Raising the rent

[Charles Graham]

How do you tell your tenants that your raising the rent? 

[Seth McGathey]

For me, making sure they know that I am being fair. The last time I had to raise rents significantly I showed them the numbers. I pulled rents via rentometer and showed what the average rents were. So I said X is what I want to charge for this unit. But you have been here a long time and take care of the place. So I am going to give you Y as a discount. (I actually gave her a couple discounts). So your new rent is Z. Which this final number was a few hundred dollars more than before. She accepted immediately. Because I made sure she knew that I wasn't just raising the rents. I was actually giving her a discount. Just not as big of a discount as her last landlord.