patrick.net

Never. I got a good deal on my house and my landlord is great.

They have me over for family events as if I were part of the family. Also for dinner from time to time. They take me to the airport when I need to travel and will pick me up at SFO if I don't get back too late.

misstrial..."true millionaires"...this reads dumb and has not a thing in the world to do with integrity or a heightened sense of landlord responsibility...yowza.

ordertaker says

I became a landlord six months ago. It’s a 4 bedroom home as the market is flooded with 3 bedroom units. I read a book which suggested charging slighlty lower rent than the going rate to attract a good pool of prospective tenants. I got the home into pristine condition before putting it on the market, another tip from the book. I received tons of calls and rented the home to great tenants who have paid early every month and seem genuinely appreciative of their good deal. My costs are covered so I’m happy even though similar homes rented for 50% more seven years ago. If I had been greedy or had purchased the wrong type of unit, I’d be singing a different tune.

Exactly. As a one-time landlord and current renter, I can say I can smell both a bad tenant and a bad landlord a mile away. Determine a fair market price, take care of the property. This results in good will with your customer (tenant is a CUSTOMER) and they therefore communicate what you want to know (hey, there's a leak!), pay on time, and don't feel resentful and entitled to demand you fix every light bulb. As a tenant, you feel you are getting a fair shake so you are more motivated to pay on time, treat the place as your own, and communicate what you think they'll need to know. A little semantics I used - pay by the 1st and you get a $50 discount, pay later and you pay the 'full' amount. Rather than 'late payment is penalized!'.

It's just good business v. poor business practice. In the bay area many landlords' standard practice is to raise the rent each year. My response is, "well, that's your perogative at the end of the lease but I may choose to move out as a result". I have actually negotiated decreases when they start down that path. You just have to negotiate dispassionately and let the other party know what you are, and are not willing to do. As a landlord, I put a lot more weight on good, repsonsible people over an extra $50/mo.

Sallybuttons:

My use of the term "true millionaires" was to distinguish such from all of the fakes and poseurs running around.

Perhaps I should have used "real millionaires" instead, but then I had no idea that someone would take offense at the use of my original term.

And actually in my experience, if someone cannot afford to pay for repairs on their own property, that does bear on their "heightened sense of landlord responsibility".

Obviously there are exceptions to this, however IN MY EXPERIENCE wealthy landlords can afford to take care of their rental property and those who are not wealthy, generally cannot.

Please reread my original post.

btw, in my line of work, usually when someone nitpicks at small things, that person tends to have serious relationship problems with people close to them in life.

It is also my experience, that marginally-moneyed people tend to over-estimate their sense of self-worth simply because they have rental property.

For women, this is called "pecking order" and simply won't wash with me. However, if you want to engage in this sort of behavior: I have been on this Forum over 2 years longer than you, so that gives me a level of status above you in that category.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/123340-report-renters-are-wealthier-than-home-owners

~Misstrial

pkowen: Good post.

jvolstad: Thank you for sharing your great situation with your LL. With my LL, we have added value to their property by having satellite installed. Also have done yardwork and removed a bush with extensive roots that was damaging the foundation.

Its fun being a good tenant and we value the business relationships we have developed with our LLs over the years.

One is a Stanford professor and he has been a great resource regarding our investment portfolio.

Best,
~Misstrial

thomdo says

I see a lot of what appears to me to be ridiculous, this quote stands out like a siren to me “I’ve never lowered the rent of an existing tenant.” There are a number of serious problems brewing today, and I see a lack of a sense of reality. Especially in CA, FL, AZ and NV. GET REAL PEOPLE the wizard has left the building, the mirrors are gone. What world are you people thinking? The arrogance of not lowering rent for an existing tenant or speaking of 3000K a month like its 300. In an economy where everything from jobs to mortgages are going bad your going to snap into reality soon enough, and it ain’t going to be pretty.

Generally, in my experience, LLs who are marginal in the liquid asset category are the ones who have a hard-boiled stance on not lowering the rent.

The facts are they *cannot afford* to lower the rent, and so to provide cover for themselves, they proudly announce that they never lower the rent. Ever.

In this economy, being able to be fluid and lower rents to reflect a financial meltdown, means that the investor has properly managed their asset positions to maintain cash reserves.

It is my experience that many landlords have refinanced their rental properties and sucked "equity" out of them and having done so puts them in a precarious position or else there wouldn't be blogs such as this:

http://tenantsforeclosure.blogspot.com

And we are in still in a meltdown:

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/the-debt-star-has-cleared-the-planet

~Misstrial

ptiemann says

That’s pretty funny with the 89 Nissan. At least I have a 92 model, but it’s just a Ford. I guess that makes me a bad landlord.
The good landlords that you describe are probably rare.

