My Landlord Offered to Renew the Lease—Provided I Pay an Additional $200 per Month. Is This Even Legal?

Oregon landlords have the legal right to raise your rent by 14 percent, 18 percent, or 500 percent, provided they give you 90 days’ notice to find other accommodations.

I live in Southeast Portland and pay $1,100 a month for a two-bedroom townhouse. My landlord offered to renew the lease—provided I pay an additional $200 per month. Is this even legal? —Angry Renter

Having your city become "cool" is like throwing a good party. At first you just hope people will come. Later, it starts raging, and you're excited that it's such a success—you're popular! You've arrived!

But at 4 am, when everything is trashed, there's a line for the bathroom, and you can't get into your bedroom because a bunch of people you don't know are doing coke in there, you realize you don't actually care about being popular. You just want all these assholes out of your house.

I daresay you may be reaching this moment of vomit-spattered clarity, Angry. An onslaught of people you and I don't recall inviting drove rents up by 14 percent in 2015 alone. Your landlord's proposed 18 percent increase is barely even gouging by current standards.

Oregon landlords have the legal right to raise your rent by 14 percent, 18 percent, or 500 percent, provided they give you 90 days' notice to find other accommodations.

Related: 5 Myths About Portland Apartments

Worse, we're expecting 200,000 new residents in the next 20 years. The many plans to deal with this all have one thing in common: They focus on increasing the housing supply.

But what about the demand side of the equation? Can't we do something to reduce the number of people who want to move here?

SUPER CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT! Regular readers may be familiar with my "Make Portland Shitty Again" initiative, which solves our housing crisis by making Portland a less appealing place to live. (God knows I do my part.)

Now I'm building a prospectus of reasons not to move to Portland, and I need your help. Send me your most convincing slams on the Rose City. Best entry receives our top prize: a seat on the City Council!*

*Just go to City Hall, enter the council's chambers, and act like you know what you're doing. If anyone asks, say you're Dan Saltzman; nobody knows what that guy looks like.

QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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