Tax increases

Property tax increased a lot. This is passed on to renters (you get a credit for it on state tax!).

Also, inflation was ~6-7%. A normal rent increase on top of that means 10% isn't absolutely crazy. Still a lot of course.

Like, do people actually not understand the massive discounts that were being offered in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID? Rents were obviously going to normalize when the world went back to normal, people.

What type of apartment do you have, where is it, and what is the new rent offer?

Yeah it amazes me people still don’t get this.

1BR From 3400-> $3800 per month. Doorman building near exchange place/ Grove Street/ Newport PATH general area.

My partner wants a doorman building due to sense of safety so I'm stuck with these crazy high rise rents.

I dream of ~3 years ago when a 3 BR 2BA I split with roommates in the best location in a subway rich area of NYC was nearly the same price all in ($4300 total now it's going for $6k last I checked).

If it’s only 10%, it’s in line or below inflation for the area.

For a “luxury” building it’s certainly below inflation. Their taking in less profit than they were a year ago.

People forget minimum wage went up in NJ and doormen unionizing across the river. Those things alone mean costs are up way more than 10% for anything labor intensive. After loan repayments labor is almost certainly the 2nd biggest cost for any building operator. 30-50% not being uncommon. More if you include all services which are labor intensive (electricians, plumbers, etc.).

That’s on top of the 8% inflation avg around the US.

Then you have taxes…

10% means expect it to go up annually by 10% until it fully incorporates all the cost increases. They’re just averaging it out.

I love this subreddit.

Mere hours before we got this latest installment in the recurring "my rent increase was totally unfair and unsustainable" theme, a bunch of people on another post were trying to explain why a $35 can of potato chips at Hudson Greene Market was totally reasonable.

Yes agree 10% appears to be the norm this year. Still will rant about it. We need to build 10x the housing each year so it depreciates like Tokyos does.

sense of safety?

The answer is that governments like Jersey’s and New York’s just do not regulate the rental space at all. They let it run amok, and there’s just tons of skyscraper loft buildings that need to be filled and it drives up the rent for everything else around it.

You can probably get them down to $3600, but yea that ain't cheap.

I've lived in Jersey City since 2014, and my rents have always been going up around 10% in luxury buildings, with the exception of covid

2014: walkup

2015: same walk up, no increase

2016: same walk up, ~5% increase

2017: moved to luxury building, so major increase in rent

2018: same luxury building, ~10% increase

2019: same luxury building: ~10% increase

2020: same luxury building, no increase

2021: different luxury building, ~10% decrease from prior rent, but apartment is bigger and nicer (still a 1 bedroom, but 150 more sf and a nicer view, "covid deal")

2022: same second luxury building, ~20% increase from original rent in this building, but on trend since I got a discount in 2021

2023: same second luxury building, ~10% increase

Am I the only one that doesn't think it's that bad? You sort of need to expect these increases in luxury buildings. They are constantly upgrading things, maintenance usually available within 24 hours, a doorman, and perks that walkups don't have. If you don't like the increases, then you need to move to a walk up.

All of the people I know who live in walk up buildings or rent from individual owners have not seen increases like this. It seems to be a luxury building thing. Don’t want these increases? Don’t like in a luxury building that has shareholders and huge debt to answer too

You basically listed all the various factors, so choosing just one would be incorrect. You need another option that reads "two or more of the above"

>a bunch of people on another post were trying to explain why a $35 can of potato chips at Hudson Greene Market was totally reasonable

I dont think anyone actually tried to argue that it was reasonable to pay $35 for potato chips. Some of us did point out that the price was BETTER than what is charged for the same tin elsewhere in the US, like they retail for $40 in NYC, if you can find them. That's it.

I get that $3,800 is a high rent, but also you live with a partner so that’s $1,900 each which is pretty reasonable for the area.

FYI, one of my doormen murdered someone. Saw his mugshot on the news and had to text my old roommate. Couldn't believe it. Was pissed I gave him money for Christmas every year.

Then you gotta be cool with the negatives their economy has as well… poor seniors depending on their kids (or homeless if they have none), little free income for the average person after housing and food etc etc. that’s how that depreciation is paid off. People working 60hr weeks for minimal pay, seniors depending on their kids etc.

Doesn’t come from nowhere. You pay for it one way or another.

Or do what UAE does and bring in slave labor.

But reality is humans being paid to do work will ultimately cost you money.

