Gcox
07-08-2007, 06:01 AM
I recently received an email from a tenant who said her apartment rent increased over $700 per month. Frankly, I didn’t believe it. I thought there had to be more to the story than just a greedy landlord. Then she pointed me to the following story in the Seattle Times.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003779624_danny08.html
I was surprised to read that rental increases of over 50% were not isolated incidents. The article goes on to document increases at The Archstone in Redmond, the Centennial Court in Belltown, and Marina Landing in Renton, all with rent increases over 30 percent.
Clearly places like this need an economic eviction ordinance. A good model for this would be in British Columbia, Canada where the Residential Tenancy Act limits landlords to raising rent of an occupied suite by two percent, plus the cost of living index which usually keeps the increases under 5 percent.
The business of being a landlord is not like a typical business in that landlords don’t often get repeat customers (i.e. tenants). Still, no one is going to deny that landlords need to make a profit like any other business. But I have to agree with the Seattle Times columnist in that increases of this magnitude amount to economic eviction.
All this has left me wondering... where else is this happening to tenants? If you have a similar story let us know, and don’t forget to give us some idea where you live.
Greg
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003779624_danny08.html
I was surprised to read that rental increases of over 50% were not isolated incidents. The article goes on to document increases at The Archstone in Redmond, the Centennial Court in Belltown, and Marina Landing in Renton, all with rent increases over 30 percent.
Clearly places like this need an economic eviction ordinance. A good model for this would be in British Columbia, Canada where the Residential Tenancy Act limits landlords to raising rent of an occupied suite by two percent, plus the cost of living index which usually keeps the increases under 5 percent.
The business of being a landlord is not like a typical business in that landlords don’t often get repeat customers (i.e. tenants). Still, no one is going to deny that landlords need to make a profit like any other business. But I have to agree with the Seattle Times columnist in that increases of this magnitude amount to economic eviction.
All this has left me wondering... where else is this happening to tenants? If you have a similar story let us know, and don’t forget to give us some idea where you live.
Greg