Noah Braley received the text that would upend his plans for the next year a little over a week ago, on July 1 — your rent will be going up by a lot, his property manager wrote, but don’t freak out.

“I’m like, ‘Excuse me, don’t freak out?’” said Braley, who has lived in the building since 2013, when he was still an urban planning student at Western Washington University. “How much is it?”

The answer is $405, which Braley discovered when he returned home from his job as a line cook at Italian restaurant Storia Cucina. The letter taped to his door was sent by Son-Rise Property Management, and it infuriated Braley — it said that, starting in September, rent for his two-bedroom apartment would increase from $1,195 monthly to $1,600.

“I can’t afford to pay this. I have $300 student loans I’m trying to pay off. I’ve got car insurance, I’ve got $250 health insurance bills,” said Braley, who has not missed a rent payment throughout the pandemic. “Rent on top of that? Where am I going to find an extra four grand a year?”

Braley’s situation is not an anomaly. Rent prices throughout the area are skyrocketing as the state begins a phased lifting of its pandemic-spurred eviction moratorium. In Bellingham, many tenants are getting the unwelcome notification that their rent will increase in the coming months, prompting anger as they grapple with the question of whether they can continue living in their homes.

Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.

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