Increasing Rent - how often/how much?

[Judy South]

Just curious if there is a rule of thumb when it comes to increasing rent. How often do you increase rent, by what percent, and how is the increase communicated to your tenants - meaning do you tell them what the increase is going towards or is that just an expected cost to being a renter? Lots of questions I know :) we're coming up on a one year anniversary for our first rental and would like some thoughts. Thanks!

[Account Closed]

When I was managing apts in Silicon Valley, we raised rents once a year - except the year the market crashed.  We only did month to month agreements, but we told tenants we only raise rents once a year.  How much just depended on the market.  But, basically, if we wanted to keep the tenants, we'd raise the rent to the point where they were still a bit below market.  This would keep them from moving out, after they hit Craigslist and realized they were still getting a good deal.  We figured it kept the building full of happy tenants and turnovers are expensive.  

And any new vacancies were priced at full market rent.