Thank you, I intended it to be humorous.

Driving an older vehicle is certainly not the only clue, however it is one of several.

Best to you,
~Misstrial

Misstrial is only trying to explain her methods using very vague generalizations. Using her method, we are likely to miss a couple of wealthy land lords, but it's the simple idea that she's trying to convey which is difficult.

I can see her point. I've had both types of LL's. The cheap one was wealthly, just cheap. He was a good guy, and got things done. He did most of the stuff himself. The wealthy one owned many apartments and just kept them as side income after retiring. She really didn't want anything but a small income from them, and that is what she got. No hassles, and probably good income due to prop 13.

Anyone with a job, can afford rent. People without a job, are going to have a harder time. Unless you're in a bottom of the barrel career, employers aren't going to try and short change your income for a year while the "recession" continues. It looks great on paper, get someone for cheap now that there is a huge labor pool, but in the end it generates animosity and the person is less likely to stick around. Taking on the same job is likely to yield roughly the same income. So people can afford homes. If they need a home, they have to go with supply and demand as well. They need to get 1 months notice in most cases, which means they have 1 month to get a place. Eventually they need to take something on the market, even if it's not what they might consider a "fair" value, they need to move. LL's can sit on a property for longer, even though it costs them money. So $3000 might seem high, but for homes, it's probably not. Maybe a few hundred extra, but eventually someone will move into it. It's a game of chicken, where LL's lose money each month, but tentants need to have a place to live. Tentants ultimately have to sign a lease with ONE of those LL's.

Hey, this question about falling rents is one I can help answer using my copious data from the Landlord's Bargain Finder (shameless product placement).

OK, I selected all the places that were advertised for rent more than once in my own zip code, Menlo Park, CA 94025 and sorted by date so you can see the rent declines (or rises in some cases). The data is here:

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/94025rents.txt

All I really know is that the same address and number of bedrooms was advertised more than once. I lose the apt number in my process of regularizing addresses. So some of these might be different apts in the same building, with the same number of br.

Still, you can get a feel for the places that did not immediately rent and so either had to be advertised multiple times, or had to have the rent lowered.

Please let me know how I might make the data easier to read. And whether there's any particular set of data you'd be willing to pay for...

The data is slightly flawed, because a single listing probably means it rented right off the bat. That could mean two things, they either found a tenant willing to pay a high price, or they valued the place accordingly.

Multiple listings could show an unrealistic rent, poor advertising skills, or a useless LL at selling their properties (which I've had) who don't seem to care either way.

We would need to have a bunch of graphs drawn up. How many rented right away, and at what price points. What the average asking rents are in relation to the rents that rented right away. And then how these rents compare with the average. Finally a graph showing the last rent seen (which presumably is the rent it went for).

This could be useful information for a landlord. Having average rents is one thing, they can compare what they expect to get vs the rental unit cost, but getting an idea of how long it takes to rent a place when a high rental price is asked could be interesting.

If you know it would take you 4 weeks to rent a place, when asking for 15% more rent, you could figure out how much that was worth to you.

If you need it rented instantly, what is the best price to use?
If you've got 6-8 weeks buffer zone, how much extra can you get, and is it worth it?

Yes, I do ignore the single listing in that data set. They are important, but they clutter things up. It's more fun to see who could _not_ rent at their asking price, at least not right away.

I could definitely make all those graphs, just a matter of finding a landlord who wants them enough to subscribe, or to pay for one-off reports.

We moved to the South Bay (LA) area 2 years ago and negotiated a rent that was $300 less than asking. The landlord was asking for $2800/month and we leased for $2500/month.

We recently negotiated another rent decrease to $2275/month. It is a good deal for both. He keeps a good renter who pays 10 days early every month and we continue to live in a quiet place that was brand new when we moved in.

We lowered our asking rent in 2006 from 2200 to 1950 for a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath house in Smithtown New York. The comps were maybe 15% higher, but living 3000 miles away we didn't want to be in a position to have a vacancy.
We rented the house to a licensed contractor who intended to stay long term and so far has, outside of a water heater, the contractor has kept the place very well and we have no intent to up the rent any time soon.
We have not been asked for a reduction, and since we're still under the comps, I don't really expect one.

not much of a pict but here it is

I live in a large, professionally managed complex which aggressively adjusts rents up and down all the time.

