that’s geared towards college kids. instead find an individual who has been in the city for years and who locals trust. they’re the ones who will find you places that are listed under market value.
Post # 9
Member
1981 posts
Buzzing bee
I live in San Francisco, and landlords definitely take any chance they can get to raise the rent. Our last apartment was rent-controlled and I believe this one is, too, so they can only raise the rent something like 2% per year. Definitely check the lease for terms of rent control or lack thereof.
Post # 10
Member
3445 posts
Sugar bee
Yes, around $30. Not anywhere near enough that it is worth it to move. We just accept it.
Post # 11
Member
488 posts
Helper bee
Yes- the amount will vary depending on the rental market in your area. I have lived in areas where my rent has increased only $30 a year (rent controlled in bay area!) to areas where it has increased ~$200 a year (not rent controlled, popular area). I think bigger companies try to get more out of you because they don’t care if you leave.
Post # 12
Member
1119 posts
Bumble bee
It’s seems to be normal and most of the time it matches the inflation rates or it is close to it depending on where you live. My fiance and I live in the silicon valley and the complex we live in will charge about a $200/month increase each year and that is low compared to other places. Our rent went from $2550/month to to $2750. New tenants are paying $2900-3200 depending on the time of move in. We did have friends have rent increase 20% on year but it was still lower for them to stay put than move anywhere else. Places with rent control will see much smaller rent increases whereas here they can just charge whatever they want and it seems to be getting out of ocntrol.
Post # 13
Member
5096 posts
Bee Keeper
When I’ve rented from an individual landlord, it hasn’t gone up (max was three years though). When I’ve rented from a company, it goes up every year. Once they were going to raise it by $350/month, we just ended up moving out.
Post # 14
Member
511 posts
Busy bee
Yes my rent has always increased whenever we move. We also own a few rental properties and have always increased the tenant’s rent when the lease is to be extended (on a year by year basis). The only one time we did not increase the rent is when there was more supply of rental properties than demand in the market.
Post # 15
Member
221 posts
Helper bee
Yes, an increase from $10-$20 is standard in my experience
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