Mega-landlord to smaller landlords: Don't be greedy pigs

While there are landlords who keep up their property and give a decent shake to their tenants, an awful lot of them don't.

I lived in a rent-controlled building, in Cambridge, for 7 years after finishing up school in the early 1980's, and rent control hung on by the skin of its teeth for a long time. When I moved out (due to purchasing the place where I presently reside, it was not a moment too soon; the rents skyrocketed, and not long afterwards, rent control went out statewide, including Cambridge.

Frankly, I think that a lot of average, everyday people who're uptight about rent control don't really know how rent control ( is supposed to) work; Granted, not all tenants are angels, and, if a landlord wants to sell his or her place, that's their right also, but they have to notify tenants in a reasonable time-frame and fashion. However, Rent Control offers tenant protection in that it protects the tenant against rent gouging (raising the rents to outlandish proportions), retaliatory evictions (meaning that if a tenant has a grievance, such as a necessary repair that has gone undone for too long, the landlord cannot retaliate by evicting the tenant, and is obligated to make the repair(s)), condo-related evictions (meaning that the landlord can't evict a tenant because they want to convert the apartments to condos), and it obligates landlords to make necessary repairs.

This is not to say that a landlord can't raise his or her rents, but when the landlord's costs go up, he or she is allowed to raise their rents accordingly, which is fair, imho.

Some landlords do need to raise rent 10% in a year if that's what it costs to maintain the building and still eek out a profit. But in many cases these days it's places taking advantage of a lack of supply compared to demand.

.. I lived in in the San Francisco area. They raised the rents 10% and a lot of people moved out. they consistently had long-term empty apartments. Never understood how they made money that way.
They also cut back on maintenance. They did not respond on the weekends unless it was an emergency. the kitchen above me clogged and flooded one Friday eve, heavily dripping onto my dining room table and their carpet. When I got home that night a lot was already ruined. They said it was not an emergency. When I moved out about 1 1/2 yrs later they tried to charge me for the carpet. Fortunately I had what happened in writing from the manager at the time of the drip.
But I'd take them over Burn 'em Down Brown.

Supply and demand. Shitty housing is almost always cheaper than dorms. You don't wanna live in Hamilton's dump? It's fine, someone else will.

It's one reason why greater Boston has the "brain drain" of young graduates fleeing the area. No one can live within a reasonable commute without multiple MBTA trasnfers on a starting level salary and start their professional life, living like they did in college, with 17 other people.

Banks foreclosing on properties and kicking tenants out/not renewing leases/not selling the properties, effectively reducing the number of available housing units.

Time for a vacant property tax and/or eminent domain seizure of "abandoned" properties, anyone?

In actuality, Kelly's got talked into a ten-year lease on the Marty's site.