Why Do I Feel Guilty Raising Rent on Good Tenants?
Why Do I Feel Guilty Raising Rent on Good Tenants?
Time to Renew Unit X
I manage a commercial building with over twenty tenants. A notification pops up on my computer, “Time to renew Unit X”, every time a lease comes up. It’s routine, expected, the kind of thing every property manager deals with. I don’t have to decide anything in that moment. I can click past it, move on to the next thing, and nothing forces me to stop and think. Rents are supposed to move up a little each year to keep pace with rising costs, taxes, insurance, maintenance, all of it climbs, every year, without exception. Around 4% a year is normal in this business.
And nearly every time, for some of these tenants, I don’t raise it.
Not because I can’t. The building runs fine. Bills get paid. It’s a quiet thought that shows up every time I see that notification: they’re doing okay, I’m doing okay, do I really need to? And I let it win. Again.
I pulled one file recently, a tenant who’s been with me over ten years. I did the quick math on what 4% a year, compounded, actually adds up to over a decade. It’s close to 50% more than what he’s paying me right now. Not 50% at once, just the normal, expected increases I skipped, one small yes at a time, year after year. I’m not behind by a little. I’m missing nearly half, every single month, on that one lease alone.
Here’s the part that surprised me most: I saw that same notification every month, for years, and never once connected it to a pattern. It just felt like a series of individual, reasonable decisions. It wasn’t until I sat down and actually did the math on one file that I saw what ten years of “not this year” really costs.
Why “You’re Doing Fine” Feels Like a Good Enough Reason to Stop
This is what makes this particular disguise so hard to catch. It doesn’t show up as fear. It shows up as something that sounds like a virtue, restraint, decency, not being greedy.
You have so much. Wanting more would be ungrateful.
That’s not gratitude talking. That’s the safety system, using something real, my genuine thankfulness for a building that already works, to keep everything exactly where it is. It knows that if it can make “enough” sound like a virtue, wanting more starts to feel like a character flaw instead of just good business.
But gratitude and running a sound business were never opposites. I can be genuinely thankful for twenty good tenants and a building that runs well, and still charge what rising costs actually require.
The cost never shows up as a crisis. Nothing’s ever late, nothing’s ever in default. It’s quieter than that, one lease, missing close to 50%, and that’s just one file out of many.
Why Landlords Feel Guilty Raising Rent
This is what makes this version of the safety system so effective. It never asks you to be afraid of anything. It asks you to feel good about not acting. And feeling good is a hard thing to argue with in the moment, especially when the reasoning sounds responsible instead of avoidant.
I’m not writing this because I’ve fixed it. I haven’t, not yet. But for the first time, I actually see the sales pitch as it’s happening, month after month, instead of feeling the vague reluctance and calling it prudence or fairness to the tenant.
Tonight I’m using BEHAVE, the six-step protocol I lean on at both sleep transitions, to start filing myself differently, not a manager who’s fine leaving rent flat, but one who raises it every year like every other building does, while still showing up fast when something breaks and treating tenants well the rest of the time. Those two things were never in conflict. My safety system just needed me to believe they were.
Take the Lead Challenge
Is there a place in your life where “I’m doing fine, so why push” has quietly become the reason you don’t? Name it tonight. That’s the first step, before anything else can change.
F. Allen Scott is the author of From Safety to Success, where he explores the safety system framework behind why we stay stuck, and how to finally change that.
Related reading: Why Do I Stay Loyal to Toxic People?