Next month our lease on our apartment will be renewed. I’m pretty sure it won’t go up all that much since we are pretty good tenants. None of the neighbors have complained about us, either. Just out of my interest to know whether or not our rent is fair, I found some rental data for San Mateo County for the past seven years. I was sort of surprised by what I found.
As I have stated previously, we pay $1700 for a two bedroom two bathroom condo. The rent includes water, garbage, and cable TV. According the the historic data from San Mateo County, our rent is actually cheaper than the average rent for a two bedroom apartment in 2000! Here is a summary of the rent trends on a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment as recorded by the county and a timeline of recent history:
12/2000 – $1902 – The year of the dotcom boom and craziness. I was in highschool.
12/2001 – $1764 – The dotcom bubble popped and 9/11 happened in this year.
12/2002 – $1597 – Recession
12/2003 – $1478 – War broke out
12/2004 – $1421 – Valley beginning to recover, the hubby moves to San Mateo
12/2005 – $1449 – I moved to San Mateo
12/2006 – $1621 – Tech sector in full recovery, new startups and lotsa hiring
12/2007 – $1785 – We got married, moved to our present condo.
3/2008 – $1812 – Latest data available, rent prices trending up as more people are renting due to the ridiculous purchase prices. Jobs are still abundant.
So after looking at this data, I feel that our rent is pretty fair. Actually, I used a CPI calculator and found that $1902 in 2000 is actually worth $2381 today. So we are really getting a bargain and rent prices don’t always follow inflation. It is a bit alarming how much the rent jumped from 2005 to 2007, but I think as more foreclosures and cheap homes come onto the market the rental market can’t rise all that much. From what I have seen, there are actually quite a lot of 2 bedroom listings on Craigslist for under $1700 a month.
So if you are facing a rent increase, I encourage you to look up the fair market rent in your locale and see if it’s fair. If it’s too expensive then don’t be afraid to negotiate because even a month’s vacancy is very costly to a landlord and could wipe out all the gains he/she gets from raising your rent. Additionally, look for a cheaper alternative early if you know you can’t afford the increase. Oftentimes, there are individual homeowners who have held a home for many years and do not want to sell. In those cases you can get a very good deal as a renter.
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8 comments ↓
The aftermath of the housing bubble is having complex effects on rent.
Foreclosures can increase the supply of rental housing (as houses that can’t be quickly sold go on the market as rentals), but they can also increase the demand for rental housing (as people who used to own houses have to find some place to live).
This is a really great blog post.
Almost two years ago, I moved into a 2 bd 2 bath townhome. The rent was $475. It’s pretty small, but I thought I could save some money.
The next year at lease time, I was told that the rent was going up. They said if I signed a one year lease, it would be $490 a month.
I live in Ky, and really the place shouldn’t be over $450 per month.
Now, I’m told this year the rent will jump to $595.00.
So needless to say, I will not be renewing my lease.
I don’t get where or why they think they can’t get that much out of this place. People are moving out of here like crazy.
I will look into the fair market price. It’s a great idea. Thanks for sharing.
Have you ever checked out Rentometer.com?
It’s a pretty cool site. You just enter your address and it analyzes all available rental data in your area and tells you if you are paying above or below the average
WOW, those prices are amazing. My hubby was paying $475 for a studio apartment in Fremont when we use to live in the Bay Area 20 years ago. We have since moved out of CA to live where it is cheaper to survive.
Yeah, San Mateo is probably one of the most expensive places to live, but I guess it could be worse. In Manhattan we’d probably need to pay double to rent the same 1000+ sqft 2 bedroom 2 bath condo.
@April
$450? wow, I need to get out of California and move somewhere cheap. I had no idea there were places you could get a townhouse that cheap.
Wow, great show of how things can definitely take a turn for the better or worst but the tech sector keeps on truckling along!
My MIL is coming out of her 6 month lease and they were going to raise her rent $100 – a two bedroom, one bath SMALL apartment from $950 to $1050. Not something she can comfortably afford. She is signing a one year lease and they are only raising it $49 but still. It sucks. She does not want to move because it’s so stressful. I wish rent wasn’t so high.
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