Apartment Rent Hikes: Is This In Fact Par?

[rjray]

Got home this eve to find a note from my management reminding me that my current lease runs only until the end of March. Not a big deal. What is unnerving, though, is that they plan to raise the rent nearly 10% in one jump (roughly 9.1%, to be specific). The last apartment I had, when I lived in Campbell, never went up more than 4-5% at once. So,

Comments

[rjray]

Yeah, it's the *size* of the bump that has me surprised... I expected them to raise rent because that's just what apartment managers do.

[erikred]

It really depends on where you live. In Oakland, the landlord is entitled to raise the rent once per year according to the going rate determined by the Rent Adjustment Board and cumulative with rent increases the landlord could have put into effect but didn't. In Oakland, the annual rate has been 3.3% for a couple of years now; at one point it was 0.6%, which was great for us but terrible for the landlord. In the 80s and mid 90s, the rate in Oakland was 10% per year, which would be considered insane here now.

My recommendation to you would be to find the RBA for your city and check the regs. Unless there's a city reg granting them authority to raise your rent that much, they may be shining you on.

[shoutingboy]

Sunnyvale doesn't have komissars setting appropriate and just level of rental payments consonant with the property-owner's duty to the revolution and the historical process. We're pretty brutally free-market out here. Which is to say:

Unless there's a city reg granting them authority to raise your rent that much...

It actually works the other way around. In a very few cities (like Oakland), there are rules saying how much the landlord is allowed to raise the rent. Absent such rules, he can raise it as much as he likes.

[erikred]

"Sunnyvale doesn't have komissars setting appropriate and just level of rental payments consonant with the property-owner's duty to the revolution and the historical process."

Yay, Free-Market: sucking you dry 'cos they can.

[shoutingboy]

To be fair, that motto sounds a lot better in Latin.

[shoutingboy]

This just happened to me, too. Are you in an Avalon property? Some folks on the interwebs say they do that. I'm going along with it this year, but I'm thinking this fall I'll scout other properties in the general area and see if I'm gettin' rooked.