Can apartments charge less to new tenants?

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Submitted by anxvariety on April 4, 2009 - 10:39pm

Hello,

This might be a silly question.. but my lease is coming up and the rental office gave me a quote of $1500, but they have ads on Craigslist for apartments which are bigger than mine for $1300.

I remember cell phone companies used to be required to honor specials to existing customers - does the same apply to aparmtments???

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The lease protects the renter
Submitted by waiting hawk on April 5, 2009 - 1:12am.

The lease protects the renter from rental rises but on the flip side it protects themselves from the drops on people holding leases. Unless they voluntary drop the rent(they wont) you are bound to it.

they don't have to do
Submitted by patb on April 5, 2009 - 8:42am.

they don't have to do anything, it's a free market.

You are free to walk too.

just tell them you are going to move unless they give you much
better rent.

Thanks guys, pretty much the
Submitted by anxvariety on April 5, 2009 - 9:25am.

Thanks guys, pretty much the answers that I was expecting.

Just seems like a pretty easy way to discriminate against a resident that they don't like.

We had a string of breakins here and the apartment complex sent out no notices. If I would have known that breakins were rampant I would have saved myself from getting $5000 in stuff stolen.

After the incident I warned residents that I would run into - as a few residents lost a lot of stuff they couldn't replace. One of the residents is a new lawyer, she had a bunch of case files in her car inside her garage. They broke into her garage then her car and stole all the papers and other stuff from her car. This really messed things up for her, so I figured why should anyone else be blind to this.

I talked to the police and they said they were trying to setup a neighborhood watch program - but they said the apartment complex never responded.

The apartment complex never had any problems sending out notices to the complex about lame stuff and telling people to keep quiet past 10, rental specials and stuff, but never mentioned the breakins. After this the lady at the rental office called me and told me to stop telling people that there were breakins. Point blank!

So them raising my to higher than anyone else is a way of getting rid of me... doesn't seem right.

Seems like the management of
Submitted by meadandale on April 5, 2009 - 10:17am.

Seems like the management of the apartment complex has some issues. They MAY be trying to get rid of you but after what has happened why would you want to stay? They are doing you a favor by raising your rent if it causes you to move.

I think this ability to
Submitted by patientrenter on April 5, 2009 - 11:00am.

I think this ability to charge different rents to different groups is the reason why rents are so "sticky". By giving various specials to new renters and some existing renters, average rents can be kept higher. People don't want to move, so it takes a long time before everyone can take advantage of the new lower rent levels. I see lower rents taking years before they apply fully to existing renters.

Can you tell us what
Submitted by escapist on April 5, 2009 - 2:56pm.

Can you tell us what apartment complex it is? I just want make a mental note never to rent there.

-Thx

In San Diego, the police dept
Submitted by equalizer on April 5, 2009 - 11:27pm.

In San Diego, the police dept has crime watch email service:

http://apps.sandiego.gov/ewatch/index.jsp

escapist wrote:Can you tell
Submitted by anxvariety on April 6, 2009 - 10:38am.

escapist wrote:
Can you tell us what apartment complex it is? I just want make a mental note never to rent there.

-Thx

I'm not in California.

Well that changes things a
Submitted by SmellsFeeshy on April 6, 2009 - 12:50pm.

Well that changes things a lot then. AFAIK (and I'm certainly not an expert on this) rent control laws vary by county so especially if you're out of state then the laws there may be a lot different than if you were in San Diego.

SmellsFeeshy wrote:Well that
Submitted by anxvariety on April 6, 2009 - 4:27pm.

SmellsFeeshy wrote:
Well that changes things a lot then. AFAIK (and I'm certainly not an expert on this) rent control laws vary by county so especially if you're out of state then the laws there may be a lot different than if you were in San Diego.

Hi sorry for not mentioning this in the beginning. I lived in Cali my whole life but recently moved to Colorado.