:: Rent rant / Rent vent ::

Tuesday, September 03, 2002

August has left us. Long live September. It's time for the weather to cool off, time to return to school (unfortunately, not for yours truly), and time to start assessing the state and federal tax implications of claiming that the 90 foot schooner you use to illegally transport refugees from Haiti is for "anthropological research".

But let's not forget the key event associated with the changing of the months: forking over 60% of my monthly pay to live in a sardine tin rife with erstwhile-ghetto chic. It seems at first to be a fair exchange - I pay a slight premium for living in a new building, having a dishwasher, and for the recent gentrification. When I ponder it further though, I realize that the additional fee I'm dolling out should be counteracted by the value of the further current and potential future gentrification I'm providing. Landlords always seek out tenants who are more than able to comfortably afford the rent, and these tenants, in a sense, provide a valuable service (to the landlords) by raising the property value of the neighborhood. Not only do the landlords refuse to account for this in the form of some sort of kickback to the residents, but they hike up the rent when it comes time to renew (beyond the amount dictated by inflation and market fluctuation).

I'm helping my landlord (as well as the other neighborhood landlords) to charge more, and I'm paying for it. As one of my coworkers put is so eloquently, people in real estate are pit vipers.

[I realize this is a biased viewpoint, and I've already thought of several counter-arguments that demolish this theory, but if you paid this much, you'd be bitter too (and I know many of you are)]

Posted by morland @ 03:17 PM

:: Comments ::

i had a super evil landlady up until sunday. man, did she suck. you're right on, like usual, Ike Morland.

Posted by: josh from denver on September 4, 2002 04:47 PM

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