Is a 11% increase in rent reasonable in Canada for 2023?

Question

There was a major renovation in my apartment complex, I did accept my rent increase, but I am wondering if I should have. My reasoning was that the rent increase in the previous years were reasonable and around 2-3% every year, but there was a major renovation that cost $7,000,000 in my apartment and there are 303 units, so it's a cost of $23,102 per unit and roughly a $75 monthly rent increase. Is this reasonable and in line with rent increases in Canada? It's more than twice the recommended rent increase, but it seems to roughly make sense given that they spent more than $5,000 in renovation. There's free heating, but I don't know if they use electricity or oil.

Answer 1

You should be getting the normal rent increase, plus whatever one-time increase is there to finance the improvements. They should have given you a letter that breaks it all down. My guess is you threw it out because you didn't care how the sausage is made, until now.

If you want to challenge it, start by asking for that letter.

But you need to be realistic, starting with fixing your serious misunderstandings about the cost of capital. Mortgages are pretty well-understood, it's covered in Calculus I in your college-prep math, and you can brute-force it with basic math and a spreadsheet program. Here's a mortgage amortization calculator, you can punch in $23,102 and your prevailing commercial interest rate and see what the actual cost of the money is. That reflects how much it should go up. Just taking a blind guess at some numbers, I get

Which is more realistic IMO.

I don't know where you're getting $23k of capital for $75/month, but I think that relies on some sort of bogus "teaser rate" that turns into a pumpkin after 1-3 years.