Landlord Says Tenants Shouldn’t Complain About Rent Increases Because Her Mortgage Increased Too
For many tenants today, rent is getting harder and harder to afford. Higher expenses and inflation, combined with stagnant wages, have created a perfect storm of unaffordability, made worse by the cost of living. But what about the poor landlords with their own mortgages to pay?
One landlord was less than empathetic to the plight of tenants struggling to make ends meet in light of constantly rising rent prices. She argued that landlords are hurting too. But is her plight really relatable?
One landlord argued that tenants shouldn’t complain about rent increases since her mortgage increased, too.
She filmed a video explaining that she had raised her tenant’s rent by $100 in response to her mortgage increasing by $111. TikTok’s response to her video was overwhelming, and it’s no secret: in the current world we live in, landlords are no one’s favorite.
She sarcastically referred to herself as a “greedy landlord,” and then argued that due to this change in her mortgage, she was now actually losing more money than she made. She argued that the price hike was just her best attempt at “trying to stay afloat.”
The landlord got very little sympathy over the increase in her mortgage.
TikTok, however, was having none of it.“It must be so hard living my paycheck to my paycheck,” one commenter wrote, blaming the landlord for self-victimizing herself while relying on another person’s income to support her financial endeavors.
Another pointed out the hypocrisy of her decision, pointing to her complaint about her own mortgage increasing by $100 annually due to insurance and tax costs. “Wait wait how are you taking a loss when your mortgage goes up $111 yearly but you increase the rent $100 per month for your tenant?”
Another TikTok user agreed, pointing out that even if there was an $11 difference between the landlord’s mortgage and the tenant’s rent, she would still be making a profit. An increase of $100 annually is much less than an increase of $100 monthly. Others have gladly begun to repurpose common millennial jokes, suggesting that the landlord “buy less avocado toasts.”
The landlord has apparently been unfazed by the controversy and has continued to post updates of her ventures into the world of real estate and home investing. Hilariously enough, the angry commenters have followed her to her other videos, leaving comments like “Is it $11?” on a video of a run-down house she was considering investing in.
Many renters are spending the bulk of their income on housing costs.
Dusan Petkovic | Shutterstock
It’s no wonder that the general consensus is that landlords are greedy. With housing prices still through the roof, inflation hiking up everything, and thousands of Americans seeking work, it’s easy to point the finger at those making day-to-day life even more expensive than it already is.
In June of 2022, the median rent across the U.S. was nearly two thousand dollars a month, hitting an all-time high. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 4 million Americans believed they would be evicted within two months, and over 8 million were already behind on payments.
A newly released report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University found that half of all U.S. renters were spending more than 30% of their income on housing, and over 12 million Americans were spending at least half their paycheck on rent. With housing costs so high and rent increasing just the same, what is there left for most people to do? Thus, the problem of landlords increasing rent is ever more serious.
It shouldn’t be landlords versus tenants when everyone should be able to thrive.
Landlords, by definition, are people who own large numbers of properties and rent them to tenants in need of shelter. They are then expected to assist the tenants in the upkeep of the properties and manage disputes or legal issues as needed.
As valuable a service as landlords seem to provide, the services they offer can be limited. There are thousands of horror stories online of tenants needing maintenance or other services from landlords and being met with lazy or subpar solutions, or just straight-up having their concerns ignored. This is not to mention that the landlords themselves are free to set prices however they choose and can and do displace families at will. That’s just a fact.
With all this in mind, much of the internet has resorted to calling landlords “parasites” for pricing so many people out of a place to live. Many landlords, as one might expect, do not agree with this label. The truth is, as unpopular as the opinion, this landlord isn’t wrong. Her costs are going up as well. That’s not an excuse to get greedy, however.
Think of it this way. If a landlord rents an apartment at a reasonable rate, but the costs to maintain that apartment go up, they aren’t making a profit. Basically, everyone is losing right now.
Hawthorn Martin is a writer living in Texas who focuses on social justice, pop culture, and human interest stories.
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