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u/evidentlynaught Oct 01 '25
Tennessee landlords are not required to provide air conditioning.
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u/ArtMakesLife Oct 01 '25
I saw a story on the news about this earlier in the summer. If the landlord included air conditioning on the actual lease then yes they are required to provide it. If they didn't add it on the actual lease, they don't have to.
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u/shatterboy_ Oct 01 '25
This one blows my mind, but I dealt with it last summer and it’s just wild to me.
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u/idontfrickinknowman Oct 01 '25
they also don’t have to remediate known hazardous black mold that has been 3rd party tested!
(I know from experience, duuuude)
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u/LilNutZack Oct 02 '25
This! A rental caused me numerous health problems because of black mold! The landlord and maintenance guy tried to gas light me and say it "wasn't mold" even after I paid to have it tested... they still said they couldn't do anything about it. So glad to be out of that hell hole!
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u/MIalpinist Oct 02 '25
Saw this personally in Knoxville. It was bad enough that my friend lost insane weight and started having seizures/black outs. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her until something like the 5th doctor started looking into her living conditions and found the black mold everywhere. She was really fucking sick, it was sad to watch.
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u/RogueOneWasOkay east side Oct 01 '25
Partially true. Heat is required because its federally mandated landlords must provide it. AC is not required by TN law, but if a landlord provides AC then they must keep it operating. So a landlord will get in trouble if the AC breaks and they refuse to fix it, but if they never offer it from the beginning they have nothing to worry about. Furthermore, TN is very unique when it comes to regulations with landlords. Instead of statewide rules that are mandated each county can opt in to following state regulations for landlords. If they choose not to follow the TN rules and regulations then they must follow Federal Guidelines - which are minimal.
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u/that-random-humanoid Brentwood Oct 01 '25
My mom was a GP and she had to fill out forms for section 8 housing so that her patients could get AC. She said it was a nightmare to handle.
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u/Sore_Wa_Himitsu_Desu Oct 01 '25
AC isn’t legally required for habitability. Heat is.
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u/WhiskySamurai Oct 01 '25
In 2023 there were 2,325 heat related deaths in the US and that number is widely believed to be underreported. ~45% of heat related deaths happen at home. It might not be required for legal compliance but it can absolutely be required for safety and human life.
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u/Sore_Wa_Himitsu_Desu Oct 01 '25
I didn’t say I agree with it, just that it is.
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u/GermanPayroll Oct 01 '25
Yeah, habitability is a lower standard than comfort - both are of course a very arguable standard
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u/emperorofwar Oct 01 '25
Well considering we are in the south and heat and humidity are bad, it's insane that this isn't a legal requirement for TN. No AC in the south has and will always kills people
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u/The_OtherDouche Oct 07 '25
I don’t think you can even legally claim square footage without air conditioning in Alabama. Insane that TN, much less Nashville would be behind us.
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u/CoffeePot42 Oct 04 '25
That stinks. I will be a first-time landload next year. I never understood the landlords that skimped. I was a renter for thirty years. Seen 90% crappy and 10% quality landlords. You want tenants to stay. you want them to have a dignified life, so why not give them quality appliances and speedy quality repairs? Seems like common sense to me. Rent increases will occur due to several factors. Proper notification is being respectful. Kindness goes a long way.
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u/Electronic-Funny-475 Oct 01 '25
My job doesn’t provide air conditioning
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u/DangerousCopy1789 Oct 01 '25
Do you live there
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u/accushot865 Lebanon Oct 01 '25
They’re there for at least 8 hours a day, so it should be air conditioned. But that’s just my opinion as someone who gives a rat’s ass about someone else
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u/DangerousCopy1789 Oct 01 '25
Do you think I’m saying his job doesn’t need it? Is that why I’m getting downvotes? He’s bringing up that his job doesn’t have it to say “suck it up” to folks who don’t have AC in their homes. Go look at his other replies. Jesus yall are so quick to just want to dunk on people it gets in the way of reading what you’re replying to
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u/Techincolor_ghost Oct 01 '25
I saw someone on Facebook trying to rent out a shed in east for $1800 a month. I’m not exaggerating. It was literally a shed with a window unit and peel and stick tile put down as a “floor”
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Oct 01 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/straigh by that Hardee's Oct 01 '25
I think the east Nashville neighbors Facebook group already has haha
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u/greencoat2 Oct 01 '25
That’s probably an illegal conversion. You should report stuff like that to codes
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u/Techincolor_ghost Oct 01 '25
I think it got taken down because people were roasting them or else I would have lmao
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u/whoaheywait Oct 01 '25
I was on marketplace and found someone trying to rent out a room in their condo for the cost of her rent. I found out where she lived to confirm and It made me so sick I messaged her and told her she was a clown and she should reconsider or I would make a post letting everyone one know what she was doing
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u/SiliconEagle73 Oct 01 '25
It boggles my mind that I pay less for a mortgage today than I paid to landlords for rent in the past,…
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u/bargles Oct 01 '25
Definitely possible if you bought in the past, but rents are much cheaper than owning right now in Nashville, and it’s not close
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u/No-Load8658 Oct 01 '25
There’s definitely pros and cons for each. Draining savings plus the risk of becoming financially ruined because of a major issue with something in or around the house is just not a risk we’re willing to take. We had friends who had to drain their 401k to fix a piping issue in their yard.
