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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>rent is increased substantially

>[...] in the hope that you can squeeze an extra 100 every month [...]

Which one is it? Was the increase "substantial" or was it only 100 bucks?

> I'm not a landlord but I don't think there is a rational basis for kicking all of your rent paying tenants out and then having half a dozen units go empty in the hope that you can squeeze an extra 100 every month out of someone, maybe, in the future.

Hindsight is 20/20. My guess is that the landlord thought the market was going to bear the price increase, and went all-in on it rather than only doing it on a portion of his tenants.

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> Which one is it? Was the increase "substantial" or was it only 100 bucks?

A 100 increase over 800 is a 12.5% increase, which is substantial relatively speaking. In my case they wanted 150 over 800 which is an 18.75% increase. After I said no (as well as everyone else in the complex) they wanted 1000 which is a 20% increase. I have to say your comment comes off as condescending to me. For many people $100 may be the difference between being able to afford a home and being homeless. Now everyone has left, the units are all empty, and they are asking for 800 (after asking 950, then 900, then 850).

> Hindsight is 20/20. My guess is that the landlord thought the market was going to bear the price increase, and went all-in on it rather than only doing it on a portion of his tenants.

That is one way to describe it. Or, to describe what you said in other words, trying to squeeze every penny out of tenants, creating an inconvenience for five people (who would have probably rather stayed and put up with a modest 2-5% increase), then losing money after all because all of the properties are now vacant.

> I have to say your comment comes off as condescending to me. For many people $100 may be the difference between being able to afford a home and being homeless.

The implication that $100 isn't a lot of money comes from your original comment, not me. After all, the thesis in your original comment was that the landlord risked a bunch of reliable tenants for a small rent increase. It wouldn't have made sense otherwise (eg. the landlord risking the current tenants for a chance of $500 rent increase).

Now I see the source of confusion. I think $100 from the perspective of a tenant may be quite a lot (as mentioned a 12.5% increase). However as you said my thesis is from a landlord's perspective $100 is insignificant with all things considered. If even one unit were empty for two months, that would be an annual loss greater than the extra money they would make from the previous tenants. Also in our case they already have had a unit empty for over six months now which further baffles me.

> However as you said my thesis is from a landlord's perspective $100 is insignificant with all things considered

$100 is often way more significant for the landlord than for you, for you it is a $12.5% increase, for the landlord after his expenses it could easily be 100% increase in their profits. The landlord could have a massive loan, and with increasing interest they needs higher rent to pay that, then there isn't much else they can do than increase rent.

This is why it is important to draw a box around capital interests and analyze them together when considering policy, otherwise the landlord, bank, and previous owner just point at each other and say "the real problem is over there." Or they raise the possibility as a hypothetical, if they know it isn't true in their case.

Thankfully I'm sure the very smart landowner has already considered that and built it into their business plan.

Why do you expect the landlords to be smarter than anyone else? When things are bad for the landlord things become bad for the tenants, it is only natural, look up the situation of the landlord before you rent if you want to avoid this.

Look it up where?

You can do a credit check on them just like they do on you, if they are a public company you can check even more details in their reports.

Again, where? Give us a URL

> Which one is it? Was the increase "substantial" or was it only 100 bucks?

Not OP, but here is how I interpreted this.

Increase rents substantially -> no one takes it -> decrease rents over time until it hits a rate the market can bare -> people move in when rents are 100 dollars above what the previous tenets were paying.

Anecdata of 1 but. In July 2021 got place for too much $$$. In July 2022 they said the rent was going up $400 a month. I moved out. In July 2023 they were asking $100 less than I was paying in July 2021

I have no idea if that was this software or market change or what. It was huge complex. 700-800 units. At the time I just guessed that they raise the rent for everyone when their lease is up because most people don't want to move and will put up with the rent increase even if they hate it.

For me, the place had issues. If the rent had stayed the same I'd have put up with them just because it's easier to put off finding a new place, but $400 a month was enough for me to just move.

I find it crazy when rent goes up but they're still offering new renters a month+ off and then when you talk to the front office they're like "we don't negotiate". Well, one of us tried.

It isn't crazy, the value of the apartment is related to how high the rent is.

Think like this, if their asset is worth 400x the rent they would rather increase rent and give you temporary rebates than to ever reduce rent. Reducing rent by 100$ would cost them $40k, not something they would wanna do.

Why does the asset value model not take the rebates into account though? They are gaming the system and tenants suffer.

Is this really true? Any sane person buying a business or evaluating creditworthiness looks at revenue and expenses, not just "mmm ok 400x rent" and call it a day.

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