Again, you’re mostly complaining about a minimum wage hike and it’s effects on our economy. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Taxes went up in jersey city and that gets passed along to renters.

Rents don’t need to be regulated. The underlying costs need to be regulated

This is not true. Landlords are going to charge the most they can, regardless of their own costs. Raising their costs isn't necessarily raising the rent. Not building more housing because of NIMBYism is what raises the rents -- also in the whole metro area, not just in JC alone.

And yet all that is being built now is luxury housing…

Then I guess you could say only adding luxury rental buildings to the housing supply is the real problem?

Yeah, after 2 years living in our apartment our landlord asked us if it was ok to raise the rent now or if we needed more time.

It was just 100 dollars.

Increasing supply should be helping demand, but obviously when the new supply is pricier than what currently exists, it drives up the cost of rent as well. I'm not an expert in this but I imagine there are a number of factors related to rents going up.

The point still stands that the 10% increases are generally only seen in luxury buildings, and that to avoid them, you should rent with a single landlord.

I don't disagree with you on the build more housing or that landlords increase as much as they want.

However landlords do increase rent if their costs go up too. It's not mutually exclusive. They have a floor and ceiling. The ceiling is what you're talking about, they can and often will charge whatever the market will pay for. The floor is what they need to charge to break even. An increase in property tax and inflation raises this floor. So my og statement was basically that the floor increased around 7%, and the landlord increasing the ceiling side by 3% on top of that makes a 10% increase. It is a big increase but it is explainable with more than only "landlord bad". However an increase of say >10% is much more explainable by landlord greed than anything.

Also in case it sounds like it I do not support landlords in any way. But we should discuss things with nuance when it exists.

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When there are no "luxury" containers for yuppies they just end up making our existing housing into luxury and pushing even more people out. This is what happened to San Francisco. Luxury housing is a necessity. Don't build it and things just get worse even faster. You can't stop yuppies from moving to JC. You can build them housing to keep them from making a 4th floor walk up studio in Greeneville $2500/month.

Great explanation!

Rents are significantly higher now than they were before COVID.

Was there a point to this comment? Like, should it be surprising that rents have risen from 2019 to 2023?

The city openly courted this demographic ( “Make it Yours!” ) and now the solution is more luxury rental buildings to “fix the problem”.

Funny how that works.

Yeah I'm agreeing since our rent was raised specifically because taxes increased, but it wasn't 10%. I think it was closer to 4-5% for us, but we rent from the owner directly and she lives next door and so her expenses also increased, etc. No increase last year, been living in this particular rental for about 2 years now.

My taxes went up nearly 30% in one year.

https://www.ryan.com/about-ryan/news-and-insights/2023/nj-property-tax-rate-increase/

it can happen... I don't like it much, but yeah, it seems VERY disgusting to assume people can handle that type of increase.

Your referenced the discounts given during COVID. I said prices are significantly higher prior to those discounts. The prices aren’t “normalized”. The fact that if you want an apartment with a roommate and you need to spend $2k each a month isn’t “normal”

Fair enough, although I think the fact that anyone (not you in particular) has a non-sarcastic conversation about whether $35 is a comparatively good price for a non-pallet sized amount of potato chips in this area lends itself to my point.

Okay, clearly you're dumb, so I'll explain this in simple terms.

There are three factors at work here: Inflation, where everything gets slightly more expensive over time. Development, where Jersey City is improving and becoming significantly more expensive over time due to increases in demand. COVID, which drove the market out of whack but is a temporary effect that was wearing off in multiple ways throughout 2022 and has now mostly worn off.

The reason that OP's rent increased by 10% each year for the past two is that last year, it was still recovering from the temporary COVID effect. The reason that it's 10% higher than before COVID is that the long-term effects still apply. They are totally different subjects.

What sort of landlord asks for permission. At a minimum rent should go up by inflation every year so that renters don’t get comfortable expecting no increases

Lmaoo. Nice insult buddy. Not even going to read the rest of your comment. Have a nice night. Hope you find a girlfriend or something to relieve you of some of your depression

I live in McGinley Sq, the rent is super cheap. Not sure why everyone needs to live right by Grove St when it costs 3x as much

Because people have different income levels, different needs and wants?

But then they come here to complain about it, when there are more affordable options a stone’s throw away

Huh? Which building was this?

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He didn't murder anyone in the building. He just was the doorman and committed a murder elsewhere. I saw his mugshot in the news. He obviously was fired and I assume is now in prison.