First, read the notice for two dates
The renewal deadline — when the property needs your answer.
The notice-to-vacate deadline — how many days before term end you must give written notice if you are leaving. Sixty days is common in Dallas leases, including the standard Texas Apartment Association form.
The second one usually falls first, and missing it can roll you into a month-to-month holdover rate that sits above both the renewal and the market. Diary it before you do anything else, then send the offer to renew or move.
Then work out why it went up
If you signed with a concession, the increase is partly a reset rather than a rise. Concessions apply to year one; month thirteen returns toward the building’s actual asking rent, plus whatever the market moved.
That is not a reason to accept it. It is a reason to know what you are comparing: your year-one effective rent against the renewal, and the renewal against what other buildings are quoting this month.
Three options
Negotiate. Works sometimes. A property weighing a renewal against a turn is weighing make-ready cost and vacancy days. A clean payment record and evidence of nearby effective rents give the conversation something to stand on. Some operators will hold the rent, adjust the term, or add a renewal concession. Some will not move at all.
Renew as offered. Correct more often than renters expect, particularly when the increase is modest. See when the math says renew.
Move. Correct when the increase is large relative to the cost of moving and comparable buildings are quoting materially lower effective rent.
How to ask
Keep it factual and short:
“I’ve had the renewal at $X. I’ve been here two years with no late payments. Comparable units at [building] and [building] are currently quoting $Y with [concession]. Is there flexibility on the renewal rate or the term?”
No leverage claims, no threats, no story. Properties respond to a number and a payment record.
Texas has no rent control
There is no statutory ceiling on a renewal increase here. What constrains it is the market and the property’s own vacancy math, which is exactly why comparable effective rents are the useful thing to bring.
What to compare against
Not headline rent at nearby buildings. Effective rent plus fee stack, which is what true monthly cost means.
A building advertising $1,400 with a $150 fee stack is more expensive than your $1,495 renewal with a $30 one. That comparison is invisible on a listing site and it is where most of the wrong decisions get made.
If you might move
Start three weeks before your notice deadline, not before your lease end date. Touring, applying, and getting a screening decision takes time, and a deadline missed by four days can cost a month of holdover rate.
Send us the renewal offer, your notice deadline, and your building. Back comes the comparison, both sides, dated — and a recommendation, including renew. That is renew or move, free either way.