Whether you’re renting now or you’ve been a tenant in the past, chances are you’ve seen your monthly rent increase around the time of your lease renewal. Knowing you’re going to have to dish out more of your monthly income just to cover rent is never a fun feeling .
But the increase from year to year isn’t always super high, right? Well, that may depend on who you’re renting from, and where you live.
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One TikTok user showed how her monthly rent was due to increase by more than $850 per month.
A TikTok by Kara Perez ( @webravelygo ), titled “Lol Austin,” shows just how much her monthly rent in her Austin, TX apartment is about to increase.
“Me checking my new lease to see what the new rent is…”
The TikTok begins with Perez doing something that most of us have probably done at least a few times: checking the new lease as the old one is about to end.
And to her surprise, it’s gone up… by a lot.
The new lease agreement sets the price at $2750 per month, and a caption overlayed on the video shows that her current lease has her paying $1895 per month.
Which means she’s expected to pay $855 more per month than she was paying last year.
That’s a 45% increase.
Like the audio in the TikTok says… this is a joke, right?
But unfortunately, it’s not a joke. And Perez probably isn’t the only one experiencing this kind of rent increase.
So it’s very unsurprising that the comment section was outraged.
“That’s more expensive than my mortgage in San Diego,” one user commented.
“How they expect people to pay these prices when wages are stagnant?” asked another user.
Like, seriously.
Some were surprised that this rent hike happened in Austin of all places.
One commenter wrote, “Um that’s west coast prices. Like y’all got big city problems without the benefit of good weather, mountains, ocean, lakes etc. . That’s crazy.”
And of course, people were asking the most obvious question of all.
Like, an increase like that is practically criminal. It should be illegal, right?
One commenter asked, “Isn’t that illegal, in most states they can’t raise the rent more than 10% correct?”
Perez actually replied to that comment.
In a follow-up TikTok, she explains that Austin is in a state that doesn’t have rent control laws, which means landlords are well within their rights to gouge prices like that.
And according to her research, Austin itself doesn’t have rent control laws either.
Which only proves her point that money isn’t just money, it’s political as well.
“It’s not just about how much you can save or cut back or invest, it’s about the world and the systems we live in as well.”
And honestly? This really sucks.
“I keep telling my hubby this is why so many people are living in tents or a car. Not drugs/alcohol. It’s rent,” one user commented.
It’s getting increasingly hard to afford rent on our wages…
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
