New rental trend? A $200 'work-from-home fee' tacked on to Bay Area lease

19 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by randycupertino
(abc7news.com)

26 Comments

NearAP

5 hours ago

Context matters...

According to the article, the lease (rental rate) includes fully paid utilities and internet.

The landlords are then saying - if you're going to work from home full time, we'll raise the rate by $200.

One can dispute the figure/amount but the logic seems reasonable i.e. if you're working from home full time, then you'll probably run the AC for way longer than if you went to the office 5 days a week for at least 6 hours each day, you'll user more internet and/or we might need a higher speed internet/bandwidth, you'll use more power, etc.

rchaud

4 hours ago

Using more Internet at work than at night playing 4K Netflix or downloading 100GB+ games and multi-GB patches? Doubtful.

tom_

4 hours ago

Who pays per byte for internet?!

The other points are well made, though. The lesson, I suppose: bills included is a bad idea. The incentives are misaligned all round.

NearAP

3 hours ago

Some Internet providers have different rates for different capacities/bandwidth. Last time I used COMCAST, their wizard walked you through different use-cases and you got different packages based on the type of stuff you said you used it for.

protocolture

4 hours ago

>then you'll probably run the AC for way longer than if you went to the office 5 days a week for at least 6 hours each day, you'll user more internet and/or we might need a higher speed internet/bandwidth, you'll use more power, etc.

This also covers adult children playing games all day, or a variety of other situations. Seems weird to single out work from home.

NearAP

3 hours ago

The point I think the landlords are trying to make is that if you spend majority of your time at home, they assume (expect) the utilities to be higher.

Keep in mind this is a 1 bedroom ADA and so they’re probably targeting a specific type of tenant.

olyjohn

2 hours ago

Fuck this logic. It's a cash grab.

al_borland

7 hours ago

Assuming nothing illegal, it isn't the landlord's business what a tenant is doing inside, working or sitting around watching TV... why does it matter? They should just be happy the person has a job and can pay the rent on time.

crote

6 hours ago

Landlords and HoAs have been doing this for ages, it has just mostly impacted less well-off people until now.

Want to do some nails as a side hustle, sell homemade goods via the internet, or make extra cash repairing people's cars in your garage over the weekend? Sorry, contract says no, enjoy your eviction for "operating a business" or "commercial use of the property".

Banning WFH or charging extra for it is just the logical next step. You're working, so that's commercial use! And you're saving money by not having to rent an office and causing extra wear & tear to the property, so to a landlord it is obvious that you should be paying extra - why should you get to freeload, after all?

al_borland

5 hours ago

Operating a business out of your home is a different story. The issue there is customers coming to the home, which means traffic and a general disturbance for neighbors. That's very different than someone sitting at home on a Zoom meeting.

goodmythical

5 hours ago

Is it really so different? What is the difference in impact to the owner/neighbors/community if I am: 1.) Working remotely as an employee, 2.) Working remotely as a contractor, or 3.) Working remotely as an employee of the company I own?

Certainly you can't run a shop front in a residential setting, but it's not the "operating a business" part so much as the "serving customers in person" part that would cause a disturbance.

I only mention it because I have seen people who sell their art on etsy getting these kinds of eviction notices for "operating a business" and the claimed issue is not that the tenant is making art but specifically that they are profitting from it finacially.

al_borland

3 hours ago

I’d be curious to hear both sides of the story on the Etsy thing. I’d imagine for anyone to even know it was happening it would need to reach a level of scale/disruption that made people start asking questions or complain.

I think with most of these rules, they are there to give them some teeth incase something gets out of hand in one way or another, and are often only enforced if something becomes a problem. Alternatively, they’re used to get someone out who is a bad tenant/neighbor, and they need to find a technicality to boot them out for everyone else’s sanity.

Grombobulous

6 hours ago

If you really want to do something this dumb, I think it would be less dumb as a landlord to implement this as a discount.

Submit a pay stub and job offer letter referencing hybrid/in-office/in-person employment and get a $200/month discount.

The idea of this is not completely crazy. I definitely wear on my home hardware when working from home. However, the rent is supposed to already be covering the typical amount of wear and tear and there’s no need to get this silly about it.

al_borland

5 hours ago

Even as a discount, I don't see the logic behind it. Why should someone get a discount on rent for leaving for work every day? I work from home and there is no way I'm putting an extra $200/month of wear on everything because of it. If anything, being home allows me to catch issues early before they become a bigger problem.

The one place where I've seen something like this, but not framed this way, was with a reverse commute. Someone in the city, commuting outside of the city for work each day. Leaving during business hours frees up parking during the most in-demand times, and they are only there during off-peak hours. As a result, they got cheaper parking.

With this being a house, that wouldn't make sense. The reverse commute thing only really makes sense for a large lot or garage shared with the public or monthly pass holders.

dh2022

an hour ago

If the landlord does that the rent on the listing will be higher by $200, thus turning off potential renters. It is better for the landlord to lead with a smaller rent and tack on charges.

Same business model for restaurants (rely on tips which are not part of the price you see on the menu) and budget airlines.

sitkack

6 hours ago

what if you are retired? or unemployed? or sick?

what are the limits for all of those?

no the idea is stupid and greedy

crote

6 hours ago

> no the idea is stupid and greedy

We're talking about landlords here. What else did you expect?

guywithahat

5 hours ago

> it isn't the landlord's business what a tenant is doing inside, working or sitting around watching TV

Unfortunately the government is extremely interested in what you do in your property, and this makes it the landlord's business. That said in this case, it seems more like homeowners are renting out a small unit behind their home, and want to disincentivize people who will be there more. Personally if you can work from home I'm not sure why you'd live in a bay area suburb, especially not walnut creek, but to each their own I guess.

user

5 hours ago

[deleted]

b3ing

5 hours ago

If the FTC had enough time, people and competence, they could get rid off all the apartment junk fees like: valet trash, forcing you to have a cable subscription plan, package locker fee, etc

red-iron-pine

7 hours ago

that application fee is a scam man

but one of the pieces that didn't make it to the top of reddit's discussion was that it's a shared-living situation, not your own apartment or isolated basement.

its shitty, but it's not like a landlord trying to regulate how often you're in your own private apartment

notfromhere

7 hours ago

you're renting a space per month, and they're essentially adding an extra fee if you're doing more than sleeping there. kinda nuts

gtowey

6 hours ago

The expectations of some bay area landlords when renting space in their own home are bonkers I've seen it all: not allowed to use the kitchen, not allowed to have guests, curfews, some are even contingent on not allowing the tenant to be there on the weekend at all.

richwater

7 hours ago

Why are we writing articles about some random, single-event rental ad. What are we doing here?