Rental increases with sale?

[Taylor White]

Purchasing my first MF property in January. It’s a triplex. Current rents are way below market value, at $1025 currently and going rate is $1250 for the area.

Would it be too much to bump rents up by $75 every 6 months until up to $1250...? Tenants are great. Just not sure what’s reasonable for increase in rents.

[Filipe Pereira]

Hi @Taylor White, first off, welcome to the forums!

You're talking about a pretty substantial rent increase here, even if it is spread out over a year +. Before committing to something like this, I would want to get an idea of what their income is. They may not be able to afford $1,250, so you could potentially be setting both of you up for inevitable failure. 

Usually one of two things happens in these scenarios:
1. The tenant understands that they've gotten a great deal for the last X months and are willing to stay and pay the market rate. 

2. They up and move out, leaving you with turnover costs, vacancy and some work to do (which often cost more than what the rent increase would have yielded anyway). 

Hopefully for you it goes the path of #1. 
Best of luck!