Rental Crisis Control Group
We’re back here at Rental Crisis Headquarters, reporting in on the latest in the Rental Housing Crisis. Last time we shared the good news and the bad news about The Crisis. But we left a chapter unwritten. Because as anyone knows, there’s never just a good and a bad. There’s always the good, the bad and the ugly.
And this time, the bad is so ugly that when it looks out the window, it gets arrested for mooning. It’s so bad that even Hello Kitty wants to say goodbye. And as we said before, it’s just chew your arm off ugly. So here it is, the Ugly of the Rental Crises:
1. Rents are going to go up. Way up. So you’ll need to make a budget.
2. See problem number one.
3. Rents are going to go up across the board. New construction is expensive. The rent commanded by new construction is unprecedented. Landlords of existing building see that and think, “I can’t believe somebody’s getting that kind of rent in this neighborhood. I’m going to raise my rents.”
4. Demand is running amok, supply is just amok. In other words, demand is outpacing supply, which always leads to price increases.
5. Hello rent increases. Already have a New Berlin apartment? Good for you. But the cost of the apartment is likely to increase every year, even if your building stays the same.
6 Hello rent increases. Is there an echo in here? We already said that your rent is going to go up, even if your building remains the same. But what if it doesn’t remain the same? What if the landlord sees an opportunity in fixing the building up, redecorating or remodeling? Hello rent increases!
7. You’ll have to move quickly. While you’re busy slapping your forehead, dumbfounded that rent could be so much, somebody else is slapping down a deposit on that New Berlin apartment. Their forehead was probably already sore.