One of my high school history teachers used to say, “Timing is everything.” I believed him at the time, and now I believe him even more. Timing really is everything, and right now, it’s a good time to be a renter.
The Wall Street Journal reports that renters have more pull to negotiate their leases as rental rates are falling in many major cities. Vacancies have spiked which means landlords are having to reduce rent to keep their units occupied. This is great news if you’re looking for an apartment or want to renegotiate your lease, because renters have bargaining power right now.
After obsessively checking craigslist for apartments, I went with my soon-to-be roommate to look at a few places. As expected, a couple of the places were great except for some major design flaw (e.g. the lack of a living room). Out of all the places we checked out, there were only two that had everything we wanted, and the one that we liked the best was a little out of the price range we were shooting for.
Of course, the easiest way to get what you want is to ask for it. Ironically, asking for what you want can be one of the hardest things to do. The fear of failure is natural, and we all struggle to overcome it. My best advice — just do it.
So I did it. I asked for what equates to a 4.3% discount on rent, and the owner agreed. It really was that simple. The fact that the owner agreed without a counter offer makes me think that we could have gone even lower.
Don’t forget that rent isn’t the only thing you can negotiate. There’s also the lease term, security deposit, pet deposit, utilities, parking, cable, internet, etc. If you plan on staying at a place for a long time, this would be a good time to try to negotiate a long term lease at lower than usual rental prices.
On the other hand, we actually negotiated our lease term to be shorter, because we’re not sure if we want to stay in the area for the long term yet. The owner was looking for a one year lease, but we asked for a six month lease and got it.
Have you successfully negotiated lower rent? Are you thinking about renegotiating your current lease?
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As a landlord, I’ll implore you to please stop telling people that. Of course, it’s obviously true. The last thing any landlord wants is an empty unit or a bad tenant. If you’ve been a good tenant (which can mean as little as paying your rent every month), it should be easy to get your landlord to submit on a couple big provisions in the lease like those mentioned above. I know I’ve done it on several occassions with one of my current tenants. I’ve lowered their rent and their lease term twice and it’s been a good move – they’ve lived in their unit for almost three years. Turning over units is much more expensive than just keeping the people you’ve got!
I disagree with playbook. Rent, mortgage, cars, etc are all big expenses and those of us that know the game deserve to take advantage of it. They want your business and it’s cheaper to reduce the price than have an empty unit, unsold car or house.
Sometimes the market is better for the landlord, and they can jack up prices. Sometimes it’s better for the tenant, and prices go down. Like the stock market, if you can’t handle the ups and downs, you shouldn’t be playing the game. I myself, do not play said game because I don’t think I could handle it. More power to you playbook.
To answer the question, hell yeah I negotiate. I negotiated for my car and my last apartment. I took advantage of the landlord’s mistake of making too many promises. My roomate and I ended up paying 10% less than the advertized rate.
Timing is everything and the fact that you are looking now when it’s not a prime time for people to be looking for apts is a good thing. I had a similar situation where I was looking at a place with a few buddies and after not really showing much interest, the landlord came down in price. It was a great deal but even still the place wasn’t a quality apt so we opted out. But it shows that it can be done, landlords need the space to be occupied.
I was kidding about not telling people to ask for lower rent, of course.
I just renewed my lease. The landlord was unable to negotiate rent because it is apparently set my the parent company in their main office. But by patiently (and nicely) talking to them, I was able to get a concession for next months rent, and get my dish washer replaced (they weren’t supposed to replace it until later).