patrick.net

Since your month to month, it's easy for you to move fast.

Ask them to match the guy across the street's price (or perhaps the price -$50 or so a month if you want to push it), and if he doesn't, just move. Give him like 2-3 days to respond (don't let your current landlord drag it out) so you don't risk losing the other place.

Pretty simple....

Moving across the street isn't so bad. Just tell the movers 'we want the stuff the same way, just in that house' lol

I highly recommend using redfin, PropertyShark, and the County Recorder's office to verify that neither of the landlords is on the brink of forecloure. Also, a cursory look at their tax base will let you know if they are trying to preserve their asset for future generations; in that case, you can bargain hard, but be prepared to bring something to the table to show you are a model tenant (offering to pay for six months rent up front would do the trick).

So you had the opportunity to reduce your rent $200 & didn't take it. Now the house across the street wants $300 less than you're paying - and you're asking for another $200 beyond that - then want your ll to pony up the same deal.

Reason says you're gonna have to sign a lease for one of these houses. Whichever one comes up with a number you like first, take it. But take into consideration the pain & trouble of moving, cost of movers, brokent items, etc and cost of switching the utilities, changing addresses, etc. Also the cost of paying a deposit - you won't get the whole deposit back from the place you're in. And cleaing it can be a bitch.

But you'll probably sign a lease. If you don't want to do so, you're crazy. You've been in the same place for two years - and for the last year paid $2,400 more than you would have had you signed a lease.

sign a one year lease. Even if you have to go before the year, any SANE landlord will agree to the deposit as damages anyways, if you are upfront about your plans. The last thing an individual owner has the time/money to do is sue over a dispute. I've let several tenants out of leases over the years, as long as they: 1 tell me up front, 2. clean the place up, and 3. open the door to prospective tenants I send over, so I don't have to drive over and show the place.

I would do a 2-year lease if you lock in a good rate. New LL is probably more likely to accept a lower rate too if they know you aren't going to flake on them and leave them empty.

Well...my situation in my current place was one where we were relocating and I was about to have a baby 3 weeks later so we just took the place...no negotiations etc. Now that I have been here awhile, I realize we have been overpaying by about 400-600 per month especially the past year. I cannot even find a house our size on craigslist listed for what we are paying let alone renting for this price. We are being lazy by not doing something about it. I thought I wanted to move to a better school district area, but the rents there for crappy houses are double what I am paying here. This discrepancy just started occuring the past 6 month or so. There is now a huge margin of difference in rental price between these 2 communities...even though they are right next to each other. Last year, the prices were much closer...not real noticable difference. Now where I live is cheaper and next town over is way more expensive. Its pretty strange. There are also 2X the amount of rentals available where I live now vs. when I moved here...and maybe 2 or 3 only listed at what I am paying out of 70 homes...and those homes are much larger than mine with bigger yards, granite etc.

It just seems stupid to move across the street, but worth it to pay 500 less per month than what I am currently paying. Im sure the moving cost would be negligible...maybe 1k...with a savings of 6k to move...plus...the security deposit is 1/2 of what my current deposit is so having my money back would be nice.

Bottom line is these landlords of my place had a good run with us. We pay rent on time every month, good credit, quiet etc. They have been fortunate and now they will need to be realistic and reprice this home at current market rate when we move and take the risk of renting to someone without a stable income or bad credit. They deserve what they get if they choose not to work with us.

It's unlikely you're going to get a 400-600 reduction on your current rent. It's likely the LL will reduce it somewhat, but probably not drop it down that amount. He has 2 things going for him. If he brings it down a bit, but not that much, your net gains over the next year will be less, and you'll likely stay. Second, he has you for 30 more days, for you to get that place across the street, you'll have to pay 2 rents, or hope the guy across the street will accept 30 more days, while you prepare to move. In all likelyhood, if you start bargaining with your current LL, it will take 1-2 weeks. By that time, you'll have to send in your 30 day notice, and this other house will have been on the market forever and you'll be asking the guy to hold it for another 30 days. If you offer to pay some of the rent, you're going to destroy your 'savings" by doubling up rent for a month.

I agree with SF, grab some day labor help, 2 guys will likely completely move your house, unless it's huge. You don't need even need to really pack things up, just get a couple of boxes and load/unload at each side, bringing back your current boxes each time. Start with the boxes, have the help move those over for you, then you unpack while they get larger furniture, when you're done, have them move the smaller boxes again. You're looking at probably $200 to do the move.

Samsmom, I hear ya. I was in a very similar situation. People just don't like to accept that their homes/rentals have gone down in value and need to adjust.
Many landlords bought the house with a mortgage and lived in it in the past. When they moved, instead of selling their past place they decided to rent it out. Perhaps they used to be able to rent it out at the full mortage+property taxes and everything. But now, they can't. Many don't realize this until they lose the tenant and their place is sitting vacant for a couple of months and they're paying two mortgages/property taxes for awhile while their house sits on the market.