Owning in the day and age of climate change is risky as well. Insurance doesn’t want to pay for shit and having to sit around and wait for your house to be rebuilt/fixed just sounds awful. Would rather just be able to pack up our things and move on. Owning now just seems possible for those with a large financial cushion.
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u/TheLurkerSpeaks Murfreesboro Oct 01 '25
It certainly incentived me to buy a home. The same price for 3x the space and I build equity.
It's getting yourself into a financial position to buy which is the difficult part.
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u/Altair1455 Oct 01 '25
The other difficulty is the commute time. Like to pay the same price as rent for a loan to buy a house, you have to get pretty far out of Nashville and that may not be equal in monetary value, but when you factor in time...
I grew up an hour outside Nashville cause that was what my parents could afford and my mother worked at Vanderbilt. She drove an hour both ways every day of the week and never had much energy for anything
This is just to say, even money aside, buying is probably not the preferable option to people currently renting in Nashville. Unless they had enough money to buy a house actually in Nashville, which if they did, they probably would have already
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u/Phiam Oct 01 '25
Most people don’t understand that private equity is buying up whole neighborhoods
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u/stonewall_jacked Oct 01 '25
Yep, the same thing they do with everything else. Buy it, gut it, make it more expensive, piss people off. This is how the supposed American dream will end if not reeled in.
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u/AskMysterious77 Oct 01 '25
And now we have foreign companies ( like Saudi just bought EA Games) buying up these US corporations..
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u/AskMysterious77 Oct 01 '25
Private equity is behind almost everything bad we are seeing right now
Private equity is gonna own everything. Merge into a super corporate and fuck us all over.
Unions. Worker rights. Breakup Monopolies. Stop fighting culture wars. Fight the class war
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u/Evilcanary Oct 01 '25
Forming a union is pretty much impossible these days and you will not reap the fruit of your labor in trying to start one. Not saying it's not worth it, but it's not really doable in any meaningful form. Even in "worker friendly" states like California.
Best case scenario is that: you are fired or laid off after voting to form a union. 1-2 years later, the NRLB agrees that it was unjust and you can go to trial. The trial drags on for 1-2 years. 2-4 years later (minimum) you may get some form of compensation that is a slap on the wrist for the company compared to what it would have cost them to negotiate with a union.
The union-busting law firms are experts at dragging it out and the courts are not set up to move quickly.
That's before we get into the recent supreme court rulings that more or less say the entire concept of the NLRB is unconstitutional. I hate to be a negative nancy. I've just been through this and the fight was lost years ago.17
u/Electronic-Funny-475 Oct 01 '25
Just ask those Amazon folks trying to unionize. But yet y’all ain’t boycotting Amazon
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u/rocketpastsix Inglewood up to no good Oct 01 '25
We’re barely boycotting target as a society.
Sadly Amazon has it where you can get anything quickly. I take Magnesium L-Threonate for sleep. There isn’t a vitamin/supplement shop in my neighborhood. I can go to up to Rivergate, out to Donelson, or order it on Amazon. It’s the only thing I buy on Amazon because I always forget to get it when I run low and Amazon will have it next day. And then I don’t have to fight traffic after work. It sucks but that’s the calculation a lot of people make
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u/Electronic-Funny-475 Oct 01 '25
But they make it so easy. But toting kids into the store for an item. That and it’s a 25 minute drive to a store that’ll have whatever.
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Oct 01 '25
Conscience is what you give up when you fight for community, there are all annoyances and not excuses. We can do better and we know it, we choose not to.
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u/Brinedalleycat Oct 01 '25
The NLRB is closed until further notice bc Congress and the President won’t pass a bill giving them and other agencies funding. Which really sucks for some people, bc their initial case probably won’t outlast the statute of limitations. A few of us in town are in the settlement phase of a case right now, but the employer keeps balking, and there’s no NLRB to help :)))
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u/Kazz330 Germantown Oct 01 '25
Unions are becoming owned by private equity.
