I’ve been dealing with this for years now since my apartment complex was bought by new owners(multiple times now). Every time I renew the lease they want to raise the price $100+ ($300+ during covid). I always try to negotiate by saying I’ve lived there many years with no problems, paid rent on time, etc. Unfortunately I’m only even allowed to speak to the local office manager who is either powerless or pretends to be and doesn’t even pretend to be sympathetic.
Meanwhile, they aren’t even keeping their end of the deal up. The pool and hot tub have been drained and in disrepair since January.(I’ll definitely mention this when negotiating this time).
Lastly, moving is not the answer. Practically every apartment complex around here is owned by one of these horrible companies so there’s no escape unless you happen to find something owned by an individual(which has its own problems). I’m also getting a small discount(gets smaller every renewal) for being in an outdated unit so moving would still raise my rate, be a massive hassle, and I’d have to pay a new deposit.
Long term I will buy a house, but how can I save enough when they gouge me at every turn?
That’s the beauty of these giant mega housing corpsb You don’t. You’re completely powerless to do any sort of negotiating, you bend over and take whatever offer they give you or you move. It’s the American dream in reality.
Its just insane there’s no laws to help with these situations. They’re becoming extremely commonplace.
There are in some places. In red states, legislators are doing their damnedest to prevent municipalities from enacting those laws.
I live in a blue state that just passed caps on rental increases but its essentially worthless as they capped it at something like 14% when the average apartment costs $1000+/mo.
FTFY