However, if you plan to be in the same area for a long time, I’d say buy the house! Get a fixer upper and work on it in your spare time… at least you’d be home and working on it together There’s just nothing like the great feeling that comes from fixing up your own place and turning it into ‘you’ !

Good luck with the choices.

I thought there was rent control there? Three raises in 14 months seems very excessive. Once a year is bad enough.

I still think I will propose a lower monthly lease for a commitment though and see what they say. It never hurts to ask right?

Further dealing with these types of rent issues and I’m sure I will favor buying a house more.

I leased apartments to pay my way through college, and one (of many) thing I learned was the month-to-month (MTM) leases are unwise for the tenant unless they are actively planning to move out in the near future. As the apartment market shifts (and it IS always shifting–market analysis happens all the time among apartment communities), rent for new lessees and MTM tenants always goes up–never down.

Additionally, at least new lessees get “move in specials” like $500 off the first month, so that at least offsets the fact that they are paying $75/month more than their neighbor who has lived in the same apartment for 2 years. MTM tenants receive no such benefit.

Think of it in terms of magazines and magazine subscriptions. Subscribers pay the bills–it is money that is committed to the magazine and is used to stay solvent. Selling mags from the newstand is where the profit comes from.

Leases are similar–the apartment manager can count on $XXX per month (vacancy rate is determined monthly), based on leases. However, the guy on a MTM lease could move out next month, and that is one more apartment that must be marketed to the public, calls must be fielded in an attempt to rent it, the leasing staff must show that floorplan to prospective tenants in order to get them interested, applications for tenancy must be processed, credit checks must be made, references have to be checked, leases have to be signed, etc.

Simply, it costs the apartment manager more to have someone on a MTM lease than it costs to have someone locked into a longer term lease.

If you aren’t planning to leave your apartment in the next 7-12 months, check into getting a “move in special” (or at least lowered rent) in return for committing. When I was leasing apartments, everyone on a MTM lease paid $50/month more than market value.

That’s key. Think about that for a second. Imagine you moved into a place in Jan 2006 on a 12-month lease. You are locked into (for example) paying $1000/month for that apartment. Over the course of that 12 months, the market dictates that your apartment is now worth $1100. After your lease ends in Jan 2007, you choose to go MTM. Well, your landlord knows that if he raises your rent $150 in the first month, you will almost certainly vacate the apartment. So, they “give you a deal” by not charging you the $50 MTM premium for the first four months. Sooo, you pay $1100 (market price) for your apartment until May 2007. At that time, your rent gets bumped to $1150 to include the MTM fee. Four months later, market rent (what your manager is charging the general public for your floorplan) jumps another $50. Congratulations, you just got a letter notifying you of a rent increase.

It’s perfectly legal, and even justifiable if you consider it from the perspective of your landlord.

Sorry if the flow of this post was confusing–I’m late for work!

Joe

I should ask them what their intentions are though.