Renewal season is the one moment each year when you reprice the asset, and most landlords let it arrive by accident. Start 90 days out and the decision gets easier, cheaper, and far less awkward.
Start 90 days out, not 30
At 90 days you have options. You can research the market, make an offer, hear a counter, and still have time to list if the answer is no. At 30 days you have a deadline and no leverage, and a tenant who senses that will negotiate accordingly.
Work backwards from the lease end date. Around day 90, check the market. Around day 75, send the offer. Give a response deadline near day 60, which leaves a full month to market the unit if it comes back no. Many states also require 30 to 60 days of written notice for a rent increase, so the early start keeps you inside the law rather than racing it.
The math nobody runs
A vacancy is not one month of lost rent. It is the lost rent plus turnover cost, and turnover is where the money actually goes: cleaning, paint, repairs, listing, screening, and your own hours. On a $1,800 unit, a month empty plus a modest refresh lands somewhere near $2,500 to $3,500 all in.
Now price the increase against that. Raising a good tenant $75 a month earns $900 over a year. If that increase is what pushes them out, you have spent $3,000 to earn $900. Hold the rent flat on a tenant who pays on time and reports problems early and you are usually ahead, even when the market says you left something on the table.
The reverse is also true. If you are $300 under market, the gap is $3,600 a year and it compounds every year you avoid the conversation. That is worth the risk of a turnover.
How to actually raise it
Put the increase in writing, name the new amount and the date it starts, and give more notice than your state requires. Anchor it in something real: comparable rents nearby, the tax or insurance bill that moved, the work you did on the unit last year. A number with a reason behind it gets accepted far more often than a number on its own.
If you are raising by a meaningful amount, offer a longer term alongside it. Many tenants will take a slightly higher rent in exchange for two years of certainty, and you get a locked-in tenant and no turnover cost. Check whether your state or city caps the increase before you pick the number, because several now do.
When to let it end
Renewal is also the moment to be honest about a tenancy that is not working. Chronic late payment, repeated lease violations, damage beyond wear and tear, or a pattern of conflict with neighbours will not improve because you renewed. Non-renewal at the natural end of a term is cleaner, cheaper, and less adversarial than an eviction, and it is one of the few genuinely painless exits available to you.
Whatever you decide, decide it deliberately. A lease that rolls to month to month because nobody sent anything is a decision too, just not one you made. If you want the clauses checked before you extend, run the existing lease through a lease audit first.
