Wondering what you landlords would consider as a good basis for moving to a month to month lease? Our PM company wants 10% add-on to go month to month. Standard rent increase has been exactly 3% whenever we've signed another lease for a year. I'd like to propose going month to month, but at a lower rate than 10% increase since I'm taking a risk going month to month also and the house is getting in worse and worse condition.
Would a proposal of 5% be acceptable? 3%?
Would an email with some pics of the deteriorating state of the property help or hurt our case?
Should I bypass the PM company and contact the landlord directly? We've had to do this on a few instances where repairs weren't getting done at all. I'm afraid that doing this may just push him to sell.
Background:
We've rented our house 6+ years. It's owned by an out of state landlord (I don't believe he has other properties) and run by a very large property management company. PM company does horrible repairs and has let the place go downhill. It's never been painted, drywall repairs are done poorly with no paint over them, the fence has huge holes in it, shower continually drips, carpets are brown, kitchen cabinets are warping or losing their door fronts, etc. Basically anything that has broken over the years has been ignored or just pieced together with spot repairs (ex. our dishwasher is from 1995 and has been "fixed" 5+ times). Mainly, they do subpar maintenance and never come and do the final details. Most of the time they end up saying stuff "can't be fixed" so I do it myself. But living here for so long all these half-assed repairs are adding up.
We're considering either buying a house or taking a sabbatical in the next two years. And I'm considering month to month to avoid the 2 month break lease fee if we want to move. We are very undermarket for rent but our house is in pretty poor condition. Assuming we have a 3% rent increase, our rent would be $1930 (MTM at 10% would be $2055). Other duplexes/houses in the neighborhood can rent for $2,300-$2,700 but they are recently updated and have AC or swamp coolers, while we can be 90+deg inside during the summer. Duplexes in around the same era/condition of our house can be $1,900 but are very rare. Our house hasn't been updated since 1995.
Am I just being a cheap tenant with high expectations or would you consider other proposals for a lower month to month rent option? What evidence, if any, would you like to see or would this just make you run away from being a landlord?
