Rent prices will be creeping up again on Evanston residents, including Northwestern students, as contract renewals for apartments surface in June and July.
But this year, some landlords are telling their frustrated tenants to point their fingers at natural gas companies for the swelling rates.
According to Dean Gallacher, vice president of marketing at Barrett Resources Corporation, a natural gas distributor based in Denver, the soaring gas prices in Evanston are part of a national crisis, spurred by what experts have called the coldest winter in over 30 years.
On Tuesday the price of natural gas listed by the New York Mercantile Exchange was down to $4.60 per contract from $5.50 in April. But both figures are relatively high compared to May 2000, when prices were between $3 and $3.50, Gallacher said.
“Natural gas is a commodity,” he said. “We had years of low commodity prices – oil producers invested capital (in natural gas) and what ended up happening is supply shrunk, so demand is growing.”
Realtors and landlords in Evanston either include gas fees in the rent price or have tenants pay their gas bills separately.
Those who choose to include the gas fee in the rent must determine how much more tenants will pay when gas and other utility prices go up.
“The (natural) gas rates are going up at every apartment in Evanston,” said Jim Schermerhorn from Schermerhorn and Co., a real-estate company that rents apartments near the NU campus, at buildings such as 620 Clark St.
“That’s a new expense for all landlords,” he said. “When landlords sit down and figure out rent prices … they have to factor that in.”
Rising rent prices at the Carlson Building, 620 Church St., have driven out tenants from at least two different apartments. Dave Ruffin, a Music and Weinberg junior, said he and his roommates were forced to find a new apartment after Wilmette Real Estate bumped the rent up from $1,635 to $1,890 a month.
“The realtors are trying to get a lot more out of this property,” Ruffin said, “probably because of where their property is located, which basically makes it an eviction because it’s way out of anyone’s price range.”
The mounting gas prices just add to residents’ complaints about the cost of living in Evanston.
Schermerhorn said property taxes also contribute to higher rents. He said members of the city’s two school boards, for Evanston/Skokie School District 65 and Evanston School District 202, should reevaluate their budgets.
“I don’t know why it costs more money to educate grade-school students in Evanston,” Schermerhorn said. “People think it’s convenient to blame City Hall for high taxes, but why don’t they hold the school board responsible for high taxes?”
Evanston’s lack of rent price caps makes it easier for landlords and realtors to raise rates whenever they like, Ald. Joseph Kent (5th) said.
“I think that if (landlords) wish to blame it on the surging gas prices for this year, that definitely works,” he said. “With no rent caps, they can literally ask you to pay as much for an apartment as you would if you were living on the lakeshore.”
Kent said the Evanston City Council can do little about the rising natural gas prices.
“The city doesn’t have the kind of money to help (residents) pay for (natural gas),” Kent said. “Hopefully, we won’t have a winter like this past one.”
While Gallacher said the cost of natural gas should plummet during the upcoming warmer months, he said prices will not drop as much as they did last summer because more supplies need to be filled this year.
“It’s an indication of the tight supply and demand balance,” Gallacher said. “Storage quantities are low. Every winter they draw out from storage, every summer they replace that storage.”
