‘They increase the rent without verifying any income’: Tenant calls out hypocrisy of apartments that require certain income to start lease but not when it gets raised

Daily Dot ^ | Aug 18, 2023 | Brooke Sjoberg

[where's_the_Outrage?]

In the modern rental market, some apartments and other types of homes for rent have requirements from their owners dictating the level of a tenant's income. Typically, these require tenants to make three times their monthly rent in income to qualify, with some requiring up to four times the rent to ensure tenants will pay each month.

Over the past few years, rental rates have increased dramatically across the U.S., with a 16% increase observed nationally from 2021 to 2022, according to NerdWallet. While that growth has reportedly slowed, rents remain higher than they have historically.

A TikToker questioned the ethics of periodically raising rents without verifying that tenants can still afford it. In a video that has drawn over 111,000 views on the platform, real estate agent Melinda Lumpkin (@melindalumpkin) says landlords do not care if their tenants can afford the rent after they initially qualify for a unit.

"How is it ethical for an apartment to require you to make three times the income in order to qualify to get into an apartment, but then as soon as your lease ends, they increase the rent without verifying any income or anything like that?" she asks in the video. "That further proves what I stated in my pinned video—that these landlords do not care if you can afford the rent or not. They don't care."

The problem is one that may not entirely be solved by moving out, she says, unless a tenant moves to a different area, as rental rates are based on the local rental market.

[Boogieman]

“If 3x income is the standard why wouldn’t it be re-evaluated when the contract was renewed?”

Because the landlord already has at least a year of actual payment history to look at by then to evaluate the tenant, which is a better indicator of whether they will pay than any credit report or income verification.

[Chewbarkah]

Thank you for actually undestanding this. The leftist TikTok nut has reality exactly backwards. Quel surprise...

[MoochPooch]

Probably this TikToker is referring to drastic rent increases, not just periodic increments at the time of lease renewal.

I live in a rent-controlled building, which is why I am ambivalent about rent increase. It is getting harder for working- or middle-class people, especially married and/or with children, to remain in a city where rents are geared toward professional single people.

It’s easy to say, “Go move to another city.” But many of us have jobs or communities within a certain area. And it’s the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker who are more likely to be civic-minded than a hipster techie, student, or intern.

To be sure, a landlord has to raise the rent periodically to meet inflation/cost of living & maintenance. The problem is the one gets greedy & decides to jack up the rent to market value, suddenly evicting those on lower salaries who paid faithfully in the past but can’t afford rents that are suddenly jacked up hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.

[SunkenCiv]

• Mayor Adams goes off on woman complaining about rent, compares her to plantation owner [06/29/2023]

[Organic Panic]

All the construction in the city west of me is multi level apartments and townhomes. ALL rentals. Not sure who owns them but I’m sure it is some mega corporation like Blackrock. Which is taking full advantage of Obama’s HUD demands. All I am seeing in the suburbs are apartments now. “You’ll own nothing and like it. Or not, We don’t care.”

[Myrddin]

The tenant should be careful about asking a question that has a potentially undesirable answer. If the term of a lease is expiring, the landlord could very well insist on an income verification before agreeing to a new lease term. If they don't qualify, an eviction process might well be triggered (or implicitly, applying for the income verification to execute a new lease comes with agreement to vacate the property immediately if not qualified).

My property taxes went up on my residence and rental this year. I have passed it on to my tenant...yet.

[FreedomPoster]

Obligatory:

We're slowly raising rents to market. Long story. It is what it is. It's not like my taxes and repair costs are going down.

[Myrddin]

My area has an explosion of apartments. It doesn't make much sense because there are not enough jobs available to employ the potential occupants. The ugly alternative is the apartments became filled with Section 8 layabouts and property crimes / drug crimes skyrocket.