Do corporate landlords care about resident retention?

Have a friend that worked in management at these complexes.

The business model works this way. They are basically targeting a 95% occupancy rate.

They always want a few empty units because if they are 100% full, and everyone is happy paying rent, there’s absolutely no way to figure out hey, we could be making a bit more money by raising rent.

On other hand, if they drop below 95% occupancy, then they aren’t maximizing the profit potential and will hold rental rates. Some on this sub may have experienced that at the beginning of the pandemic - there was a huge exodus from apartment complexes and many of them were holding rent steady and offering other incentives to stay and renew.

Rent keeps going up simply because they can. People keep leaving, but they are replaced quickly by those who are ok paying more, because that’s what the going rate seems to be.

Imo really goes to show that building more housing supply is the way to control housing costs for everyone, not just the top and bottom of the income ladder.

Let me also add this personal anecdote: I moved here and paid a bunch for a sweet studio apartment in belltown with a view first year I moved here 2013. After I wised up and my rent was increasing by $200 a month, I found a less nice apartment, but larger and cheaper in Queen Anne.

Had my corporate landlord not had the ability to raise rent on me and still be cash flow positive, I would have never moved, and I wouldn’t have taken that unit which was lower cost and older, more suitable for slightly lower income residents.

Many people decry the creation of new high-end luxury apartment housing - but if those 200 units fill up, that’s 200 fewer rich people competing for the older housing stock in the city which is more affordable for lower income folks.

We simply need more housing, rich, poor, whatever. But the solution to high demand is more supply, and housing is not something that people often willing choose to live without.

/r/Seattle Thread