CHICAGO — It isn’t easy to build up the nerve to ask your landlord for a reduction in rent. But these days, having the gumption to renegotiate a lease is paying off as landlords struggle to find and keep tenants with good credit and a history of paying on time.
Ask Mike Haskins, a Raleigh, N.C., resident who recently was able to lower his rent. The vacancy rate had risen in his neighborhood after two other apartment complexes had been built. He knew that the complex in which he was renting wasn’t full, and rent for a similar unit on the first floor was set at $650; his rent was $750.
“I felt like I had some power,” said the 24-year-old.
It took some pushing — and a threat to take his business elsewhere — but before long, Haskins made a deal. When he renewed his lease, his rent was $100 lower.
There are several reasons why landlords may be willing to make a deal these days.
Eighty-eight percent of property owners who participated in a survey said job losses are contributing to vacancy rates. Fifty percent said would-be tenants can’t afford rent or are trying to save, and 45 percent said the trend of people doubling up with roommates is causing units to sit vacant. The survey polled owners representing 3,192 apartment communities throughout the country.
Plus, there’s even more inventory to compete with these days because in sluggish housing markets many homeowners rent their homes instead of selling, said Peggy Abkemeier, general manager of .
And some renters are becoming homeowners as affordability improves and the government entices them with a first- time-buyer tax credit.
In response to vacancies, 68 percent of landlords said they were lowering rents, and 68 percent also said they were giving one or more months of rent free.
In a TransUnion survey, 81 percent of property managers are concerned they won’t find reliable tenants for the rest of 2009.