As a tenant, there's nothing you can do if they're being unreasonable. That's the downside of dealing with a landlord instead of an apartment (as most big companies are probably a bit more realistic). Just suck it up and pay the moving costs and get on with your life. I bet it'll be under $1000 to move if you're able to move some of the stuff yourself, and since it's just across the street, you won't have to pay that half hour/hour of drive time the movers sometimes charge.

To follow up, one logical fallacy many individual landlords use is this:

Price of rent= mortgage payments + property expenses + other costs

It's a very self-focused formula that doesn't take into account what truly determines price, which is supply/demand. This sort of calculation may have worked in the past (as this sort of price may have equaled supply/demand equilibrium), but since house values (and other rents) are down, it doesn't work anymore.

For example, let's say as a landlord, you bought a house at $300k with a 6% mortgage four years ago. Now, someone across the street bought the same house at $250k with a 4.8% mortgage last year. Both want to rent it out. What you'll find is the person who bought it recently will often offer you a much better rent deal than the previous owner. While it's the same damn house and should cost the same amount, the $300k/6% guy is unwilling to accept a small monthly cashflow loss (though in reality, he may be able to get enough to cover the interest/taxes) and will instead just let the place sit on the market indefinitely. He'll even do this if you currently rent from him, and instead of lowering it to the new market price, he'll end up having to put it on the market, pay a realtor 1 month commission and undoubtedly have at least a few vacant weeks!

It's something I've learned over the past month or two looking for places. Renting individual houses is a very inefficient market like this, much moreso than the apartments. I've seen houses listed for months now, where if they knocked the price down 10% or so, it would probably lease. Instead, another month vacant.

House next door to me has been vacant for nearly 2 months now. Owner lost job here a while back and finally got an offer in DC had to follow it. So now they are renting there, and still paying mortage on empty house here.

Their asking rent is something like $2K for the 2/2 side of a duplex. It does have a pool, and with a toddler I consider a huge red X mark. It's funny when I was in my 20's I would have said OH COOL but now all I think about pools is what a monstrous money-hole you offered to throw it in free with a right-priced house, I'd ask how much to remove it.

The other side is 1/1 think they are asking $1400 for that. I really wonder if they are going to let it sit empty until next school year not much rental interest in a college town before tail end of summer.

Vicente, where is this?

My rental just decreased from $3400 per month to $2900 per month for a 3395 sqaure foot home purchased in 2006 for 1.1 million dollars. The home is currently valued at $770,000 and I would be lucky to get that much from an educated buyer, because 216 homes in my zip code are now in pre-foreclosure status. The property will more than likely drop another 100-200k in 2010.

If you are looking for cheap rental East Bay, Danville, Black Hawk, San Ramon, Dublin, and Pleasanton, Livermore are the places to be. Going rate is about $1.00 per square foot and less on larger homes.

Great Time to be a Renter!

sybrib says

Vicente, where is this?

Forgive my paranoia, not sure I should share the address "next door" on a public forum. It's in Davis, CA though no secret there I've mentioned it enough times in posts. Wow I looked it up on Zillow though, and it's a poster-child for the Prop13 disparity. They are paying less than 1/3 the property taxes of my landlord because they bought in 1997 versus my LL who bought in 2005.

Samsmom, from other posts you've made I assume you're paying rent in the 3-4K/month range. These are upscale homes. How telling is it that two upscale homes are both for rent across the street from each other?

On the east coast this just doesn't happen. First of all, upscale homes above $500K selling price just aren't available for rent, period, much less 2 on the same street.

Look out below... I would say every house in the neighborhood has a high risk of foreclosure in the next year.

getting a rent reduction without signing/extending a lease probably WONT work. Remember it is a give/take. HE gives you a lower rent, you give him some security for the next few months.

What you can DO is negotiate the lease terms. HE says 1 year, you say 6 months. You will probably agree some where in the middle. THat is waht I did. signed a 8 month lease :-)

good luck

@Ptipking222

Smaller apartment complexs, run by one person might be smarter at rent divergence, but not the larger ones. They just use simple programs to keep their places rented at the maximum possible. I was talking with one before and they had a unit for like $1200, by the time I got there, the last unit was now $1500. They said if I did a 15 month lease it would drop to $1400 because their computer program deemed that the best lease. Longer leases, cost more! I'm guessing the program was figuring out when people were likely to move, and when all their leases ended, thus they were trying to keep a steady stream of vacancies vs one month having half the building empty out. They jacked up the rent for the last unit because they knew the chances of having it rented at that price were pretty high now, and they had less to lose. For them it's a computer program. They figure out how to really maximize their returns! And offering discounts only when they absolutely have to!