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Researching my rental market story for today, I heard from several renters and landlords with perspectives to offer — so many that I didn’t have room to include them all.
Here’s a perspective from Alex Posch, a biologist living in Mira Mesa.
Posch had been living with a roommate for about three years in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Mira Mesa. In those three years, their monthly rent went up just $25, Posch said. When he moved out, he noticed the landlords listed the house on Craigslist for $50 more than he’d been paying. Two weeks later, Posch saw the listing price drop to what he’d been paying. The ad disappeared soon after that.
“They probably lost more in that one month that it sat empty than they would’ve gained raising the rent,” he said.
And his girlfriend had a similar story — a one-bedroom apartment near Interstate 15 in Mira Mesa for which she’d paid the same rent for four years, only to notice the rent drop $100 for the next tenant after she moved out.
The couple searched for a new place from January to March, looking for a two-bedroom place big enough for a home office. They found a home at the end of a cul-de-sac for which the landlord was charging $1,500. Posch said he didn’t try to haggle with the landlord; that price seemed to be at the bottom of the range for the houses they’d seen. Plus, the house came with appliances like a washer and dryer already in place, and the flexibility to let Posch put his green thumb to work in a garden.
“We have a house that’s definitely the bottom of the market with a landlord who seemed to be marking down the rent in order to get the best tenant he can,” Posch said.
Share your thoughts about Posch’s perspective or about the story today in the comments below (head to Survival if you’re not there already). Or you can always send me an e-mail at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org.