Tuesday, February 27, 2007

DE endorsements - I wonder who will be paying for Sheila's inspector fee?

As the DE editors were drinking their green beer and trying to figure out who might be the best candidate for mayor of Carbondale, maybe they forgot who the cash cow of this town is. If Carbondale is going to institute a new tax on rental units, who is going to pay for it? If you guess it will be the student renters, you would be right.

Let's say that the city levies a $10 per unit fee to do an inspection, might there be a $10 per unit increase in rent? Might there be a $20 or $50 increase to pay for the trouble?

Another question, if you think a unit you are thinking about renting isn't up to par, can you call the city today and get it inspected? I think you can fairly easily. Since there are unlimited places to rent right now, wouldn't you be better off renting someplace else?

Your comments are welcome, even if you have a green beer stain on the front of your shirt.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No green beer stains on MY shirt, thank you!

But sure, anytime there's an additional cost to doing business, the business involved will pass along that cost to the customer. And as you said, perhaps add a bit more.

If I was PURCHASING a used house, I'd invest the $200-300 necessary to have a trained home inspector look at the house before I purchased it, to ensure that stuff I can't see (foundations, plumbing, HVAC, roof, etc) is in acceptable condition. In a rental property, all that stuff is the concern of the landlord. If the interior/extrior looked ok, and the toilet flushed, that's great. Otherwise, I'd rent elsewhere.