I live in a 2 bedroom apartment in Oregon. Rent went up by close to 11% when I renewed my lease. Management changed 2 or 3 years ago as well. End result is that

I live in a 2 bedroom apartment in Oregon. Rent went up by close to 11% when I renewed my lease. Management changed 2 or 3 years ago as well. End result is that the quality of life has been going down. Management complained about the color of my curtains when they inspected last time... (Navy blue, not exactly wild or offensive.) So I've been searching for a place to buy. I've also been looking for alternative rentals. If want cheaper rent, I'd have to move into a rat nest, if I want a house, I'd pay more renting than I would for a mortgage. A couple blocks down a new apartment building was built and is charging $2000+ for 1 bedroom apartments... Every house that's come up within my range is in bad shape, bad location, or gets sold so fast I don't even have a chance to view it. So, yes, the housing situation is tight. That all makes me think that the allowing denser zoning is a good thing. I'm not willing to live in that dense of a location, but for those that are, it should help. The part I'm not sure of is the rent control. Maybe someone here has read up on this enough to know the answers, I'll look for them myself soon. So, my rent shouldn't go up by more than 7% if I renew my lease, that seems good. But what about fees? One of the annoyances the new management company tacked onto the lease is fees for utilities. I'm fairly neutral on them, but if they can be used to increase rent past the 7% limit, I know they will be. Also, say I leave my apartment. If my rent was, say, 1000/month, how much will it be for the person moving in after me? Can it go up by more than 7%? If so, doesn't that incentivize landlords to increase rents by much much more than 7% for for new tenants? Wouldn't that make it a LOT harder for people who need to move? Also, wouldn't there be another way landlords could bypass this by just making life difficult for tenants so that they move out more often, thus letting the landlord increase rents more frequently? Personally, from what I've seen under this new management company, they've been trying to push out the old tenants who started renting before they took over. That will make it easier for them to implement policies that are obviously hostile for tenants who don't know that things could be better. (For example, if I remember correctly, they sent a message about no longer offering lock out service. Even though the manager is on site, you have to call a lock smith. The old managers would get back in, you might pay a fee, but you'd get in.) So I could see this particular company trying that method of increasing rents more frequently.