I suspect they have some revenue management algorithm, and I think they are probably successful in getting high utilization at the highest rate the market will bear.

However, rents are quite volatile so for a prospective renter willing to wait and observe (rents are posted online) it is possible to get a good deal by waiting for a dip and then sign.

christopherkeveny says

not much of a pict but here it is

Small world.
I lived in Smithtown(Nesconset) from the mid 70s to the mid-80s, Went to school there. Parents bought
their 2nd house, brand new 4 bdrm, 2.5 bath colonial w/central air, fireplace, 2 car garage, on a half acre, circa 1973, for $42,900, sold it in the 90s for $185k and scooted to FL for their retirement.
Current Zillow Zestimate is $498k.

The landlord might not be able to lower the rent because they already have a negative cash flow on the place.

Landlords generally don't reduce rents for existing tenants, as tenants don't move until rents fall 10%, which isn't likely even in this recession. (Tenants want to make back the cost of moving within a year, and a rent reduction of 1.7% just isn't going to do that.) Many landlords automatically (without thinking) raise rents on their units when a tenant moves out, as this has worked for most of the last 40 years.

Currently landlording is a tricky business. every vacancy costs money. If you lose one month in rent the fact that you would have made a hundred or so extra per month for a higher advertised rent is shot for the whole year. for your advertising costs and one lost month. There are fewer qualified tenants because of the flood of people choosing to rent instead of sell their house in such a down market.
Depending on where you are i would imagine that landlords with the inability to be flexible will have serious problems, or may just go broke. In addressing the poster that recomended renting from wealthy landlords,- its a litttle bit of a different deal having a landlord that owns a spare house or 2. Than being a landlord that owns 50 or more houses and rental apts. Paying an extra mortgage payment isnt so hard but try making 20 extra morgage payments. Successfull landlords arent uber wealthy that set on high and let their underlings handle every detail of their business.
Landlords deal with situations that would make normal people fall to their knees in tears. Most are hard working and if they make a dime after, mortgages, taxes, insurance, maintenance, lieing tenants, purposeful damage, vandalism, court costs, being sued for things like people triping in the yard while drunk, and the insurance company opting to pay a small claim rather than legal fees. They deserve every penny!
In ther current climate survival is primary/ then profits. If you dont show some flexibility with rents, lifes gonna be tough.
Personally my opinion is worse than the great depression.Theres certainly more money at at stake. All the stocks in the world equal a mere fraction of the equity in normal everyday peoples houses Nothing is selling but forclosures. at fractions of true value. normal people basicallly cant sell their houses. And no matter what your credit or financial status banks will not lend for non owner occupant homes.
Its kind of the perfect storm - in my opinion normal houses are down 35%, multi family is down 45%, and land is down 55%.
However much you think you lost on your indivivdual house then apply that to landlords who lost millions on their properties that had taken their lifetime of sweat , blood, tears and money, to acquire. And vacancies went through the roof at the same time. Good luck to my fellow landlords, "you'll need it"

Hollywood, CA 90068/ - 2 bed room, 1 3/4 bath - reduced from $1595. to $1350. Available
three months. Good Apt. NO takers. Will lower another $50. next week. Same story
all over this hillside neighborhood. U.S. rents may be down 1.8% in the past year but some good
parts of LA are down 15% and more in that time.

Question. How can anyone commenting on this blog talk about TRUE or REAL millionaires on the West Coast? Do you not read any of the articles on this site?? What a joke. Here is a reality check for you. Almost all of your home values, jobs, most importantly INCOME for the last 30 yrs was a high finance Ponzi sheme fraud. Ask yourself how these so called rich people came to be. I will bet that most of them were either long term trust funders of parents who probably had average jobs that cashed out a fake home appreciation to call themselves millionaires ,or they themselves did the prior, or they were paid a salary based on millions of Californians being able to pay their salary based on false wealth of their homes. Here is a note for you. Since the rest of the US is having to support the entire West Coast from going under due to materialism out of control and a childlike belief of entitlement. Please be more humble and thankful. Without the government welfare, your so-called millionaires would be mostly wiped out, as they should be. And before you try to tell me how they had lots of cash, answer this question. Where was it? in real estate investments? in the stock market? bonds? All on welfare from the govt. All would be worth less than half if left alone to survive and to have to face the reality of a 30 yr Ponzi sheme. Now, if they had cash in their savings (which I doubt) then I apologize.

