Negotiating a rental - tips? - renters perspective

[christos]

There is alot written about negotiating a house sale but not so much on on rental.

Any tips on trying to secure a better rental deal from a tenant's perpsective that would be palatable for a landlord? I.e offer $25 a week a less because its been siting there for a month not rented....

Looking for a better rental whilst building up IPs....

 

[Scott No Mates]

Christos, in a tight market such as Sydney, the main factor will be the $ causing the house not to move/be leased, followed closely by condition of the house.

Offering less, won't necessarily make the owner jump at the offer, consider offering a longer lease term ie 2 years etc rather than 6 months (there are savings for you here, no need to move/removalist cost is put off for a long time), lock in the rent review (ie none or small review - trap here is the owner still needs to give 90 days notice even though you have agreed to it).

SNM

 

[wylie]

There is alot written about negotiating a house sale but not so much on on rental.

Any tips on trying to secure a better rental deal from a tenant's perpsective that would be palatable for a landlord? I.e offer $25 a week a less because its been siting there for a month not rented....

Looking for a better rental whilst building up IPs....

As a landlord I would NOT find your offer to pay $25 less at all palatable .

If I was so "head in the sand" as to not realise myself that it is too high, then having a tenant offer less would possibly make me think "rent it to anybody but that tenant".

Then I would think again, and possibly reconsider, but first off, I would think you were just a smartar$e . Just being honest with how I would feel about being offered $25 less...

You could find you miss out anyway.

 

[christos]

As a landlord I would NOT find your offer to pay $25 less at all palatable .

If I was so "head in the sand" as to not realise myself that it is too high, then having a tenant offer less would possibly make me think "rent it to anybody but that tenant".

Then I would think again, and possibly reconsider, but first off, I would think you were just a smartar$e . Just being honest with how I would feel about being offered $25 less...

You could find you miss out anyway.

Yes your are probably right - I'd tell me to go take my $25 elsewhere - but its more what is a decent bargaining chip from a tenants perspective - i.e sign 2 year lease, prepay rent in advance (without being Michel Keaton from pacific Heights), allow increases with opportunity for landlord to update...

 

[wobbycarly]

Yes your are probably right - I'd tell me to go take my $25 elsewhere - but its more what is a decent bargaining chip from a tenants perspective - i.e sign 2 year lease, prepay rent in advance (without being Michel Keaton from pacific Heights), allow increases with opportunity for landlord to update...

Unless there is an oversupply of rental properties, bargaining is usually worthless for a tenant, IMO. Unless a tenant has already proven they are a good payer, and don't want every little scratch tidied up, THEN they may consider getting $5-$10 under market when they renew.

 

[C-mac]

It all depends on your market.
In high-demand markets like Sydney, you will struggle to find suburbs where properties stay on the rental market for longer than two weeks.

This is a real indication of the scarcity of rental properties in markets like these.
If you live in a market where lots of properties have been stagnant for over one month/six weeks, you have more negotiating leverage space.

Certainly do make slightly lower offers; but also make sure your application is sound; providing them with even more than what they asked for, to attest to your character.

Sometimes landlords (such as myself) are weary of those offering less money. By no means are these people 'dodgy', but when given no context, it doesn't come across very well.

Cheers

 

[kathryn d]

We are asked on the very odd occassion if we negotiate..and we always say no.
generally will not even want to bother with that tenant, because they will always be asking for something.

If you want to secure a place, maybe offer a little bit more rent.

If a place has been vacant a short time, we sometimes offer a week of free rent.

 

[fisherman]

The answer would be no and I could ask why you wasted my time if you wanted a rental for $25 less.

Can't say that we have ever had good experiences with tenants who set out to nickel and dime us to death. So that red flag is a consideration too.

 

[Daz7]

Interesting replies from those holding properties.

Had an experience recently when I was between properties and needing to rent something.

A place came up that was in my mind lovely, noticed at the open house that we had a few prospective renters to compete against, so added some $ on top of the weekly rent asked on the application form.

Come time to sign the lease, I notice that this offer wasn't taken up by the RE. Fair call I think. Arrangement was to move in, after 4 weeks when the existing tenant moved out.

