The Onion

I bought a house two years ago and I intend to rent it out while I'm living with my elderly parents until they move into a nursing home or pass away, at which point I will move into it. I met with a lawyer during the purchase process and he showed a copy of his standard rental contract, which included an annual auto-renewal of the lease at a mandatory 5% increase over the previous year's rental price. In my case, there would be absolutely no justification of any increase at all - I paid cash for the house, my insurance does not increase from year to year and neither do my property taxes, except after very infrequent reassessments - let alone a 5% increase. Even somebody who took out a mortgage to buy the house would have been paying a fixed monthly amount from year to year, so they would have had no justification for an increase in rent either.

Yes I know I'm a scumlord, but I'm charging $300 a month less than is typical in my neighborhood and I don't do that first-and-last-months rent bullshit. A security deposit is a reasonable ask, but why should a tenant have to pay the last month's rent up front? I've put a lot of work into renovating this house, and I just want a tenant who isn't going to fuck everything up before I move into it myself.