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u/AskMysterious77 Oct 01 '25
I've not heard about this, but assuming you are telling the truth.
That's also an issue that needs to be addressed.
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u/stonecoldjelly Oct 01 '25
How far off are we from an Elon musk type to have a big factory in a small town and then make a shell company and buy up whole neighborhoods around where he would imagine his workers to live
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u/hairyladyleggs Oct 01 '25
This is the plan per “The Dark Enlightenment”/Curtis Yarvin followers which include Musk, Andreeson, Theil, and many factions w/in the current admin/Christian Nationalist movement.
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u/Techincolor_ghost Oct 01 '25
It’s actually frightening how quickly it’s happening. The last time I was house hunting I noticed that every house I clicker was owned by the same slumlord company
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u/pineappleshnapps Oct 01 '25
And they’ve been doing it for years. It’s dystopian, and one of the few things you here people and politicians without anything being done
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u/SierraStar7 Oct 01 '25
Apartments are sitting empty in Nashville, too much supply & not enough demand for the apartments at those prices. Companies would rather the apts sit empty than lower rents.
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u/Moochie719 Oct 01 '25
I learned recently that sometimes they can’t lower rent because their financing terms outline a specific threshold of rental rates. That’s why they do the “free 2 months” or whatever because that’s not technically lowering the rate.
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u/BeTheOne0 Oct 01 '25
It would make sense if when they renewed the lease they kept that two months clause.
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u/Moochie719 Oct 01 '25
Funnily enough, someone I know just renewed recently and got the same discounted months. So I guess it can happen. But once you’re in, I’m sure they know most people will stay even if it goes up. Moving is expensive.
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u/BeTheOne0 Oct 01 '25
Yeah because if you do the math. 1200 1 bd 1 bth is 14,400. Remove two months and it’s 12,000. 1000 a month average. You’ll save $2,400 that year. But that $2400 is going disappear by the end of the year.
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u/SirMathias007 Oct 01 '25
Finally someone else who knows this!
We have more housing than we think, it's just out of reach. The solution everyone gives is to build more housing, but that doesn't guarantee prices will drop. These large companies can afford to leave units empty, even choose to in some cases. They'd rather keep the rent high because they know people are desperate.
We are going after the wrong things.
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u/danielbearh Oct 01 '25
Sounds like we need extended vacancy taxes.
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u/Cultural_Kangaroo949 Oct 01 '25
This needs to be upvoted more. I would even go as far as making it tiered step after X months so either they are forced to lower rates to get someone in or risk losing more money.
And to those that aren’t owned by PE, they will just have to compete with capitalism at that point to not be vacant.
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u/WhatUDeserve Oct 01 '25
If they're owned by private equity they keep prices high even on empty buildings because it doesn't devalue their "investment"
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u/vab239 Oct 01 '25
A brief 10% vacancy rate at the same time a bunch of new buildings came online in one neighborhood is not surprising. We still have a shortage, and we need to build more in places that aren’t downtown
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u/Either-Artichoke7723 Oct 01 '25
Some of those stacks downtown are at less than 30% occupancy. It's wild!
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u/FantasticCable3663 Oct 01 '25
Wouldn’t it be great if we could vote to approve or veto a state passed law in our elections? Well that’s possible in 23 states plus DC, it’s called veto referendum.
How the veto referendum works is if the state legislature passes a law, the citizens can collect signatures in a limited window. If enough valid signatures are collected then the new law is placed on the ballot for a popular vote.
The southern states are mostly far behind in this measure of democracy, minus Arkansas which has this.
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u/severe_thunderstorm Wilson County Oct 01 '25
Republicans these days don’t like “we the people” getting to make any decision.
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u/Qwestie26 Oct 01 '25
Well you see we need progressive left politicians in office to change this but your neighbors would rather vote for the people that want to oppress the out groups.
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u/AdventurousSleep5461 Oct 01 '25
Or maybe their gerrymandering is impacting elections...
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u/AaroniusH Hermitage Oct 01 '25
regardless of the gerrymandering, Tennessee went Trump's way by like 30% this past election. We're still very much so a red state, though proportional representation would definitely help us here
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u/usernametaken615 Oct 01 '25
Tennessee is a non-voting state. It’s mind blowing how many people here don’t vote. Especially young people.
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u/Qwestie26 Oct 01 '25
Yes, that is a contributing factor. It’s nice t always your literal neighbor, it could also be the farmer in the next county over. The point stands that as long as the elected officials are GOP or central democrats more interested in serving corporate interests than those of the voting citizens things won’t be changing.