A week later we had a call from the RE asking if we could come in and sign the lease 2 weeks early as the existing tenants were moving out and leaving them in a not good situation. I stated that we were working on the exisiting agreement but we could possible do something if for those two weeks we split the rent with the properties owners.

I sat on the phone as the RE ranted, told me she was horrified that I would even suggest such a thing, seriously she even told me that this wasn't the start of a good relationship and that she would be considering giving the property to someone else over this. I laughed and suggested that from a business perspective one would think 50% rent for two weeks or no rent for two weeks, you'd take the first option. I could go on, its been a real experience in seeing the other side of dealing with a RE that appears to only look after rental properties.

I just think you have to take offers one at a time and see them in the light of the offer. A full price offer from a bad tenant isn't a good outcome.

 

[kathryn d]

Interesting replies from those holding properties.

Had an experience recently when I was between properties and needing to rent something.

A place came up that was in my mind lovely, noticed at the open house that we had a few prospective renters to compete against, so added some $ on top of the weekly rent asked on the application form.

Come time to sign the lease, I notice that this offer wasn't taken up by the RE. Fair call I think. Arrangement was to move in, after 4 weeks when the existing tenant moved out.

A week later we had a call from the RE asking if we could come in and sign the lease 2 weeks early as the existing tenants were moving out and leaving them in a not good situation. I stated that we were working on the exisiting agreement but we could possible do something if for those two weeks we split the rent with the properties owners.

I sat on the phone as the RE ranted, told me she was horrified that I would even suggest such a thing, seriously she even told me that this wasn't the start of a good relationship and that she would be considering giving the property to someone else over this. I laughed and suggested that from a business perspective one would think 50% rent for two weeks or no rent for two weeks, you'd take the first option. I could go on, its been a real experience in seeing the other side of dealing with a RE that appears to only look after rental properties.

I just think you have to take offers one at a time and see them in the light of the offer. A full price offer from a bad tenant isn't a good outcome.

Why wouldn't the original tenant be liable for the rent, until you moved in?

From the problems people seem to have with PMs, your experience doesn't surprise me.

 

[Daz7]

Why wouldn't the original tenant be liable for the rent, until you moved in?

From the problems people seem to have with PMs, your experience doesn't surprise me.

I wasn't privy to that information.

 

[SandraL]

Christos,
Unless you can clearly establish that the property has been on the market for a long time (many weeks or even months), offering less rent doesn't make much sense. The exception would be if you were to offer somethig in return, eg mowing the lawn, or pre-paying the rent for 6 months, etc.

 

[bweed]

Really surprised by some of the responses on this thread. I've negotiated price or other conditions on several places I've rented. It IS a free market and that means buyers (renters) and sellers (landlords) have to agree on a price. Why should only one side get to choose the price. If I were on the other side of the equation I'd much rather a potential renter offer me $20 less if that's what they think it's worth than just walk away because they thought it was too expensive.

For the record I don't go to inspect properties out of my price range and then attempt to negotiate them into my price bracket. I inspect a property then offer what I think is fair market value. Sometime that's the asking price, sometimes not. Sometimes it's accepted, sometimes not. Depends on a lot of things. Though in several cases where it was rejected the same property sat vacant for many weeks afterwards and eventually did drop the price. They would have been far better off accepting my offer.

As far as I'm concerned renting a house from someone is a business transaction, they aren't doing me a favor the way some agents would like you me think, we are doing each other a favor. It means a lot to me to know that on the other end of the deal is someone savvy enough to understand simple principles like supply/demand and not be so backwards as to get offended by something normal like negotiation. If they can't handle that what other landlord horrors am I likely have to deal with.

A tip for the original poster. When making an offer it's worthwhile backing it up with some reason. Don't just offer less, tell them why you're offering less.

edit: Just want to add that just because I negotiate doesn't mean I'm a tenant that's always asking for things. Frankly I fix most minor and some major problems myself because it's too much hassle to try and get a PM to do anything. Unless there's some hidden nasty that I couldn't have found through my due dilligence then I regard the deal to be 'as is'. If I want extras I'll negotiate at the start which is when it should be done, or if later then I'll add an offer of fair recompense to the request. So the characterization that someone who negotiates on price will be a pain the butt tenant is complete nonsense. I have an unbroken record of glowing rental references to prove it.