This article by npr is interesting if you haven't seen it already. The title is as follows

The housing market squeeze pushes renters into bidding wars

The corporate media is given up on demanding an end to all evictions regardless of whether they pay, and is instead pushing hard now to stoke the public into demanding nationwide rent controls.

I don't know who is behind it or what their game plan is.... but many of the stories are faked. One recently was footage of a crying veteran woman whose evil landlord tripled her rent.

I looked further and found out the lady had over $30 grand in unpaid rent and they were just trying to boot her out, but they left all that out of the story.

There's lots of them like that. Almost always its the landlord trying to get rid of a very bad tenant who can't get them out any other way. But the media tries to make the public think its a greedy landlord demanding outrageous rent. It makes me mad, I go around uncovering them where I can but few people seem to listen.

As for me I both haven't raised rents on anyone since the Pandemic and have never once had two renters bid on a vacant apartment, or heard of it here. That story sounds hyped to me too.

Maybe, the big corporate rental giants want rent controls so they can force more consolidation. Since they will have a big advantage having lots of apartments over the little guys, if not also ignore the new laws, still raise rents and slip the politicians cash.

Probably.

>> But the media tries to make the public think its a greedy landlord demanding outrageous rent >>

I read the comments of all the outraged citizens after these articles and it always makes me wonder why nobody asks "Why don't they just say no to the ridiculous lease renewal offer and look for a different place?"

This woman who allegedly was being raised to $3000.00 a month for her apartment. Can't she find another apartment, if she's as great a renter as the news story says? A veteran with guaranteed income for god sakes. Landlords would be bidding over HER if she paid ontime and caused no problems.

Or she could stay at a Holiday Inn with pool jacuzzi and room service for way less than that right. Where is her family.

But no, its always continue at that one apartment or homelessness, only two options.

My vacancy in Illinois was last month, and I had a number of "cream of the crop" applicants, that is... people who actually had a reliable payment history and decent income, and no record of destruction....turn up their noses at my fully renovated 1 BR apartment saying they wanted more space. And most of those were single people.

So there were no bidding wars here. In fact it took me over a month to find someone who would sign that wasn't clearly a dangerous risk. Here the people who actually pay rent are the ones being fought over. Must be nice.

I've had applicants offer to pay me more rent if I will choose them, but they are always people that I wouldn't rent to, and apparently no other landlord would rent to, and an extra couple hundred a month doesn't make up for whatever their undesirable loser problem might be.

Our rents have increased here year over year tremendously. The amount of increase depends on the neighborhood/city. Yes, we have had some tenants bid over rent list price but not on every property. I find it still takes some time (last one took 9 days) to find a tenant that makes enough to support the rent and meets the rental criteria. They apply even when clearly not qualified. Even well qualified tenants sometimes offer more here because there are so few available rentals of any type.

I was curious to know how far the rents had gone up in this market so downloaded a report from Rentometer for Florida. They gave the stats for 10 cities around the state. My area (West Palm Beach) has increased 47% from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022. The average rent for a SFR (detached) 3 bed/any number of baths is $4198 per month in Q1 2022 in West Palm Beach up from $2851/month in Q1 2021.They did not include short term or high end rentals in the stats. Just regular annual rentals for detached 3 bed homes.

The lowest increase YoY was in Orlando - up 24% to $2076/mth.

Clearwater is up 34% YoY average $2524/mth.

Sarasota up 36% to $3469/mth average.

Tallahassee is up 27% and their rents appear to be one of the lowest in the entire state for the same type property ($1750/mth).

I usually have a list of people to call on when I find out I have an opening coming up. The last empty I had proved different. The list had dried up.

It still amazes me the differences in rents around this great country.

I think the high bidder will usually become a problem. I set my price and stay there. I didn’t lose a penny during Covid because I have grade A tenants.

GKARL [PA]

I am about half way between Indy and Ft. Wayne. Middle of nowhere. Those two cities are much higher. Cost of living and all that.

Used to be that you could buy rehab houses cheap. They are higher now than what I will pay. That's why I am just waiting all this crazy out.

Just refi'd three duplexes built in 2000-2001. 2/1 with no garage or yard to speak of. Updated 5 of the six units in the last 1-1/2 years. The comps came back higher than I thought they would. Surprised my banker as well. 140k each. I pulled 98k from each before paying off old loans. I bought them in '05 for 75k each. Actually bought five of them. That was the biggest purchase in my tiny career.