Increasing rents may cost you good tenants

[Alicia Harrington]

I've noticed that most landlords want to continue raising there rents even if they haven't done any updating to their properties.  If you had a tenant in your place for 4 years, would you continue increasing the rent?  Let's say your unit was a high turnover unit that you couldn't keep a tenant in it for over 12 months.  Then you were able to procure a long standing tenant who pays their rent with out any problems.  What would you do as a landlord?  

[Andy McQuade]

Rents increase because cost of living and costs of employment keep rising - you can't charge the same amount of rent when you're paying higher property taxes, higher maintenance and labor costs, etc.  As long as they maintain a cost level that is appropriate for the property, neighborhood, and local comps, there's no problem.

While updating the property is usually a trigger for a rent increase, it's not the only reason it happens.