Plus I had my 8 year old out practicing with the backhoe , he did pretty good .

You can have automatic renewals of a contract but you can have issues if they are not well thought out and drafted properly.AR contracts mat renew for like terms if notice to terminate is not given, if either party misses that date either party could have regrets.Your contract may have an escalation rent clause, fine, but what happens if some city ordinance or some common practice in your area changes, perhaps from some law suit, you can't modify you lease if it automatically renewed.Any lease that can be automatically renewed beyond 3 years can trigger the due on sale clause of your mortgage too.Automatic renewals may be viewed as a tenant having a first right of refusal by some judge, if any change is required it can be adopted and a tenant barks or they agree they may be viewed as first in line since they live there.Some states cover the issue as well, so I'd suggest doing a new lease each year, for the cost of 6 or 8 pieces of paper it can make like easier. :)

as if your practice is not, well, the best.

I don't know if this is helpful to your situation, but here's an article I found about it on the CreditCards.com website. http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/rapid-...I haven't had a reason to put it into practice yet, but if you do, please let me know how it works out. 

Québec practices rent control and tenant protection to the point where multi-family owners have to be extremely savvy.I spoke with @Brian Gibbons from Bigger Pockets who told me I could sell my rights to the contract for 20,000$ (which was a lot more than I was originally planning on selling it for).

It's crazy to sit down at the closing table with clients who are first time home buyers, and when they see the paper that says how much interest they are going to be paying over the 30 years, and what their total cost will be, their eyes practically bug out of their heads =PI suppose you could use an amortization table /breakdown to help sell seller financing too for that same reason.

I like to do things right but I am practical on this point and I want the final decision to be mine as much as possible.

. - I appreciate hearing from someone who is doing it ... and that there doesn't seem to be a "best practice" for this.  

Actually is high anyway, but especially if has been practicing for more than 5 minutes.

I agree with @Rhett Tullis about increasing the deposit, instead of the rent, and would add that you need to have your rental criteria clearly documented and be consistent in applying that criteria...otherwise you run the risk of accusations of discriminatory practices.