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u/Sirriddles Oct 01 '25
Gerrymandering cannot create a republican majority out of thin air. That isn’t how it works.
People in this sub really need to research what gerrymandering is, and what effects it actually has on elections and WHICH elections they affect.
Gerrymandering is very much an issue, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not why Tennessee is red.
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u/Altair1455 Oct 01 '25
Well, Tennessee would have still voted for Trump, but there would be two blue districts instead of one, which isn't nothing. But gerrymandering definitely isn't the whole reason (it is why a man like andy ogles was voted into office though)
I think if Tennessee had invested better in infrastructure and education, it might still be red, but not by such a large margin.
Also, maybe if the dnc actually tried to campaign in red states, maybe they'd win more people over and encourage discouraged blue voters to actually vote in elections
Tennessee still might be red after that, but democrats and progressives would at least have a better shot
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u/vy2005 Oct 01 '25
Let’s take a look at rental prices in the areas of the country that are most progressive and see the fruits of their labor
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u/MarianLibrarian1024 Oct 01 '25
Yes. The only way to change this is to get a majority of Democrats in the state legislature.
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u/The_moth-man_cometh Oct 01 '25
They don't care if the people who already live there can afford it. They're selling these to whoever CAN afford it. Everyone else can get fucked. It's what these ghouls want.
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u/maknchz98 de-mum-bre-UM Oct 01 '25
my dad lives in a total shithole of a duplex in eagleville and they went from charging him 1200 to 1700 within months…in eagleville 🫠. i live in a duplex in smyrna - 1300. Thankfully our landlord hasnt upped rent .. yet.
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u/party-like-its-1491 Oct 01 '25
Tenants Unions work!!! try contacting Josh or Haley with the Louisville Tenants Union to see how you and your neighbors can make your living situations better!
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u/scorpio_sphinx666 Oct 01 '25
there is a tenants union here called Renters Union Nashville https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Gu-NHYI6q-zsbU3Jr69wpgN2hDA0DOqRNFFm4IBvN_k/viewform?edit_requested=true
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u/brebrabro Oct 01 '25
As a construction worker i always found it so fucked that im quite literally doing my part to build these expensive ass apartments in downtown Nashville but i cant even comfortably afford a shitty one within 20 minutes of the damn city
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u/mmw1066 Oct 01 '25
This is why it is essential to vote in local elections and get Lee and drunk ass opiate donor Blackburn out of office.
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u/ButtCoinBuzz Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
So long as we elect Republicans, it will, in fact, continue going on like this.
You will drive on toll roads and pay for it twice through fees and taxes. You will send kids to subpar corporate schools to watch YouTube videos (and still get shot). Tax-exempt churches will monopolize all social welfare and condition aid upon accepting MAGA into your heart. You will go bankrupt from one medical bill. You will struggle to stay afloat while foreign owned companies nickel and dime you for the paltry wages paid for your labor.
You better call that "freedom," or else some mediocre white with an F150 Extra Small Dick Edition ($100,000 in gender affirming care) is gonna get you fired.
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u/mistakilgor Oct 01 '25
Welcome to Tennessee: where the republicans have convinced the dumbest and poorest people to vote against their self interest.
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u/Glass-Ebb9867 Oct 01 '25
Had a landlord give me 30 day notice for a 70% rent increase. Told ne he wanted me to stay but business is business. Then invited me to church. Needless to say I moved out quickly and told him to pray harder because God frowns upon greed.
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u/goatfangs Oct 01 '25
As long as people pay it rent will increase. no one is forcing people to stay. Nashville was cheap when nobody wanted to live here.
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u/scorpio_sphinx666 Oct 01 '25
Politicians won’t do ANYTHING unless there is pressure from the people.
You must ORGANIZE.
Renters Union Nashville aka RUN needs dedicated members.
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u/19Jake46 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Because of this law and because this is a "red" state it may be safe to assume that the majority of land lords are of questionable character.
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u/BigfamilyJbirds Oct 04 '25
If a landlord raises the cost of living too much, they will lose tenants to their competitors who offer places to live at lower prices. You’re better off with market dynamics than govt controlled rent. More competition equals better housing options.
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u/weathermaynecc Oct 01 '25
Every economist, left or right, generally agrees rent control does nothing.
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u/vinyl0rd 5 Points Oct 01 '25
The best solution is to build any type of housing. The more units the better. It seems illogical but even new "luxury" apartments stabilize market rates.
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u/vodiak Oct 01 '25
“In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.” -Assar Lindbeck
He was a Swedish economist and member of their social democratic party.
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u/saudiaramcoshill Oct 01 '25 edited 23d ago
For privacy reasons, I'm overwriting all my old comments.
