How to Negotiate Your Rent With Your Landlord

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You might be asking yourself, can you negotiate rent? The answer is yes, but it depends on your situation. In this video, I will show you how to negotiate your rent. Here are a couple of things to consider:

Where should this discussion take place?
This discussion can take place over any way that you typically communicate with your landlord. In my case, we typically email, so I sent an email asking for lower rent. He later responded by calling me. We had a phone call and ended up at our new rental price. You should want this discussion to take place over the phone or in person if possible. If you’re not comfortable with this, then you can go ahead with an email. The problem with an email is that your landlord could miss it or ignore it, which would eat up your time and give you less leverage.

What is the best time to do this?
You need to make sure you have the right timing when it comes to renegotiating your rent. You cannot renegotiate in the middle of your current lease agreement because you already signed and agreed on a certain price. The best time to do this would be at the renewal period. You should check with your current landlord, but most will require a 60-day notice prior to your lease ending to let them know whether you intend on renewing your lease or plan to move out.
This being said, you want to initiate these discussions about a month before that 60-day deadline, so about 3 months before your lease ends.

Backup with data
You will need reasons as to why you will want to pay a lower rent. The most common and easiest reason to use is that comparable rental units are superior and cheaper. You can go ahead and shop for other similarly-sized rentals nearby and ask your landlord if they’re willing to match that price. In my situation, I noticed that a lot of unites in my building were having difficulties finding tenants, and they ended up lowering the rental price. I asked my landlord if he could match these prices and he agreed.
When you have this discussion, feel free to bring and cite examples of comparable units to show that yours may be overpriced.

Are you a good tenant?
Renegotiating your rent only works if your landlord likes you as a tenant. If you’ve been rude, or a headache in the past, your landlord will call your bluff and reject negotiation proposals. Worst case for your landlord is that you decide not to renew your lease. If you’ve been a bad tenant, this does not seem like a bad worst-case-scenario to your landlord.
On the flipside, if you’ve been a great tenant, your landlord should want to keep you and that gives you leverage when it comes to renewals. It is expensive for them to have a vacancy. They’ll risk potential downtime and will also have to spend a substantial amount renovating your unit before the next tenant.