How you get a raise and how I get a raise

As an employee, you typically get a raise when your employer (or boss) deems you worthy of an

increase in salary. This can obviously go many different ways and allows for arbitrary decision

making on who deserves what. You aren’t totally in control of this.

However, as a property owner, I get a raise when I decide I want to get a raise. Meaning I

increase the rental income on my properties and the tenants pay the increased rental amount.

This is entirely my decision and I cause it to happen! Of course one always needs to be careful

to stay within market rates or one could have a surge of vacancies - but typically a rent increase

of some amount can be done every year in almost any market. The point here is that a property

owner is in charge of his own decision to give himself a raise. (One would also need to stay

within state or city guidelines on the allowable rent increases for given areas, as typically these

are controlled.)

If one were concerned about the tenants being willing to pay the increased rates, there are

always unique ways that a property owner can make his tenants feel good about increased

rents - such as making a visible effort to continually improve some aspect of the property or

living experience. This can be as simple as putting in some new lighting around the exterior of

the property, planting new flowers or shrubs, painting new parking lot lines, or just about

anything you can think of that makes the tenants feel like their experience has improved. These

features don’t typically offset the raised rent amount and may also improve the value of the

property to some degree. And it is then easier to get higher rents from new prospective tenants

- so it is a win all around.