Rent increase

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Just wanted to ask a question regarding rent increases. I have 2 buy and hold properties. My wife and I bought our 1st rental in 2010 and 2nd in 2014. We have always been of the mindset of keeping the property up to date by making upgrades through the coarse of the year for each property as we want to keep our tenants happy and show them that we do care for the property and to keep the property value increasing. Since we have stared renting our properties we have built a great tenant/landlord relationship. That being said we have never increased the rents, just curious to see what other investors would do. Increase rents? Or keep on going the way we have? I forgot to mention that each property has great cash flow.  Thanks in advance for your comments.

[Thomas S.]

Rent should always be at market. Why would you not charge the going rate every other business in the world does. Tenants expect rent to go up every year with the cost of living and at a bare minimum you should be raising your rent equal to the annual cost of living index. I see no direct correlation between how good my tenants are and what my rent rates are. My business does not operate on anything other than the bottom line and I do not believe in supplementing my tenants rent.

If you are concerned about keeping good tenants you would be far better off explaining smaller annual rent increases than a large adjustment every few years. You could wait till tenants leave to bring rent to market but that is simply poor business management.