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One the of consequences of having below market rate tenants is that they seem to go out of their way to avoid much conversation with me. They stoop-talk for hours on end with my wife(i guess she’s not the landlord in their eyes), but keep it short and trite with me.

Anyway, I just found out from my neighbor, that one of my tenants is pregnant(his wife and my tenant take the Dekalb bus together in the am). So here i am contemplating raising the rent on a couple that’s having a baby this summer.

As a parent of 2, i understand how drastically one’s budget priorities change once you become a parent. There will never be a good time to increase the rent on a young family. They’ll always need to buy more diapers, more formula, more food etc. I love my kids to death, but they’re a money pit.

At the end of the day, thats probably the biggest reason why i want to raise the rent. I’m leaving $1800 on the table every month. That’s $21.6K a year that could toward the enrichment of my children.

Back to the question at hand. Popular opinion seemed to be that a increase greater than $150 was unreasonable, with 4% being generally accepted by most. Does the fact that my tenant will be having a child this summer change any of this?