12 months or more to increase rent seems counter-productive. As it would mean that what makes most sense for landlord is to just increase by maximum each and every time as they cannot forecast changes over such long period.
Still, capping increases to something like inflation+2%, and making leases continuous with long termination periods would be entirely sensible fixes.
If inflation+2% is an acceptable rent change, I don't understand how needing 12 months or more to increase rent is a problem. The only thing a shorter time period allows is a landlord to say "well, over this past 3 months we saw inflation change by +-0% but 0+2 is still 2%, so we're increase rent 2% in the next 3 months period".
12 months seems rather extreme range to me. So what would happen is that you rent a place, day after you move in you get notice that yes we are going to increase rent by maximum in a year. After all this is the most logical and effective time to do it. Now cost might not increase as much in year from that date, but landlord does not know. Come next year, they again also don't know, so again max allowed at time.
But instead, if you can notice rent increase let's say 1 month before year is full, they might look at what are current cost and think oh, I could do with lower increase.
One option is to require multi-year lease options. Most commercial leases work that way. That creates a lot of stability and predictability for the family, just as it does for businesses.
My basis is continuous contract with let's say 3 or 6 month clause of termination under limited reasons. Like purchase or taking unit to use by family. Or something like large renovation...
Yes, give families the choice. Some will choose a lower price with less stability (like me, a single dude). Others will choose a higher price for long-term stability (such as a family of 5).
To allow some leeway for increase in property value and demand, in general lot of money looks that level of returns. Also inflation does not always full reflect the costs.
Also something like 2% above inflation does not lead to unreasonable increases. Until market rates are reached.
As a landlord, if you want to forecast over long periods you don't raise rent. Everything else is rolling the dice. Someone who increases rent by the maximum each time owns multiple units they can afford to leave vacant for indeterminate periods, and is gambling with their money.
Giving multi-month notice that rent is going up means that the tenant has X months to shop around.
If the increase is too high, the tenant can push back by moving, or negotiating.
This only works, of course, if you actually have a supply of vacant housing. If there's a housing shortage, no amount of notice is going to fix the rental situation.
Still, capping increases to something like inflation+2%, and making leases continuous with long termination periods would be entirely sensible fixes.
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