Living The Semi-Retired Life: I Ain't Afraid Of No Rent Increase

Homeowners love to hyperbolize what landlords can do to you

Welcome to the 138 free subscribers and 3 paid subscribers we have added so far in May.

I’m thrilled with the growth of the newsletter. At this pace, May will be the newsletter’s best month. Thanks to everyone who reads and Substack for the support.

Right around the time you received this installment of the newsletter,

Ben Le Fort

published one of my most aggressive articles to date on Medium. It’s about the way a handful of overzealous homeowners essentially brand people who rent idiots. They sit in the peanut gallery chiding us as if we’re the biggest fools when it comes to money.

Maybe those of us who rent do so for a reason. Maybe our decision to rent stems from our past experiences with money, current personal financial situations and plans and desires for the future. In the Medium article, I touch on some of this. I’ll expand on each point as they relate to housing decisions in future installments of the newsletter.

But today, I do what we do in the newsletter. Take things significantly deeper and more personal than I do on Medium.

Which leads me to the subject of rent increases.

Those overzealous homeowners I speak of love to pull out the rent increase card when they scoff at the apartment dwellers among us. They’re akin to the people running rampant today who spew about how dangerous and unlivable cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles are without ever having spent meaningful, if any time in either place. They run with a narrative they know nothing about. They’re misinformed and, even worse, they lack actual experience on the subject.

I’m in my 28th year of renting apartments.

I have rented 14 apartments in 8 cities over that 28 years.

I can count—on one hand—the number of times a landlord has increased my rent.