The cost to rent a home or apartment has soared, and it isn’t just because of super high rents. Landlords are hitting tenants with an abundance of fees every month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Many are no more than five or 10 bucks each, but when stacked up they can amount to hundreds of dollars more each year. Some fees, such as those for parking and pets, have been around for years, but many renters now pay up for things they were rarely charged for in the past. That includes fees for trash pickup, pest control, the use of a mailbox, and for making routine maintenance requests. Then there are fees for move-ins and move-outs and for “lease administration.” One Minnesota landlord collected a $100 so-called January fee the first month of each year, though it isn’t clear what tenants got in return for that charge. In suburban Phoenix, buildings increasingly charge for valet trash pickup that can add more than $30 to the monthly rent. “I can carry the trash 50 feet to the dumpster,” said Debbie Giannecchini, who moved out of a building that started charging the fee. Apartment asking rents rose 25% between early 2021 and summer 2022, straining the budgets of many renters whose wages didn’t keep up. While rent growth has since flattened in much of the country, large property-investment companies continue with these add-ons to boost their bottom lines. The five largest single-family-home rental landlords increased their annual fee income per lease by about 40% between 2018 and 2021, according to a report last year from the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services, which obtained fee data from the companies.
