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I ran into this new story this morning on WMBF, thought everyone might be interested in reading if you will be renting when you move. I was wondering why the nicer apartments have openings all the time, well now I know. Also starting to understand the 3xs monthly rent thing a little bit better, I knew there was something more to that then met the eye. I'm starting to see the more you dig, the more you find, and not everything is such a pretty picture down there.
I don't understand your comment re "understanding the 3x monthly rent thing a little bit better" based on this news story. I didn't see anything in the story that addressed that. Can you help me understand your comment?
I don't understand your comment re "understanding the 3x monthly rent thing a little bit better" based on this news story. I didn't see anything in the story that addressed that. Can you help me understand your comment?
Well I'm starting to see why it matters so much to them that you make 3xs the monthly rent. They jack the rent up all the time and want to know you can handle those new prices they are going to throw at you. I don't think it's seasonal work, or any other reason I was told. Of course the wont tell you they do those things, heck no one would move in. That news story is telling in more ways then one. That one woman started out paying in the 700s two years ago and now pays almost 1,000 a month for the exact same apartment and nothing new was built. I always wondered why they wanted you to make 3 and 4 times the monthly rent when they don't get that amount of money on the month so what should it matter to them, now I know....they eventually do get that amount of money on the month. My rent may be decent when I first move in but a year or two down the road lord only knows what they will charge me, I may go from 750 to 950 for the exact same apartment, with nothing new added on. If you pay attention to the news story it kind of answers some questions. I'm not used to that way of doing things, around where I live that kind of silly business don't go on. You don't pay 750 on month and then 850 a few months down the road and then 950 a few more months down the road. I've paid the exact same price for a much nicer apartment then what is down there, brand new mind you and I've never been changed not $1.00 more then what I signed my lease for and I've been here 3 years now and only signed one lease. Also if anything my rent should have went up, they are still building brand new apartments in this community(it's a large community). There is still five new buildings to be built before they will be finished. Don't give me that crap that it's how renting goes, down there maybe, but not everywhere else. I'll be renting when I move and I must say it's a bit scary to hear about such high price increases on apartments that don't have anything done to them to warrant the price increase. I could see it if they was making upgrades and adding new things for the renters, but they are not. I thought when I first found out rent increased I was lead to believe it wouldn't be by much and it could go up or down. Well I didn't hear of down I only heard of up and it wasn't just by a few dollars. I was also lead to believe that signing a lease locked you into one price for a solid year and apparently that may not be true.
Last edited by CarolinaDreams; 03-08-2013 at 08:43 AM..
I haven't been a renter for years but I was under the impression that rent cannot increase during your lease term. I also don't think a lease term is necessarily going to be for a year, down here it may be 6 months in some places. At the end of the lease, yes, of course, your rent will probably increase. Safe to assume most everything will increase in that time frame as well. I can't imagine anyone telling you your rent might go down. Someone tells you that, you walk away, because you should know it isn't the truth.
I think this all goes back to comparing apples and oranges. I know you have a very nice, brand new apartment in WV. You've said yourself it's a dead end town, no business, no night life, nothing fun to do. Compare EBF, WV with Myrtle Beach. Night life, the ocean, sun and sand, fun places to explore, etc. How many people want to move to your town vs. here? Of course it's going to be more expensive to live in a fun place like the beach.
I think you are frustrated because things here are not like they are at home, and the more you find that out, the more frustrated you are getting about the prospect of moving, and the more there is to complain about. Cost of living is going to be much cheaper in a little inland town like yours. It definitely sounds like this is your first time moving away from home, and you're finding out things are different everywhere you go.
I think if you and your husband really want to move here, you might just have to lower your standards a bit, temporarily. Everything in life is a trade-off. So you live in a lower priced apartment for a year, one that DOESN'T have granite counters, new cabinets and a hot tub, has been lived in before, maybe lower-end carpeting rather than hardwoods, etc. You deal with that for a year or two while you get your financial house in order, get the lay of the land, and spend time researching the area you'd like to be in, and eventually buy a house, which is your main goal, I believe. My very wise father used to tell us kids, whenever we would whine about something we had to do, that anyone can deal with anything, as long as they know the beginning and ending dates. Your mother-in-law coming for a week visit? Ok, I can do that. Your mother-in-law coming to live with you till she dies? Not so much.
So find a lower priced place to rent, not in an apartment complex, maybe a small duplex, triplex, privately owned. They are all over. Look in Surfside Beach, Garden City Beach, look on Craigslist. Yes, you have to be careful but there are many reputable landlords advertising there. You will probably have to sign a lease, and pay a security deposit. So suck it up for a short time, keep stuff you can't fit in your apartment in storage, live as cheaply as you can and keep your long term goal in sight. You have to be willing to give things up temporarily to get what you want in the long run. That's how life works.
If you want to rent an apratment for 500.00 a month, your rent should only be 28 percent of your gross pay.
Is that what you are talking about?
That is everywhere.
You must gross at least 500.00 a week to rent an apartment for 500.00 a month.
When you get a lease, it is in writing waht your rent is going to be for how long. Everything
is spelled out, in writing.
I dont understand your point saying people have to make 3 to 4 times the rent amount.
That is how it is everywhere. I used to rent all the time, and that is how it is.
OP, I have been following your posts since you started looking in MB, I've just never wanted to chime in. At this point, though, I would like to comment if I may.