I drive a 1989 Toyota. Bad landlord? Or is that only Nissan owners? I suspect I'm a "bad landlord." I have lowered rents on one bedrooms, because the market for them has dropped, from what I can see. I see the same thing of owners sitting with vacant properties for long periods of time because they are asking too much. It is somewhat different between renting a house and an apartment. If you have a house, you can lower the rent and that's it. In an apartment building, if you lower the rent on one unit, it's pretty hard not to lower the rent for all similar or lesser units. It may be better to accept longer periods of vacancy than to do that. I try to price at a level that will attract applicants quickly. Having done that, if someone comes in and the first thing out of their mouth is, "Will you discount the rent?" then I figure they will probably be a demanding, difficult to work with resident and I am very, very reluctant to rent to them. That said, in this market, you do what you have to do.

i think for some of the renting properties sitting vacant there's a reason aside from price.

Lowering the rent isn't always the solution.

I've listed my house for rent and had it sit empty with no takers. lowered the rent still no takers. Raised the
rent back up, changed my marketing strategy and the place rented in a day.

I have been a landlord for past 10 years. All my tenants becomes a long term any where from 5-7years or longer. Even the ones that signed 6 month lease ends up staying for 4 or more years. When I see a good tenant, I knock of $100 off of rent from $1650 to $1550. And I treat my tenants like gold... Good long term tenants are hard to come by and I do whatever I can to make their lives easier while they are living in my properties! Taking a couple of hundred dollars more is not important as having great long term tenants who pays rent on time and takes care of the property! I am not a millionaire, I have mortgages to pay and I do not own these properties out right. I just realize that high turn over and vacancies is much greater loss than making my tenants feel that they are getting a good deal.

We negotiated a discount rent on the property we are living in before move in a year ago. We asked for a rent reduction a few days ago and were told no. The place is literally half empty.
Even more amusingly the landlord said we had to move out on Monday or sign a lease for another year. We pointed out that this was illegal but our landlord insisted this was the way it worked! Playing hardball in a rental market like this is hilarious.
To the "true millionaire" argument - we live in a modest apartment, drive an old car and have high six figures in the bank. Judging someones wealth based on their car is something only a poor person would do.

nobody want to rent to cheapskates. I did that before and it was a year of constant complaining
Needless to say that lady is living somewhere else now.

In my experience It's actually cheaper in the long run to leave the place vacant for a few months.

I must be a bad landlord too with my 86 honda and 87 subaru. I have noticed all my tenants drive much nicer cars. I own the very well maintained buildings and have money in the bank so that's fair. I haven't had to lower rents since my rentals are in the Rio Grande valley where there was never any boom.

Misstrial only generalized the "wealthy landlord" statement. Obviously not ever one of them running an old car is going be bad. Like wise the rich ones might be bad as well, but in general she has found them to be better.

No one wants to deal with the miser. LL's or the Renters. It's far more likely they aren't a miser if they're driving a nicer car. It could mean they don't manage money well, but it at least shows they have found access to it.

I watched one of those apartments with the moving rental prices. I decided I didn't want to deal with them, they just annoyed me. A 12 month lease would be like 1400, 14 month lease was 1200, 16 month least was 1300. The day before the places were $200 less, but they had rented all but one place. The program essentially tried to keep minimal units open, and would adjust the prices based on available units AND it was trying to tie people into leases where the likely hood of leases expiring at the same time was less likely. That way they were less likely to have 6 units open at any given time, by having the leases spread out over a larger time period, thus having a more even spread of rentals happening. I'm guessing it reduced staffing costs, and kept marketing costs at a constant level, by essentially always having one place open, but no more than that.

Thank you pkennedy for coming to my defense.

Interesting how there are those who picked out of my post the one thing they could find fault.

READ MY ENTIRE POST PEOPLE!

And as for bob2356, I rented in the Rio Grande valley for 3 years before moving back here to Cali.

88007.

Las Cruces.

And there are many absentee landlords who run rentals there who are completely ignorant of local wage and living conditions when fixing rent prices. Check out Las Cruces Craigslist (considered part of the RG valley): $600+/month for a run down single wide -

http://lascruces.en.craigslist.org/apa/1672481539.html

Many of those other rentals that rent for less are infested with rats and mice.

Bear in mind that the average wage in the Rio Grande valley area is less than eight dollars an hour and if someone can get a job that pays $10/hr then that person is considered to be doing great in NM.

Show a lack of mercy and you'll wind up with socialism. Some people just do not get it.