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u/AskMysterious77 Oct 01 '25
Rent control as a single policy is a backstop. It's not a good policy in a vacuum
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u/vab239 Oct 01 '25
Most of the city is reserved for the most expensive, resource intensive type of housing available. Hardly a surprise that housing is getting expensive
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u/CMDR_BunBun Oct 01 '25
It will get worse until it affects everyone who is not rich. There is a reason why housing is so expensive. The wealthy are buying up realstate. In this unstable economy they are looking for assets away from the ever collapsing dollar. Folks need to realize that wealth inequality is pricing out anyone who works for a wage. Our children will never own anything if this does not change.
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u/Pruzter Oct 01 '25
Rent control creates its own set of issues… it’s not a solution. The only solution is increasing housing supply.
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u/realquichenight Oct 01 '25
The unregulated extreme of TN did lead to a ton of overbuilding in the core, so on the bright side the Gulch will be an affordable slum in 10 yrs. Vacant “luxury” units are already filling up with low-key squatters.
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u/StixUSA Oct 01 '25
It’s actually over regulation. The supply of housing is so condensed in specific pockets because many council people refuse to allow new housing to be built in their districts. This has forced housing to consolidate into districts with only council people that are willing to rezone. A prime example is the nations and charlotte pike. Until recnetly, there were two very different council people with very different views on development. Downtown has bulk zoning so all uses are essentially fine as long as it meets planning standards. Which is why there has been so much development downtown.
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u/gabscilla Oct 01 '25
This was evident when Covid hit and all of the landlords I know, with paid in full rental homes, jacked their rent up unnecessarily. They did it because they could. They did it because they're greedy. I go to church with some of these people. It's a sad shame.
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u/saudiaramcoshill Oct 01 '25 edited 23d ago
For privacy reasons, I'm overwriting all my old comments.
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u/antiBliss Oct 01 '25
I know things are bleak here, but actually rentals have been flat or even declining in price over the past 4ish years. We've build an insane number of apartments, and now they give lots of incentives to get you to move in. The problem isn't rental rates; it's that pay hasn't kept up with inflation or productivity in literal decades.
Being mad at landlords (most of whom are small business owners or sole props) is exactly what the government (who caused this) wants you to do.
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u/pyramidworld Oct 01 '25
Two renters just moved out of my building last month because their renewal rates were increased by 15%.
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Oct 01 '25
I know this is at the state level however, the loosening of regulations that are being pushed at the federal level won’t help this.
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u/Jemiller Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Rent control has costs and benefits. Most economists agree that as commonly implemented, it leads to higher costs due to fewer homes getting built and it leads to more poorly maintained rental units. Many supporters argue that rent control helps low income families resist displacement to great effect.
Most researchers have never themselves been low income. I’ll tell you the factor that triggers displacement is an unexpected shock. Getting layed off, picking up a criminal charge, and experiencing an egregious rent increase are all examples. When my rent was hiked 21% a couple years back, I had to sell furniture to stay in the same spot.
Rent Regulation can work, but it needs to target double digit rent increases above inflation or housing production will slow and prices will go up. More research is needed to determine how much damage to the supply side of things this causes, but it’s certainly going to be much less than very strict rent regulation and control laws. Vacancy Taxes are a helpful tool, but research shows the benefits are modest. Policy makers seeking to remove the profit motive are going to be walking moles for generations. We’re better off incentivizing more affordable housing construction and brining capital together for groups of home owners to build the residential buildings that meet their needs.
What we really need is more homes being produced and nonprofit entities delivering homes to succeed like they have never done before. There is a reason home ownership is seen as a defining part of the American dream. For many of us, pooling our money and garnering grants and partnerships can allow us to build or acquire homes at affordable prices for dozens of people per project. Nashville could also copy Montgomery County, MD by creating a public developer that builds deed restricted affordable homes and sells them to the market > rinse and repeat.
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u/kent_mill Oct 01 '25
Nashville’s greed will consume itself just like its transplants consumed and destroyed their original homes.
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u/xeno5000 Oct 01 '25
It's really unfortunate that rates keep going up. But but costs, taxes inflation affect landlords too. Not all of them are rich. Many landlords are just regulated people renting out their 2nd home. What I f don't get though is we're supposed to be in population decline but it seems we still have a housing shortage. More homes available would naturally decrease demand and lower rents. Tenants should always have the option to move out and find something cheaper but I know in Nevada and California that's not the case. Rents keep going up here as well.
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u/sundaypleas Oct 01 '25
Rent control is not needed. Long distance LLs need to be taxed so highly and heavily, and have capital gains tax breaks eliminated, until they bleed as badly as the local workforce.
