I love lying to my landlord. “We’re 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 here” 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, I’m gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that I’m not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlord—I’m 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 I’ve ever signed. (Also, I’ve 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 they’re corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their asset—the property—is a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time it’s 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.
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 goal—and 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 money—they’re 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, it’s actually in their best interest to give you a better price.
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 “AVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAY” sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says “First month free”? 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 “call for availability”? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.
You have the least leverage if you’re 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 aren’t even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if you’ve already signed a lease and you’re in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so you’re stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if you’re a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and you’re 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, they’re also probably going to have to put in some work to “turn” 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, it’s still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. They’re probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know it’ll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if you’re a prospective new tenant—if they can’t get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, that’s $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and they’ll never get it back. It’s a perishable item about to spoil.
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number they’ll quote you for the rent—the sticker price that you’ve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, they’ve built some buffer into that number. There’s 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 don’t!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Don’t reply to their initial offer right away—unless there’s 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 aren’t 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 we’re 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 it’s time to send out renewal offers didn’t 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 could’ve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)
Here’s the tricky part. You need to write an email—always negotiate over email if you can, it’s too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isn’t in writing means nothing—which 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, you’d delete those other hoes’ numbers forever! Here’s the rough script I use every time:
“ 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 should’ve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number that’s higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; you’ve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and they’re 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 firm—in which case, guess what? You still didn’t lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didn’t mention it above because I just couldn’t fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically “price firm :(”, 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, “actually, nvm, how’s $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?”
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!!!
Most cop thing I've ever read. what the fuck are you talking about. The posts you're looking for might be on this website but we won't show them to you???
just so you know, if you completely ignore the search feature on the website and just type "tumblr.com/search/term" into the address bar, it bypasses all of this. broken-ass website
The christian family in these memes (which are absolutely all over facebook these days) genuinely do always look miserable. Who the fuck is relating to these stock mormon farm cultists. That is a couple who made love only once in pitch darkness with bags on their heads then celebrated the pregnancy with a feast of uncooked potatoes and warm tapwater. The baby seems intrigued though. Maybe only by the bottle of pills??
This idea began when I started thinking deeper about the "canon" (not canon) Goose drawing of transfem Jax ft. hair and clothing. I was not sure how to feel about it at first. Why add to his design? Kinda upholds older narratives about transition (grow out your hair! Wear ribbons!) It didnt sit right, with the culture of "genderbending" leaning more recently into "change it a little and just imagine a different gender bc gender is fake anyway!"
But knowing how Goose likes to play with expectations, I took that gut reaction and looked at it more closely. Why ADD hair? Why ADD a bow?
Why not? Throughout the show, we never see Jax ADD anything to himself by choice. If something is ADDed to him, like, say, a maid outfit, he deals with it. Maybe, in his mind somewhere, he spins it up in some weird irony to justify its addition.
So Jax doesn't play dress up with himself. This is like the opposite of Zooble's mixing and matching, and other characters are seen to sometimes enjoy being dressed up for adventures.
What HAVE we seen Jax permanently change about his appearance? Um. Well, we hear that he LOST his tail (havent seen much about why this choice was made in the writing, not sure if theres a consensus yet) Not his choice, but it stays gone. If hed LOST it on an adventure, it would have been returned by the end. (Not getting into its return in chapter 6. Something something his manifesto being the closest he gets to accepting that he has a persona and therefore accepting being perceived in a very base way)
By the finale, we know WHY characters look the way they do. Caine read their brain scans and made their reflections show who they are inside. Mulan style. Jax turned pink and purple, and his room is worse. When a character ABSTRACTS, it's because they completely LOSE their sense of self. They might as well look like nothing, an amorphous shape, because they dont care to be perceived at all.
So, does the LOSS of his tail represent the beginning of Jax's ABSTRACTION?
Yes and no.
Jax does not like his appearance ("I look stupid"). He also does not care enough to alter it by ADDing to it so when he LOSEs his tail, sure, he's confused for a moment. Alarmed by an unsanctioned change. But he gets over it, because things just happen to him.
