My landlord hit me with rent increase the moment he could (and I consider myself good tenant by the author's definition).

And why wouldn't he?

First, at least in my case, landlord (person who owns the building and gets the money) is a different person than building manager (which takes all the heat from annoying tenants and, I imagine, is employed by a landlord) and they have full-time maintenance person anyway, so there's no feedback loop.

Second, if I decide to move, it'll cost me several thousands bucks and will be a hassle, assuming I'll find a better deal elsewhere, so there's a strong disincentive for tentants, good or bad, to move just to get lower rent.

Third, as much as we like to think that we e.g. value peace of mind over money, money is very easy to quantify while peace of mind is not, which is why money usually wins in contests like this.

The only reason for a landlord to keep rent low is to maintain low vacancy ratio and that is dictated by the overall market.

Found the same thing when renting in the Boston area in the early aughts. My roommates and I were good tenants - paid rent on time, were quiet & low key, didn't call the landlord except for real emergencies (we were all mechanical and electrical engineers so we basically took care of stuff that didn't require a licensed professional ourselves), etc.

For our trouble we got whacked with 15 percent annual rent increases for three years. Ninety days before our last lease expired, the landlord offered another 10% increase. When we hedged about accepting it for a few days, the landlord decided that he wanted to renovate the place and withdrew the lease offer. We moved out a couple of months later, but lived near the house and we could keep track of what was going on. After 2 or 3 months of painting/cleaning/etc, the house went back on the rental market.

It sat empty for more than two years.

He finally rented it when he offered a price that was lower than we were paying when he booted us out.

Lose, lose. I am glad to see that there are landlords that appreciate good tenants, but certainly not all of them do.

That's a pretty good principle. But speaking as a non-Chinese landlord, I doubt you'll find a landlord of any ethnicity who disagrees with this principle. I'm all for catchy names, but this is really the Landlord Principle.

And I don't think it's even a cultural thing... Of course culture always play a role, but I think the issue is simply how the market is right now (i. e.: regulations, competition, instability).

Prompt/early payment aside, I have not experienced this and I've done a lot more apt maintenance than not call about toilets or lightbulbs. First of all, as mentioned in another comment, in both the case of my landlords and my father's business:

>they have full-time maintenance person anyway, so there's no feedback loop.

Unless you're a royal pain in the ass, I doubt they'll raise rent more than they do for anyone else. Otherwise, the delta convenience/hassle isn't enough for them notice or care to give you a deal.

edit: Anecdotally, if you happen to be renting a house from a small property owner who does not have a maintenance worker, then perhaps this may work (not me personally, but a friend). That said, you still probably want to find a place with a proper building manager.

Wait, people call their landlords to change their light bulbs?

It boggles my mind that they have not completely pushed CFLs out of the market. But so far they are a semi-niche item. You can tell them apart because they have far more coils than a CFL, but very skinny ones (much skinnier than a CFL).

This is the exact reason why Chinese won't overthrow their govn't. Everyone assume being good citizen can make a totalitarian organization behaving nicely.