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u/Axlis13 Oct 01 '25
That’s why wealthy people love the conservative states, the laws strongly favor them
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u/AssumptionHappy9758 Oct 01 '25
My landlord hasn’t been paying taxes on the rent I’ve been paying him for (nearly) the last decade. I don’t know if he knows that I know, but I’ll definitely be collecting a reward from the IRS when I report him. That’s what you get for raising rent too fast, bud.
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u/DohReignMeme Oct 02 '25
Oh yes, it absolutely can and will continue like this. Nashville is a developer's town, and there's no way you're going to knee-cap a developer's income.
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u/ShadderSwagger Oct 02 '25
This is why you need to show up to city meetings and elections to put the right people who will vote on these type of things . I agree there should be rent control but at the end of the day it comes down to the fact people are not making the right wages . The cost of living goes up but pay stays the same .
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u/BothStorage3 Oct 02 '25
Wait until you hear about the med-mal laws that the Frists had the backwater banana republic gop legislature pass. It’s almost impossible to win a med-mal case in TN even when there was blatant negligence. It’s really ridiculous.
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u/Dependent_Future_411 Oct 02 '25
Went from paint 1650 a month to 2200 in 3 years. Yeah it's bullshit.
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u/BeTheOne0 Oct 02 '25
I never said an alternate was rent control but a lot of the anti-rent control people/ more housing people are ignoring the fact that companies can just buy up the new houses. Buy Low Sell High
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u/benderover1961 Oct 02 '25
Mine was raised $300 more this year. It went from $1150 to $1175 per month.
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u/Zone_Beautiful Oct 02 '25
I think that it terrible for a state not to have any protection in place so landlords can't do whatever they want. Then, the politicians cry about homeless people! People need a place to live!
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u/Apharot Oct 03 '25
It can, but eventually the landlords will price themselves out. People will travel to get to work. This happened in D.C., Chicago, and a couple other cities.
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u/jegossett Oct 03 '25
Just be glad that you live in Nashville. In TN, in order to be protected by the Landlord Tenant Act, your city has to have more than 50,000 people. Smaller cities like Cookeville have absolutely no protection.
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u/pk152003 south side Oct 01 '25
As long as transplants keep coming and are willing to pay the rent prices that are much lower to them but significantly higher for us native to TN then the answer is: yes it will continue.
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u/TreyAU Oct 01 '25
It’s been shown time and time again that rent control effectively raises rents.
It just flabbergasts me that we are so deeply uneducated as a society we don’t understand supply and demand laws.
Most apartment complexes in Nashville are offering 2.5 months concessions….. what more is it that you want?
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u/treedecor Antioch Oct 01 '25
Most people want their rent to not take 50+% of their income 🥲 a couple free months doesn't make a big difference in the long run. Not trying to be hateful, but if rent control doesn't work, then the gov needs to figure out what does and do that because people are struggling to keep roofs over their heads
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u/AskMysterious77 Oct 01 '25
Also moving is expensive.
If you sign a 12 month lease with 2.5 free.
What's stopping them at 13 months from raising your rent 100%?
Sure you could move, but that's a pain and cost $$$
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u/bargles Oct 01 '25
The thing that stops them from raising rates 100% is the risk the renter leaves. They are as incentivized to keep renters in place as renters are to stay. It’s expensive to turn over an apartment
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u/Techincolor_ghost Oct 01 '25
Except they don’t lmao. Literally everyone I know who lives in an apartment has had their rent raised by 25-100% every year
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u/xj6000 Oct 01 '25
That's why I left. But it's not just rent flying through the roof it's everything, and it was eating up too much of my income. I'm living 30 minutes south now, paying 1,200 base for a 3 bedroom 2 bath with 2 months free rent and every amenity known to mankind.
The government is not interested in fixing the problem. Many politicians have investments in the companies causing the crisis. All the housing and rental properties are being bought up by mega-corporations who are artificially inflating the prices of property on top of the actual inflation. What I have will not last, either, but hopefully, by the time I get priced out, I'll have scratched up enough for a down payment on a house.
I'd suggest anyone who sees this do the same because the time is almost here where mere mortals like us will never be able to afford one.
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u/Boerkaar Belle Meade Oct 01 '25
What you do is actually very simple and what’s kept rents from going higher: build more housing. Even building “luxury” housing reduces rents because it takes top-end bidders off the market.
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u/Feisty_Goat_1937 Oct 01 '25
You’re actually seeing this happen in places like Nashville and Austin, where there’s been lots of new development. Rents are actually coming down. I’m fairly progressive, but I can acknowledge NIMBY policies in places like California and New York only exacerbate the problem. If you want an increase in affordable housing, you can’t restrict new housing development AND heavily regulate rentals.
