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

Post by rchaud » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 11:04 PM UTC

NearAP wrote: post #19

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…

Post by al_borland » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 11:32 PM UTC

goodmythical wrote: post #16

al_borland wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 distu…

Post by NearAP » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 11:48 PM UTC

tom_ wrote: post #22

NearAP wrote: post #19

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…

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.

Post by dh2022 » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 2:07 AM UTC

Grombobulous wrote: post #7

al_borland wrote: post #5

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.

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 o…

Post by protocolture » Fri, Jul 24, 2026, 3:20 AM UTC

NearAP wrote: post #24

protocolture wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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.