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Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

> we've had 12% yearly rental increases for a decade straight now, despite living in bumblefudge-nowhere Midwest

Quick math for the rest of you out there: That means they paid 1000 in 2009 and now pay ~3500 in 2019.

Also, yes, I feel you there. Our rental agreement states a mandatory 10% increase if you rent from year to year. I've no idea why the company is this stupid though. The rents around us are falling or staying steady these days. So we just move to the block over every year and the old place stays empty for 3 months before then being rented out for the same or less than we paid. I'm sure there is some tax thing involved here that makes it so they don't have to care all that much.

Also, yeah, we don't have a lot, and we can just move houses in about a weekend in my 4-door.

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It's similar to a telecommunications giant - as the customer, you need to pay a cost of switching (moving expenses, hookup fees etc.).

So it's in their best interests to try to squeeze customers when possible, even with the occasional person that moves out, they'll net a lot more from tenants who just don't bother to dispute the increase.

True! We've decided to be nimble, and it does take a toll (no pool tables, no big patio furniture, smaller couches, etc). But saving the cash is worth it to us. 12% on 1000k/mo rent comes out to an extra 1440/year that could be saved. To us, such a thing is worth the weekend of moving hell.

Don't you also lose a lot of the deposit money you put down on the old apartment and the services that went along with it though? Not to mention that moving is more than a weekend of shuttling around possessions (if you don't own much), you also have to change your address with everyone, sign up for new utilities... I always burn a lot of money and time when moving.

> Don't you also lose a lot of the deposit money you put down on the old apartment and the services that went along with it though?

Wait, what? It's a deposit, you get it back at the end of the lease.

Like, granted, if you have a lot of damage to the carpets, sure, you're gonna be out $80 for the cleaning of them. But I've always gotten it back in full after a month or so.

For me, moving is litterally a weekend (maybe including a Friday afternoon). We really don't have much to move. I'm not joking.

Also, my state allows you to just forward the mail to the new address for free. It only lasts a year, but you can re-up that at any time. We've just done that without much worry and we also have a lot of online stuff that works through the phones and whatnot.

I guess I'm just old hat at doing this kinda moving stuff. It's not much stress for me, though you are right, it is some extra stress. For us, it's worth the savings.

In my experience I lose hundreds on my deposit every time (with very little actual wear to validate that loss). I've only ever rented in major cities though, so maybe it's less aggressively slum-lordy elsewhere.

If you do have more possessions than you can move yourself, or your moving long distances, you end up spending a ton of money. Movers usually cost me 5-10k and I didn't even have a lot of stuff (2bd apartment worth of possessions). Ditto if you need your car(s) moved.

> Movers usually cost me 5-10k

Wow! That is insane!

Here it's about $800 for anything less than 3 hours each way per truck load. And I think that is a rip-off. I've seen college towns that'll charge $50 for frat bros to move you about town all said and done (but then again a frat bro is moving your TV, so beware).

> Movers usually cost me 5-10k

For me, moving about the same amount is going to cost $1000 including storage for a month. I guess if you are also having the movers pack everything, it might cost that much, but I've heard of people moving across the country for less money.

I bet moving costs at least $400 out of pocket plus you have to value you time. 2 people packing and moving is 20+ hours each. 40 hours * $20/hr = $800 so you are breaking even at best.

Well, you loose that bet then! ;)

Also, paying myself is a strange concept. Yeah, it's 'lost time' but only to me and my family. It's not like other forms of employment. Besides, it keeps us a bit lighter on the clutter, though we would like some more things in life. $800 payed to myself is a lot different than $800 paid to some movers.

$1440/yr seems hardly worth the effort for he hassle and cost of moving every year. Compounding rent increase over years makes it substantial.

I suppose you don't have kids though, which may simplify things.

When I rented the company sent a letter every year asking us to agree to a 8-12% hike. Every year we ignored the letter until they called and we talked them down to either keeping the rent the same or raising it only a couple of percent. It's one of the headaches of renting, but it makes a huge difference over time.

A fixed mortgage is much less painful.

> A fixed mortgage is much less painful.

I'm in total agreement, but the housing prices around here aren't very good (obviously expensive). Besides, we don't have stable work yet, so locking into a mortgage that will go underwater isn't wise.

> I'm sure there is some tax thing involved here

Loyalty tax, perhaps. They expect people to just "take it".

> That means they paid 1000 in 2009 and now pay ~3500 in 2019.

Which means they're almost certainly exaggerating, unless they're in a condo in downtown Chicago, but they did say "bumblefudge-nowhere" so I'd say just straight BS.

"Our rental agreement states a mandatory 10% increase if you rent from year to year"

Why even sign that agreement? That landlord obviously isn't going to give a toss if there's a issue. Its just a huge red flag for me.

> Why even sign that agreement?

Honestly? It was a good place and a good price. We've no intention of dealing with that issue either. We tend to move every year as the jobs change. Would we like to stay in this place for longer? Sure! But it's unlikely to occur.

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