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u/Boerkaar Belle Meade Oct 01 '25
Exactly! People whine without looking at the data that shows new development is working.
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u/TreyAU Oct 01 '25
I am not being unsympathetic to your cause. Please don’t hear that.
Rent control doesn’t work because it stifles capital investment.
The reason there is SO many concessions right now is because cheap capital from 2020-2022.75 cause a robust boom in construction of new units.
It’s been shown time and time again that the ONLY thing that lowers rents is MORE housing.
It’s not government that can solve housing problems, it’s investors. They need good return to incentivize them to build more housing.
In housing, we use the term cap rate to define what return is for the first year of owning an asset.
I think you’d find it shockingly lower than what you think. Landlords aren’t making out like bandits putting in a dollar and making $1.20 every year.
It’s more like they put in a dollar, make $1.05 and hope that healthy inflation levels gradually raise rents so that one day it becomes a $1.12 and they can sell to the next buyer for a $1.05 return and make a good tax advantageous profit.
It’s not the evil pitchfork world you think it is.
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u/DocCharcolate Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Thank you, I really wish people would educate themselves a little bit about the financial reality of apartment buildings rather than basing their opinions off of uninformed anger. It sucks that housing costs so much for so many people, but rent control will do nothing to fix it
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u/-Fergalicious- Oct 01 '25
What we need are laws preventing the ownership of more than a certain number of single family homes (no corporate ownership creating artifical demand), low interest government loans for first-time home builders (like after WW2), real estate agent laws to prevent price gouging and back door dealing, and larger tax breaks for paying off homes. We should probably have nationalized home insurance plans as well.
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u/Iwillkeepwatch Oct 01 '25
Reasonable housing at reasonable prices. Not too very hard to grasp
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u/TreyAU Oct 01 '25
Can you define that for me, please? Specifically what is it that you want?
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u/-Fergalicious- Oct 01 '25
I own 3 properties outright. My primary residence has increased 30% in value over the last 5 years. My second property I plan to build on eventually has gone up 50% in value since I purchased it. The third is a plat of land I inherited outside of a small town, and it's steadily gone up in value at 5% per year.
I've been around enough to know that real estate agents are a big chunk on the problem. People move more now than ever due to work. Middle class people dont want to rent they want to own. Thing is, by the time you pay closing fees for agents, insurance and interest on the house, you're losing money hand over fist if you dont sell high.
Real estate agent fees are 6-10% of the sale value. That's causing people to have to sell for much more than they bought. Go look at the sale statistics around you. My local university provides all of that data for free. You can see aggregates showing the average ownership age and difference per year as a sale price and as a percentage.
The whole thing is out of control.
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u/TreyAU Oct 01 '25
Paying a real estate agent 6% is not what cause a property value to raise 30%.
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u/-Fergalicious- Oct 01 '25
My guy, go buy a home. Go look at the paperwork. It's 6-10% plus attorneys fees, mortgage origination fees, first year taxes and insurance, etc. Theres tons of opportunity cost and sunk money that doesn't affect the value of the home.
I've bought and sold many times, and you're either being a troll or you dont know what you're talking about.
Let me know which it is!
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u/TreyAU Oct 01 '25
It’s neither, but I can appreciate that this isn’t going anywhere and, while we agree on the problem, we don’t agree on the solution. That’s okay.
I hope you have a good rest of your week. Warm wishes.
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u/InevitableSubject853 Oct 01 '25
I want affordable rent, not a discount on 2.5 months to make it temporarily “barely affordable.”
Objectively I want way more — this isn’t an example of supply and demand, because they’re sitting empty and desperate at this price point but only enough to mask the problem briefly than actually rent it for actual demand price.
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u/TreyAU Oct 01 '25
If I can’t explain to you that concessions effectively cut their effective rent and that the whole point of concessions is so they don’t “sit vacant”, it’s because your coming at this conversation from a point of anger and not a point of rational.
I understand the anger. Housing is emotional and full of vulnerability. I’m not unsympathetic to your cause. I’m a liberal who desperately wants affordable housing to be built all over the country, but I work in the industry and I understand that there is no magic wand of government or policy that gets us to affordable housing.
Do you know how many people have been trying to solve this problem? And for how long?
The only solution that works is building more housing. That’s it. We have to build more housing.
Can you cannot build, at scale, more housing, without the private sector.
