I'm very very glad that my knee-jerk, gut-feeling, primal-instinct reaction to seeing a Default Influencer is embarrassment. I think this saves me from a lot of bullshit.
Some lip-filler lady on enough Ozempic to euthanize a horse: "The sad truth is an elite lifestyle takes money and discipline. Buy these brands on credit if you have to. Skip meals."
Me: "Oh. Oh I'm physically experiencing the effects of secondhand embarrassment. You live like this? This is your life? Your interiority? If I was anything like this I'd kill myself I think."
To be clear âïž, absolutely not gender-exclusive. Some broccoli-haired shirtless 23-year-old man on enough trenbolone to euthanize a different horse starts talking about how to be a high-value male and I start thinking instantly about how I'd have 4,000 slugs use me as a jungle-gym before I'd want this man within cootie-contagion distance of me.
I love lying to my landlord. âWeâre currently looking at a comparable unit in the area at $[a hundred dollars less than our current rent]/month, so if your offer has any flexibility to come down on the rent, that would help us reach a decision about whether or not to renew our lease hereâ and the comparable unit exists only in my own beautiful mind
Actually, no! And since several people have replied asked for my script for negotiating lower rent, Iâm gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that Iâm not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlordâIâm just someone who has been a renter for 10+ years across different states, and I know for a fact that I have saved myself thousands of dollars by successfully negotiating a lower monthly rent on almost every lease Iâve ever signed. (Also, Iâve only ever rented in the U.S., so this advice may not be as applicable elsewhere.)
Step 0: Know Thy Enemy
The key thing to understand about all residential landlords, whether theyâre corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their assetâthe propertyâis a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time itâs sitting empty. The property taxes, insurance, mortgage, HOA fees, and maintenance costs all still come due every month/quarter/year whether they have a tenant to cover it all and then some, or not.Â
Because of this, at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to fill every unit at all times with someone who will reliably pay the rent on time and in full. And because everything else is secondary to that goalâand because with the exception of Just Some Asshole landlords, the person responding to your emails and writing up your lease paperwork is several degrees of separation removed from the shareholders who profit off your rent moneyâtheyâre almost always willing to negotiate with you. As long as it gets the liability converted into an asset faster or keeps the carriage from turning back into a pumpkin for longer, then in the long run, itâs actually in their best interest to give you a better price.Â
Step 1: Identify Your Leverage
If you understand how supply and demand works, you can figure out how much leverage you have pretty easily. High supply and low demand = you have more leverage, and vice versa. Do they have an âAVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAYâ sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says âFirst month freeâ? Does their website and/or Apartments.com show a bunch of currently open listings? Do you already live there and know at least two families on your floor have moved out in the last several months with no one new moving in to replace them? These are all indications that they have more than one unit currently sitting empty, meaning higher supply and lower demand. No sandwich board and a website that just says âcall for availabilityâ? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.Â
You have the least leverage if youâre a prospective tenant looking to move in somewhere that has a waitlist. They have no reason to offer you a discount if six other people are already in line to pay full price for apartments that arenât even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if youâve already signed a lease and youâre in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so youâre stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if youâre a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and youâre being offered a renewal on your existing lease with higher rent than you're currently paying, especially if they already have some units that have been empty for a while. If you move out, not only is your unit going to sit vacant for at least part of a month, theyâre also probably going to have to put in some work to âturnâ the unit (repainting, professional cleaning, etc) to get it in move-in condition for the next tenant.
All of this means that if you move out, even if they can fleece you out of your security deposit and find a new tenant the very next month, itâs still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. Theyâre probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know itâll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if youâre a prospective new tenantâif they canât get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, thatâs $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and theyâll never get it back. Itâs a perishable item about to spoil.Â
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number theyâll quote you for the rentâthe sticker price that youâve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, theyâve built some buffer into that number. Thereâs almost always some room for them to come down, and depending on your leverage, they will if you ask nicely. But for reasons that baffle me, most people donât!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Donât reply to their initial offer right awayâunless thereâs a waitlist (in which case, you have little haggling power anyway), wait a few days. It makes them sweat a bit, and it shows you arenât desperate. The person who is rushing to reply is not the one who has more leverage in the negotiation, and making them wait reminds them of that. In the meantime, use Apartments.com or Zillow to get an idea of what similar units in the same area are currently going for. Then you come up with your counteroffer.
As a general rule, anything more than about 20-25% below their opening offer (or below market rates) will probably just piss them off or make them take you less seriously. But when weâre talking about your monthly rent over the course of a year or two, even a 10% discount adds up to a lot of money!
When I negotiated our original lease for my current place, I also asked for and got a two year lease term instead of the standard one year. But whatever automated calendar event system they use to remind their leasing office staff when itâs time to send out renewal offers didnât get the memo about that, so they mistakenly sent me a renewal offer the following year, meaning I got to see how much they would have jacked up the rent if they couldâve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!Â
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)Â
Hereâs the tricky part. You need to write an emailâalways negotiate over email if you can, itâs too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isnât in writing means nothingâwhich simultaneously makes it sound like you would sign a lease with them in a heartbeat and like you are actively flirting with five other apartment complexes right now who all want you so bad it makes them look stupid, because you are just so sexy and fun and your credit score is eight inches flaccid. You need to make them believe you are both highly motivated and ready to sign on the dotted line and willing to just walk away from the table at any second, but if they could just come down a little bit on that number, youâd delete those other hoesâ numbers forever! Hereâs the rough script I use every time:
â Thank you for [your email/the tour/sending over the offer letter/etc]. I have had a chance to review and consider it. I think [name of apartment complex] would be the perfect fit for me, but I am also exploring and touring other options in the area, including a comparable unit nearby at $[a little below your counteroffer number]/month.
If we could come down to $[your counteroffer number]/month on the rent, I would be prepared to sign the lease today. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! "
Step 6: You Win Either Way
Sometimes they really do just accept your counteroffer without question and send you over a revised lease to sign. (When this happens, I make a note for next time that my counteroffer was probably too high and I shouldâve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number thatâs higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; youâve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and theyâre likely to lose patience if they have to keep going around and around with you. And sometimes (though only very rarely), they may come back and say the price is firmâin which case, guess what? You still didnât lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didnât mention it above because I just couldnât fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically âprice firm :(â, but then life happened, so I forgot to respond and accept. The email sat in my inbox for a week. And then, completely unprompted, they magically replied again saying, âactually, nvm, howâs $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?â
To them, it looked like I was staring them down cold as ice like
I was literally just busy with other stuff! and they were sweating!!! BULLETS!!!
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