[sowbug]

An important qualification: if you rented as a kid, and now your kids are old enough to rent, your maybe-not-horrible experience is dated and probably no longer applicable. Apartments have largely gone corporate, and I assume also been taken over by private equity. Even cell-phone companies could learn a thing or two from their tactics.

[zeroonetwothree]

I have had very good experiences with corporate apartments. They tend to have their shit together. Compared to renting from some random old guy that wants to “fix things himself”

[arwhatever]

Corporate apartments raise their rents in lockstep with the market, whereas at least some randos will leave it stable for some years in a row.

[Mezzie]

Also, if you're a marginal renter, e.g. can't make 3x the rent from a W2 and don't have a co-signer, credit issues, etc. then the randos are more likely to work with you.

My sister was a sex worker for a while when she was younger, and trying to do things like rent was difficult because her income fluctuated a lot (always enough to cover rent, but she'd save during good months for poor ones) and she was technically self-employed. Or if you're on any form of disability, or if you had a medical issue that trashed your credit, etc. People getting out of prison, and so on.

If you stray from the happy path, woe unto you when dealing with large companies.

[aidenn0]

Helped my daughter find housing recently and we ran into lots of these issues (also, nobody we talked to was willing to allow a co-signer).

We ended up finding a friend-of-a-friend who had a bedroom to rent, but she will not (at least in the near-term) be able to rent an apartment.

[Mezzie]

I'm only in my place because when I moved in, it was owned by a friend of my aunt's.

At the time, I was legally limited in the amount of money I could make because I was relying on Medicaid and subject to income limits. I have MS and not having access to MS drugs is very, very bad and risks permanent consequences. The drugs also are ridiculously expensive (I think my monthly medication is about $30k/dose).

I had money, it was just all earned under the table on the grey market. Not a situation a corporate landlord is going to deal with, but I never missed a rent payment and I'm a very good tenant (clean, report issues promptly, read and adhere to the lease, etc).

I'm no longer subject to those income limits and I have a W2 job now and could qualify for an apartment based on that, but for a long time that wasn't true. On the margins, you end up having to look for the small time landlords, employers, etc. because if you're decent and you can talk to them, you can get a shot.

[arjie]

That's interesting. I suppose you can't run that kind of thing in an S-corp and pay yourself the regular salary. It's what I do. You have a W-2 and everything. But I'm doing the other kind of SW: software.

[Mezzie]

You probably could, but a 22 year old bipolar sex worker isn't going to.

If you have that level of acumen, you likely don't have to be a sex worker.

[a_e_k]

I had that experience with the last house we rented before we bought.

We were quiet, predictable, don't-rock-the-boat tenants, and the rando owner mentioned that they valued that enough that raising rents wasn't worth the potential risk of new tenants who might cause them more hassle.

[SirMaster]

I live in an apartment owned by a larger company, the rent raises really slowly in my experience, Like 3% per year. I have been at my unit for 15 years now, never had any problem or regret anything about it.