Like I posted above, there are landlords, and apparently on this Forum, who are driven by The Bottom Line.

toothfairy:

I suggest you post pictures of your rental along with your rent requirement. A lack of pictures to show renters what you are offering could be the problem, and not your lower rent (thank you for that btw).

Reason why I encourage you to do this is because I always "under-rent" and I value pictures in the ad because that gives me an idea of what I'm getting.

Translation: most people in my income bracket who are renters, rent at the $3500/mo level. I rent for less than half that even though it means living in a non-sexy community. Nonetheless, when the time comes, I will pay all cash for a house in Coto de Caza and will probably continue to drive my 2000 car. :)

Funny how everyone caught that one about the old car and yet failed to read further down in my response to ptiemann that my description was intended to be humorous. lol

~Misstrial

I was in San Francisco rental market last summer. The going rate for a decent 1bd/1ba in a good neighborhood was 1600 back then. That was just the beginning of a downturn for rental rates. We found a great, freshly remodeled place with a great caring landlord in a small apartment building for 1550 and actually were able to negotiate it down to 1500. That's our rent right now.

Throughout this year I actively kept an eye on my neighborhood's rents. Saw an increase in available units and rents dropped to 1500-1550 on the average. I do see a lot of places sitting for months and months vacant. I guess somebody figures it's better to loose 100/m but rent within a month than have the unit loosing 1500 for 3-4 months.

And let me remind you that this is SAN FRANCISCO, a place where rents are stable and unfortunately very high for the last decade. A lot of people of all walks of life think that SF/Bay Area is immune to economic downturn. I hear all the time that RE in here will not be affected. Good luck, try taking that to the bank. We are all in the same boat, somebody just gets washed out with the first wave, others later.

There's no point of paying 600K for a house that would be a shame to live in in most decent countries of the world, even in many other US states. Prices still have to come down big time.

Misstrial says

Thank you pkennedy for coming to my defense.
Interesting how there are those who picked out of my post the one thing they could find fault.
READ MY ENTIRE POST PEOPLE!
And as for bob2356, I rented in the Rio Grande valley for 3 years before moving back here to Cali.
88007.
Las Cruces.
And there are many absentee landlords who run rentals there who are completely ignorant of local wage and living conditions when fixing rent prices. Check out Las Cruces Craigslist (considered part of the RG valley): $600+/month for a run down single wide -
http://lascruces.en.craigslist.org/apa/1672481539.html
Many of those other rentals that rent for less are infested with rats and mice.
Bear in mind that the average wage in the Rio Grande valley area is less than eight dollars an hour and if someone can get a job that pays $10/hr then that person is considered to be doing great in NM.
Show a lack of mercy and you’ll wind up with socialism. Some people just do not get it.
Like I posted above, there are landlords, and apparently on this Forum, who are driven by The Bottom Line.

I'm at the other end of the RGV by the gulf (Harlingen, Brownsville, McAllen) so I have no idea what happens in NM. I rent nice properties at slightly less than market, but am very picky about tenants. Or used to be since I'm now overseas. My rental agent reflects my values and runs the properties as I would which is very pleasing. I'm not sure what offering a service at the going market rates has to do with mercy.

@besakirskis

We pay for location. 600K might buy a kingdom in some african country, but we don't want to live there. 600K might buy a mansion in fresno, in the US, in California, but we still don't want to live there! SF is highly desirable. It has a lot going for it.

A few places not renting for 4 months doesn't mean much. There are a lot of people renting in SF, and they're all in their places right now, in leases. No one is leaving enmasse, and they'll pay whatever it takes to stay there. They were willing to pay it when rents were even higher, now with them coming down they're going to pay them as well.

Some people might be out of work and unable to afford SF but there are plenty who can and still want to live in SF.

besakirskis:

What I know from my line of work, is that many landlords need to charge higher monthly rents and will intentionally let a unit sit vacant - all over a $100+/mo price differential for one reason in particular that I'd like to highlight:

In order to have their investment property appraise for a certain amount, they need to show that they are successful at charging a certain level of rent.

EX: A client (of an opposing counsel) lied to a bank appraiser when she wanted to take cash out of her property via a refinance. She stated to the appraiser that she was getting $1800/month rent when in fact she was only charging $1075/month in rent.

The purpose of this conduct is to misrepresent the property's value, to mislead the bank/lender into thinking the property has a higher market value than it really does, and so qualify for a refinance when in fact this transaction should never take place.

So, that could be one reason why you see places sit empty, it does not apply to every unit owner, however, the above-situation I described could come into play more frequently than you may think in today's economy.

