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you rented as a kid, and now your kids are old enough to rent, your maybe-not-horrible experience is dated and probably no longer applicable.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.

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zeroonetwothree 7 hours ago | parent [-]

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”

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arwhatever 7 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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a_e_k 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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SirMaster 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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Mezzie 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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.