Rent prices are gaining steam in 36 of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan housing markets. Austin, Texas, showed the highest gains, followed by Phoenix and San Jose, California.
Did anyone get new tenant or renew the lease in SJ recently?
I have to renew the lease contract with my current tenant soon and am debating whether or not to increase rent this year.
I am going to and I raised the rent a tiny bit. I think it’s healthy to increase the rent, even if only by a tiny bit, to keep it at market rate. One reason is the specter of rent control. Every year we are allowed a certain percentage of increase. If you don’t use it you lose it.
Some landlords don’t increase rent for many years and then try to catch up in a Big Bang that surprises and irritates tenants. I think it’s better to establish the predictability and expectation that rent will increase every year but very gently. The expectation should be that if tenants can afford the old rent last year they would have no problem paying the new rent.
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Define tiny bit?
$50? $100? 1%? 2%?
Yoy rent has been increasing (4% for my Cupertino neighborhood) since 2018.
1.4%. Less than inflation.
Totally agree with this. We had 3 years of no increase, then a 15% increase, and I was in shock. The problem isn’t that it averages to a reasonable 5%, the problem is that you never know if they’ll do 15% for 5 consecutive years after that.
If the tenant has a problem with the increase, hopefully they’ll mention it to you.
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I just read a survey saying many people would rather have more regular, predictable pay than higher salary. That comes as a surprise to me but it’s really just common sense. Predictability allows people to plan.
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I raise rents 5% a year on existing tenants if below market. 10% if I don’t like them, hoping they move. Vacancies are priced at market or a little below. I can tell market price by the response on Craigslist.
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As a stock trader, you are dumb to know this from survey 
I thought people like volatility? 
must only be the trump fans.
When? Was like this in SV for the first few years of recovery from 2012 to 2015. No increase or decrease from 2007 to 2011.
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Usually rent control still allows you to “bank” (accumulate over several years then increase all at once) the increases so you don’t really lose it, but there is usually a max so better not bank much. For example Oakland rent control allows landlord to bank but the absolute maximum increase you can do is 10% which was about 3-4 years worth of increases. So if you banked more than 4 years you can still only increase 10% and the rest is lost (no rollover). These details are never mentioned anywhere when the “banking” idea is promoted until you sit down and read the instructions.
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Just put an ad in Craigslist. Had a call within 10 minutes. Have two interested parties. $100 increase to $1400 for a two bedroom. Minimum wage for unskilled labor increases are driving up rents in South Lake Tahoe. I used to have $12/hr help two years ago. Now it is $25/hr. Sacramento Reno and Tahoe all are seeing rent increases. Can’t find anyone willing to work for less than $20/hr even in Cameron Park.
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Either Nov 2011 or 2012. Still, they should’ve just raised 5% that year if the idea was to give a break before.
So people are renting and waiting for home prices to drop before they buy?
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Some even sold their primary 
So rental market peaked a little while ago, went down and now up again? So the bottom is in?
If so, housing prices won’t fall for too long. Rent and home prices usually don’t deviate too far from one another.