~Misstrial

bob2356 says

"I’m at the other end of the RGV by the gulf (Harlingen, Brownsville, McAllen) so I have no idea what happens in NM. I rent nice properties at slightly less than market, but am very picky about tenants. Or used to be since I’m now overseas. My rental agent reflects my values and runs the properties as I would which is very pleasing. I’m not sure what offering a service at the going market rates has to do with mercy."

Thank you for being a considerate landlord.

~Misstrial

For what it's worth, in my experperiece by and large most small time landlords are basically slumlords. A lot of the big apartment complexes are pretty well maintained. Single family homes seem to be managed on a shoestring and when something goes bad and needs work or replacement it might as well be the end of the world. I have never once seen one of these folks ever do an inspection to see if everything works properly. And most work done to make these places livable between tenants is so shoddy cause they don't pay anybody who actually has a clue what they're doing to do the work. We moved in one place and they were still installing the plumbing under the sink. After they left we were going to use the sink and water started pouring out under the sink. Opened the door and looked and they had packed gobs of plumbers putty around all the joints. Oh my God, what micky mouse morons! Unfortunately, this kind of stuff is more the rule than the exception. It runs the gambit from plumbing to electrical to the heating and waterheater to lousy carpet, paint, fencing, not to mention rotting wood and nonwork8ng appliances. And what is the deal with not having venting for the stove? Sorry folks, if you don't give enough of a shit about your property to properly maintain it for your tenants don't expect them to lift a finger to fix it up for you. It's your house and investment- you take care of it.

pkennedy says

@besakirskis
We pay for location. 600K might buy a kingdom in some african country, but we don’t want to live there. 600K might buy a mansion in fresno, in the US, in California, but we still don’t want to live there! SF is highly desirable. It has a lot going for it.
A few places not renting for 4 months doesn’t mean much. There are a lot of people renting in SF, and they’re all in their places right now, in leases. No one is leaving enmasse, and they’ll pay whatever it takes to stay there. They were willing to pay it when rents were even higher, now with them coming down they’re going to pay them as well.
Some people might be out of work and unable to afford SF but there are plenty who can and still want to live in SF.

Yes!

http://www.naturefootage.com/video_clips/BG68_093

My family moved to SF over 110 years ago when the streets were still packed-dirt and people moved via horse wagon.

No place like it on earth. I love the City and the people who live there.

Excellent charitable fund for SF'ers:

http://www.openhand.org

Interesting perspectives here.

Kinda going back to original question, it just seems when a place is above market value by a certain %, it has a lower chance of renting out (so it may take longer). But at some point, it reaches zero.

For example, if there's a place most people think should rent for around $2500 (when you're at this level, there's a more limited amount of comps), if the landlord wants $3000, he may be able to rent it, but pretty much zero chance at something like $4000, and defintely zero chance at like $8000.

So, I suppose, how long do you think something needs to sit on market before it's become clear there's near zero chance (or it's extremely low). Seems to me about 4 months is a good sign. Two months and it's kinda clear your chance is at best 50% each month it's out there (if it's 50% each month it's sitting, then there's a 75% chance you would have rented it after 2 months).

I have been a landlord for over 20 years. I would look at your question differently.
If you have a house that is not rented out in 3 or 4 months, you had misjudged the market badly.
Before you set the rent you should see what is moving out there. I like to price at the lower end and get a good pool of candidate so I can choose the better ones. If you price it too high, the scums will apply since they are going to jack you over in the end.
If it is not renting, take it off the market, do some improvements and give it a rest. Just like selling, if the price is right, there will be takers.

ragingpinko says

Landlords generally don’t reduce rents for existing tenants, as tenants don’t move until rents fall 10%, which isn’t likely even in this recession. (Tenants want to make back the cost of moving within a year, and a rent reduction of 1.7% just isn’t going to do that.) Many landlords automatically (without thinking) raise rents on their units when a tenant moves out, as this has worked for most of the last 40 years.

You either have no clue on rental market of last 3-4 years in california OR we are talking about different things.

1. These days, 100% of landlords are lowering rents for existing tenants if the tennant signs a new lease of 6 months or longer (assuming the existing tenants moved in within last 5 years).

2. Official stats on california rental markets around 3-5% decrease in rents. These are stats for ALL rentals. Market price for ALL NEW LEASE have been going down 10-20% per year (for last 2-3 years).

3. This is nothing really new. Maybe the magnitude is somewhat unprecedent but same thing has happened numerous time in last 40 years.