Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Rent

Recently, our housing complex informed us of a very hefty rent increase for our next lease.

I'm trying to decide how outraged I should be. What is a reasonable percentage for a rent increase? What is the threshold for outrage?

7 comments:

  1. In NYC I received a 17% increase (and left). Anything above 5% is outrageous, especially if the rent is already at market value.

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  2. Reasonable or not, if new tenants are willing to contract at the higher prices then one could say that particular market/neighborhood commands the new price. It could be an unreasonable rate increase or you could have been getting a steal all along. Hard to say without knowing the city/neighborhood.

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  3. 5%. But ultimately you also have to weigh the extra cost of a move. Have they raised it every year or did it stay level for a period? Might see if any towns near you are rent controlled.

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  4. Is it negotiable? My last renewal the initial offer was a $100 monthly increase (~10%). By asking nicely at the front office, after some time for communication with whoever actually makes these decisions, I had it dropped to only a $20 increase.

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  5. You might be able to negotiate a lower increase by offering to sign a 2, 3, or 5 year lease.

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  6. it maybe written into your lease contract. ours said the max increase was 12% a year. the first year we renewed-you guessed it, it was about 11% increase.
    we stayed, because moving transaction costs would have been the same cost (and we knew we'd try to leave after year two-and we did)

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  7. I managed to negotiate a 6% increase from the initial 11% increase. I was happy with that, but if it had been the initial offer, I probably would've been furious and tried to negotiate.

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