Apartment Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why

Will this withstand DOJ scrutiny? If it does, the sky is the limit on rent and just wait until this tech moves into other areas of our life.

BTW, This is being used in the DFW market.

Rent going up? Your landlord’s skyrocketing property tax could be why.

Fixed it.

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I’ve been listening to Gov Goodhair II’s anti-Beto ads, where he claims he’s keeping property taxes down. I’m massively curious about he’s doing that, since the state has very little to do with property taxes. And, my rent is going to spike because Carrollton is jumping commercial property taxes this year (or so I’ve heard).

If you read the article, it isn’t property taxes. It is the apartments sharing rent information along with vacancies into a AI database. The AI app is telling the manager what to charge.

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Yeah, we saw…

I know of no small time landlords using such an app… but am acutely aware of how much the property taxes jumped last year on the non-homesteaded properties we have.

So, who is raising the taxes? Could it be due to inflation? If so, where did it come from?

Your local County Tax Assessor.

Even if the market isn’t going up as much as they claim, they raise them. We hire people to fight to help keep them in check.

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This is the gist that I’ve heard about how he claims to be doing this:

In 2019, Abbott signed two bills that require local governments to get voter approval if they wish to raise property taxes by 3.5% or more, a law local governments claim have put them in a budget bind.

and ‘the plan’ is to use budget surplus to “buy down” local taxes:

Abbott said during Friday night’s debate he would use half of the state’s $27 billion projected budget surplus to issue property tax relief across the state. Abbott said he would use that money to “buy down” property taxes at the local level.

They wouldn’t need the app…only to be a price follower rather than a price setter…right?

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The software is focused towards multi-family CAP rate valued properties. I expect single family has a lot more owner discretion involved.

No doubt, but the principal remains: if a big airline decides to use expensive advanced software to better employ pricing discrimination for seating, you can bet smaller airlines will start mimicking the pricing strategies. A rising tide, or pricing environment, raises all boats, or prices.

There’s a line to walk of too expensive and folks move too soon and too cheap and they stay forever. We set ours based on amenities (washer/dryer, fridge, stove, and HVAC) and costs, trying to stay in the upper 3rd in the areas we’re in to attract families who will stay.

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Tax rates generally aren’t going up. But there was a looming housing shortage before COVID, and the gaps in production and supply chain made that worse. Then add moving people from crazy high market areas to ones that used to be affordable, and the property values have soared. So 68 cents per $100 valuation looks a lot different if the house you paid $200K for now has comparable homes now selling for $400K. So tax collections go up for the same rate. And honestly, the costs of running a city have often gone up fairly similarly. The builders and the city projects both need the same generally limited supply of concrete and construction labor.

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My landlord told us specifically that he’s jacking our rent substantially because his property tax is due to jump this year.Raymond said the same thing, basically (because he’s a landlord).

Mind you, I’m planning on fact-checking him, since property taxes are in the public domain.

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It has been a renter’s market for the last few years and that just changed. With mortgage rates sky-rocketing fewer people can purchase homes so landlord’s are back in control. You might want to get that lease signed pronto and be happy about a slight increase this year. Unless the economy goes bad, rents will begin climbing again for the foreseeable future. The traditional rule of thumb for a rental was 1% of the market value of the house, per month. If you are paying less be thankful, if you are paying more then consider searching for something else.

Some factors I’m aware of the in rental market:

  • Increasing demand : Texas has become a destination state for individuals and employers migrating away from other states with higher costs of living
  • Supply constriction
    • The entire market heavily prefers construction of single-family luxury homes first and foremost; construction of luxury apartments is a very distant second (and even then the NIMBY crowd exerts significant headwinds)
    • While each new build - single- or multi-family - adds to the supply of housing, it’s behind demand to the point that the market price of rent doesn’t falter
    • Outside of significant .gov incentives new affordable housing simply doesn’t get built; affordable housing is essentially old housing at the final stage of its lifecycle before renovation or demolition and redevelopment - both of which will be done to claw back upmarket
    • Single-use zoning and constrictive permitting inhibits organic densification - division of single-family homes into duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes, addition of accessory dwelling units, merging 2 or more lots into compact apartment buildings - all which would as a relief valve against rising rents and valuations
  • Income verification : Landlords will initially use a nominal market price to set rent but then raise it to the point that they’re extracting whatever percentage of your income that they see fit to collect

Of course, Blackrock et al have famously been hoovering up single-family homes in the last few years, contributing to inflation in their retail price and associated rental rates.

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The other part of this, is that insurance companies just seem to have realized that the rate they have been increasing covered value year over year by default has not been enough. So they have done a round of adjustments, and insurance on houses has gone up this year as well. Many homeowners are grumbling about it. But nobody wants to find out that the house they bought for $200K was only covered for $288K when it burns to the ground and would cost $400K to move to a different house or rebuild.

Seriously, this is definitely something that needs to have action. I don’t know what they solution is, but there should be bigger penalties or deterrents or something for people owning homes they don’t live in. Are at least something to encourage/make things more accessible for first time home buyers/people who want to live in a home

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Given the potential of that line of discussion to nosedive into politics I’m going to limit my comments to analysis.

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That could put an end to the availability of rental homes.

Is that what you want to have happen?