To increase rental price or not to?

[Rachel C.]

Hello BP family! I’ve been gleaning your wisdom on here for a while now (thank you!) and am a little nervous to post a (likely) silly questIon. Nevertheless, here it goes! Here’s the scoop...we posted our rental a few weeks ago and received SO MUCH interest in the property...nearly 1,000 views on Zillow in four days! I showed the property during two different open houses and received several applications. Yes, I had listed our minimum requirements (they are pretty high) in the listing and gave everyone the list at the showings as well. Soon after the second open house, I found out that our flood insurance was going to more than double once it became a rental property (no longer our primary residence). We took the house off the market to figure that situation out. $400 and an elevation survey revealed that our flood insurance will actually decrease, so we’ve decided to continue with renting after all. So here’s the question...should we increase the asking price $100 since we had so much interest the first go-around? I’ve since lost my most promising applicant 😩 and have already denied a few applicants based on minimum requirements. I am confident that we will get another great applicant and have been told by friends/family to raise the rent. Here’s where it gets a little sticky...I told one of the applicants what was going on with the flood situation and she’s been waiting to hear back from me for a little over a week now. I could still disqualify her but overall her application looked pretty good...nothing crazy...although I stopped all research and haven’t followed up yet with her “claims”. Do I raise the rent and let her know? Is that allowed? Or do I just deny her application based on minimum standards and fingers crossed that we do actually get another good/better application? Sorry for the long post! Thanks in advance for any advice!