If he cares, he loses. If he ADDs back the tail, it means he prefers looking one way over another. It means he thinks the rabbit is HIM and it is absolutely not. And if he tries to ADD something, even something small like a tail, it means he has some kind of control over the circus, which he CANNOT. He's not around for the rebuilding, the characters learning basic creation, but dont you think Pomni would have made him a new tail? A simple purple sphere? Easy!
See how he freaks out at the suggestion he could LEAVE? And then again at the suggestion that everything around him is in some way REAL? His entire character is REFUSING to accept agency, to fix or ADD to his situation to make it easier. He's already surrendered by the time we meet him.
Jax's design is BORING. Big props to the design team in making a character thats fun to draw and watch, but tells us fucking NOTHING about him when we meet him. Hes smooth, distinct lack of fur, his only rabbity feature is his ears, he is a very uninteresting bunny! No nose, no whiskers, no tail, no real paws/claws, one plain article of clothing for decency, about 3 colors total that arent even particularly complementary (purple and yellow sure, but red/pink overalls? Why?)
What's his biggest fear? When Caine goes AM mode, what's the first, most deep-set fear he shows Jax, based on his intimate knowledge of his inner workings? Skinning him. But not in a realistic, violent way--removing his bodysuit, the one remaining thing that gives him any sort of personality. Eyelids that let him emote, ears that fit him into a rabbit schema, one of his only three colors (not to mention its the "girly" one).
He LOSEs everything about him he has left, and he cant ADD it back. Because he never let himself learn how.
His design was always basic, smooth, the only details were on his face, because hes an action figure. A toy to dress up and customize. But hes the naked barbie left at the bottom of the toy chest because to wear clothing gives him a role and a purpose, which--as much as he preaches the opposite--he does not want.
Because if he accepts a role, he has to accept the wrong one. Because hes too afraid to accept the one that feels true to himself. Because then hed be giving others ammunition. To laugh at him, and then give him a hug, like its fine. Like they can just see him without causing him pain. Not even KNOWING it causes pain. Because he would have to TELL them it hurt him, and look at what happened the last time he did something like that.
Every time he ADDs something, he LOSEs some control. And eventually, he could lose everything. And then he could ABSTRACT. And thats the only thing he has left to LOSE.
I don’t think healthy people every really get chronic illness.
I have a friend I know from when we were both 6. She is the only person living nearby and so she saw me go from walking through limping to wheelchair on a daily basis. I keep her updated on my health even tho we rarely hang out anymore.
She was gonna come over yesterday and I had to cancel. She asked if I can’t hang out later that day. When I said i won’t feel better later, that if I feel that bad in the morning later will only get worse she got annoyed and “joked” that I’m just finding excuses. And I was surprised, she knows all about me being disabled after all? So, a bit taken aback, I told her it’s a normal thing for me.
“But you got the diagnosis now, aren’t you better?? I thought you’ll get better now”
She was honestly surprised and it made me realize a thing. They don’t get it. They don’t get that getting diagnosed only equals benefits like welfare or parking spot for us, and sometimes better pain meds but that is just like pushing luck. That it’s a forever thing. That that one day we felt good a week ago was just a bright spot and doesn’t mean we won’t need our aids anymore, cause chronic illness is not linear and will make a great comeback in next four hours, and the next good day is planned on when we’re 70.
Cause when abled people are sick, they get better. And our illness is just an excuse for them. And when we say we will never get better they think we’re being dramatic and pessimistic.
And I don’t think they’ll ever get it, cause to get it you need to live it.
And I want my friends to stay healthy and not go through hell.
"The power of love is the strongest thing in the universe and that's why even the grimmest situation is not without hope" — comforting but trite, requires no depth or mass behind it in order to reassure, and giving it the appropriate weight tends to get in the way of giving it direct credit
"The power of love is the strongest thing in the universe and that's why the stars themselves exploit it as the foundation for their tyranny" — novel, compelling, horrifying, creates the necessity to scrutinise love in order to understand how to manipulate it and hope to find a weakness, raises the question of whether the only thing that can stop a bad guy with the power of love is a good guy with the power of love
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