Renters raising cost of rent to absurd levels

[MrDawn]

What are your thoughts?

For the first time in years, Billings mother Angie Schmidt felt like she was finally on stable ground.

“This is the first time in years I’ve been on my feet,” she said.

She’s been in her two-bedroom apartment off Grand Avenue for 13 months, but now she faces uncertainty after the complex was sold.

“My biggest goal is to not be homeless between here and the next place,” she said.

After all, she’s trying to keep a stable home for her son, 9-year-old Skyler.

“He’s number one, I can’t work more hours and still get him what he needs,” she said. “Basically, I live paycheck to paycheck to make that happen.

Schmidt isn’t alone in living paycheck to paycheck, so when she learned her apartment complex was sold and the rent would increase, worry set in.

“They canceled out the lease and they said if we wanted to stay it would be $1300 a month,” she said. “They increased it by 85 percent.”

She says back in March she learned the complex was purchased by Duane and Tiffany Youngren of Billings.

The rising cost of rent is crushing families, a Billings mom vows to fight back

She’s been in her two-bedroom apartment off Grand Avenue for 13 months, but now she faces uncertainty after the complex was sold.

www.ktvq.com

 

[Webster]

As much as people don't like it when landlords raise rent, look at it from the landlord's perspective: for most landlords (emphasis on most) most of that rent money goes right back into the properties they own, whether they be apartments or homes or trailer parks.

They also "forget" that until a year ago, there were Covid-19 related rent freezes, which meant a lot of landlords got zero rent for that time, all while having to pay mortgage on the property, taxes, etc.