Video: Austin Woman Shocked to Learn Her Rent Will Increase by Hundreds of Dollars
An Austin, Texas woman was stunned to find out that her rent will be increasing in a pretty dramatic way.
TikToker @webravelygo shared a video of her response to an email she received from her landlord detailing that an $855 increase will be added to her already insanely steep $1,895 rent, bringing her new total to $2,750 each month.
That would be my last day in Austin, for sure. In fact, I moved away from Austin years ago because of rent increases, but they were certainly not this dramatic.
I lived in Austin in 2009 and was lucky enough to get an incredibly tiny apartment on East Riverside for only $400 per month. It was some kind of move-in special that I could not pass up, and it was literally the least expensive place available at the time. My rent increased by $275 over the next 3 years, and eventually I moved away because I just couldn't make ends meet and pay for my education while only making about $10 per hour.
It's almost funny to think about now because I would kill to pay those low prices again.
I checked out the website for my old apartment in Austin and it's now available for $969. That's absolutely INSANE for the tiniest place to live you could possibly imagine. It only had one small bedroom, a bathroom so little you could barely close the door while you were using it, and the kitchen and living room were roughly the size of my office at work.
Having a guest over was incredibly cramped, and no matter how much you cleaned the litter box it always felt like a cat just took a crap right next to you. There was no privacy or space to breathe at all.
For comparison, living in Lubbock right now, I rent a home for $1,240 per month (plus bills), with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a two-car garage, a big yard, and then some.
Lubbock suddenly doesn't look too bad and I'd have to really hit it big to ever go back to struggling like that in Austin again. It's all fun and games over there until you realize you can't afford all of the fun and games over there. Sigh...