My dh and I have owned rental property and been landlords for many years. He started in the business in 1982 and I joined him when we married in 1988. Our rentals are not in MB, but there are certain things that apply to this business universally.
First off, the "3 x the monthly rent" rule is not something that landlords are putting out there just to exasperate potential tenants. Believe me, people want to rent their units, because an empty unit does not pay the bills. However, if you try to look at it from the landlord's POV, it doesn't do any good to rent a unit to someone who has no financial reserve if they lose their job unexpectedly or their spouse leaves them, etc., etc. In a place like MB, it is very much a factor if someone has seasonal work. I have seen that in our own rentals in the North. Someone who works in a seasonal type of work here, say, road construction, often times finds themself hard pressed to pay rent when they get laid off for three months, because the sad truth is that most people spend today and don't worry about tomorrow. I didn't say you are like this, just that most people are and that is why landlords have to protect themselves. If someone is not living paycheck to paycheck with no extra income, then the chances of getting the rent are going to be better if the tenant makes more than just enough to cover his monthly rent with little left over. Eviction is a long, drawn out process and very costly to a landlord, as they cannot collect rent while the tenant who can't/won't pay their rent sits in the unit waiting for the magistrate to order them to vacate the premises, a process that can take months. It's not like a landlord can legally just tell a tenant to get out if they don't/won't pay, it takes time and, as they say, time is money.
Landlords are not evil, rich fat cats making a living off of scamming the "little people" who rent from them. There are many, many, MANY expenses that go along with owning rental property, and it just isn't possible to raise the rent enough to compensate for all of them. Let me give you an example: my dh and I own a 12 unit apartment building. In the 10 years that we have owned it, our property taxes have gone up more than 100% from $6,000/year to $13,500/year. Our water bill has increased 60%, and we now pay over $4,000/year to supply water to the building. Our insurance costs have more than doubled, thanks in large part to catastrophes that haven't even happened in our part of the country. We pay over $3,000/year for insurance. We pay $100/month to supply our tenants with a dumpster for their garbage. We have coin operated washers and dryers for our tenants that we lose money on every month because the gas bill exceeds the income from the machines but that we must keep because on-site laundry is an amenity that attracts tenants. It seems like we are constantly replacing carpet because people don't take care of it, which isn't cheap. Then, of course, there is the monthly mortgage payment. Landlords in MB have to deal with all of the above as well.
All of these increases are out of our control, yet we couldn't possibly raise the tenants' rent 100% to keep up because they would all move. If we so much as raise the rent $10/month, which we haven't in over two years because we have enough trouble finding decent people to rent to and there is stiff competition around us, then people complain, even though they seem to be able to afford cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets with no trouble. We are anything but wealthy, and we are currently trying to get out of the business for once and for all and have our properties up for sale. We have tried to be good to our tenants and eat a lot of the increase in expenses, and what we get in return increasingly is people who don't care, who leave us filth to clean up, and who have no respect for themselves or anyone else. It just isn't worth it anymore. We will keep our condo in MB, but we use a management company for that so we avoid most of the hassles in exchange for just getting a fraction of the income.
In short, it isn't about you vs. the landlords, rental agents, or whomever you have been dealing with down there and they are all trying to stick it to you. It is about people who are in business trying to keep their business profitable, which only makes sense, or why go through all the hassles of owning rental property, and believe me, there are a lot of hassles!
You want to move from an area that people do not move to for any particular reason and is not popular with transplants to an area that is a vacation mecca for the entire eastern United States and draws people by the thousands every year who want to live there based on fun, the beach, and no snow. Can you imagine how many times the rental agents in MB have heard stories like this: "Dude, I wanna live at the beach! It sucks where I come from, and I wanna have fun, fun, fun in the sun! I'm sure I can get some kind of job somewhere down here, so go ahead and rent to me, I'll be good for the rent, I promise!" It's frustrating enough where we live, I wouldn't even begin to do it in MB.
I hope you find a resolution to your problem, I really do. I agree with the PP who said that you will probably have to live below your current standards at first, and if you want to live there badly enough, you will accept that. I have heard you mention that your dh makes $10/hour. While it is above minimum wage and probably goes a lot further in WV than it would in most places, I'm sorry, but that is not considered a high wage or the type of income that would pay for luxuries like granite, stainless steel, and hardwoods. When you get established down there and you are BOTH making considerably more than that hourly wage consistently and year round, that would be the time to consider the luxuries that you are now enjoying in WV for a low price. Those types of things cost dearly in most parts of the country, particularly in a place that attracts as many people as MB does.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
Last edited by canudigit; 03-11-2013 at 07:53 AM..
Canudigit - VERY well said! Thanks for sharing the POV of rental unit owners. Especially the part about what you can expect to pay in rural WV vs. the beach.
I ran into this new story this morning on WMBF, thought everyone might be interested in reading if you will be renting when you move. I was wondering why the nicer apartments have openings all the time, well now I know. Also starting to understand the 3xs monthly rent thing a little bit better, I knew there was something more to that then met the eye. I'm starting to see the more you dig, the more you find, and not everything is such a pretty picture down there.
I'm a twentysomething landlord (my property is in Greenville) and I have no problem charging a high rent/high security deposit to keep rift-raft out. It's a very common practice to ask that for tenants. The current apartment I live in wanted proof that your salary was at least twice the amount of the required rent. It's all due to the fact that myself and others want bills paid on time and in case they aren't, there's that cushion to help if rent isn't met.
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