Pros and Cons of Raising Rent Annually (or when renewal)

[Billy Zhao]

I wish this forum has a search function as I'm pretty sure this topic has been discussed in the past and there are probably plenty of opinions on the matter. Anyways, here we go:

I have two tenants that are up for renewal by the end of the year. I raised their rent consistently yearly for the last 3 years and they've been good tenants. With the current environment, I am hesitant to increase their rent but also seen my expenses continue to rise (property tax, utilities, maintenance cost all went up). 

Some youtube landlords like Graham Stephan advocated that if you have a long term renter that is low maintenance, don't raise their rent to push them out. On the other hand, people like Meet Kevin will say that you should always raise your rent annually no matter what.

I remembered that back in the days when I was a renter when I left college, the apartment complexes in Austin will always have a move-in special (like a month off) to give you a deal but upon renewal, they always jack up the rent by a hefty percentage no matter how good of a renter you are. So for apartment renters, the best way to save money is always threatening to leave and get the next "move-in special". (Apparently, this is also true for getting a raise at work. If you are loyal and quiet, you will almost never gonna get a promotion and raise, unless you jump ship or threatening to jump.) Apartment complexes seem to figure that out so they never actually rewarded loyalty and long term renters with low rate. SFH and small landlord might be a different story since turn over and vacancy eat into your bottom line tremendously.

What's your take on this?