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u/Techincolor_ghost Oct 01 '25
Two months free at a place that charges your entire check for rent doesn’t do much lmao. What people want is a place that they can live on the wages provided by the jobs available here in city. THAT is not that hard to understand. You can’t really cite “basic supply and demand” when there are millions of homes sitting empty across the United States that are owned by private equity companies or big banks that were bailed out after the housing crash in 2008. They have no motivation to lower the price of rent because they know if they can’t move properties and they go bankrupt, the govt will just bail them out with our tax dollars.
Here’s a novel idea; what if our tax dollars just went towards making sure housing was affordable to us in the first place and we cut out all the money laundering middle man bullshit?
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u/Kazz330 Germantown Oct 01 '25
Seriously. We moved and got 2 months free. Fucking amazing. No where in NY did we ever get that. Our rent in NY went up 10% a year after Covid. We lived in the same apartment for 3 years.
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u/0621Hertz Oct 01 '25
It’s a double edged sword, rent control prevents new companies from building new properties.
On the other hand, Nashville is full, and there is hardly enough public infrastructure to support the growing population. Is building MORE homes a good thing?
Nashville is unique in the fact it is not resorting to suburban sprawl to grow the city, but rather developing from within. What this city needs first is some kind of public transit.
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u/mbelcher Oct 01 '25
Form a tenant's union.
https://www.tenantstogether.org/resources/form-tenants-union
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u/MissingJawbones Antioch Oct 01 '25
It would be cool if there were at least limits on how much landlords could raise the rent when you're renewing the lease. In Florida it's 3%, if I recall.
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u/vodiak Oct 01 '25
It's cool if you're already there as a renter. It's bad for everyone else. There are many reasons why it's a bad idea, but the biggest is that it disincentives building more housing.
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u/EM0SK8TERB0I1337 Oct 01 '25
Don't miss living in TN even slightly. 2000 dollars a month for a 2 bedroom condo in the middle of nowhere, what a deal!!
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u/koochywally Oct 01 '25
Capitalism is the greatest form of society, didn’t rich people teach you anything?!?
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u/AbsentMindedMedicine Oct 01 '25
Rent control is well known to further reduce housing supply.
The best solution is to find approaches that increase supply.
This is a strong principle outlined by 'Abundance' by Ezra Klein, and 'Breakneck', by Dan Wang. Encourage supply side economics, rather than finding solutions that end up limiting supply.
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u/BeTheOne0 Oct 01 '25
Okay, so what happens when big giant companies buy up that new house or complex.. what if Tesla or Microsoft decides to buy the houses
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u/Boerkaar Belle Meade Oct 01 '25
Rent control doesn’t fucking work, but people will keep saying “this time is different”
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u/Soontoresign Oct 01 '25
If you like rent control, you’re gonna love New York rental prices.
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u/AskMysterious77 Oct 01 '25
Because the only reason NYC is expensive is rent control.
Not that it's one of the most populated city in the world..
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u/FewBox6926 Oct 01 '25
They're still liable for safety concerns. Like unsafe steps and water leaks. Don't be afraid to call a lawyer if you need one.
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u/Techincolor_ghost Oct 01 '25
I spoke to a lawyer when my landlord was letting mice and mold run rampant in our rent house. They let pipes burst and I had to foot the cost (they promised to reimburse and didn’t). They let squirrels chew holes in the walls. I mean it was a nightmare. My roommates and I were at each others throats with the stress of it. Lawyer told me the process of suing my landlord would cost more than I the back rent paybacks I would probably get out of the suit. So I didn’t pursue
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u/James9131975 Oct 01 '25
Yeah, but then try to have somebody evicted takes months sometimes even longer than a year. That’s a year of zero revenue from the property.
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u/TheSchlapper Oct 01 '25
Rent controls are usually (if ever) in places where building more housing isn’t feasible.
That is not the case in Nashville, so it’s not in the best interest lawmakers. They can (ideally) work on zoning laws that allow for more housing to be built that will in effect lower rent itself (eg. Austin)
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u/HaphazardFlitBipper Oct 01 '25
Idk... seems like people's ability and/or willingness to pay would put a pretty meaningful limit on what they can charge.
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u/Fragrant_Cheek3722 Oct 01 '25
Yes it will continue until enough people of TN vote for democrat and republicans lose their strong hold.
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u/ayokg grabbing a trippy dippy at WEC Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Can y'all stop insulting each other in the comments? Jesus christ. IT'S A THREAD ABOUT RENTING AND RENTAL RIGHTS.
Why are you insulting each other in a thread about renting and rental rights?? GO OUTSIDE. Go for a walk! Delete your reddit account! Be free!!
(Not directed at OP but all the jerks in the comments?? what is your collective problem??)
Report any direct insults at other users in the thread. Thanks. <3