FMF Reader Saves Over 25% on Rent Simply by Asking for a Discount

Here's an email I recently received from a reader:

I would like to share something I have done today.

Me and my wife live in a small town in Midwest. The total population of this place is less than 8,000. Yes, you read it right it is 8,000 not 80,000. Due to poor economy, our company told everyone to take one week unpaid time off for next few months. This made us to think creatively how to reduce our bills. Living in a small town, our fixed bills are already low, especially our rent. We pay $425 for a 2 bed room apartment. Our rent owner takes care of laundry, electricity bill. So our rent is already low. But I thought why can't I try negotiate my rent. Let's try. What worse can happen. My owner might say "No".

I have explained to my owner what's going on in our company. I have requested him politely if he can reduce our rent. Hurray..immediately he said, "You can pay me 25% less rent from this month and I can understand". So our rent from April will be $318 instead of $425. Stretch the dollar as far as possible :)
 
I remember reading one of your articles about negotiations. Of course do not remember when it was published. :)

Good for him! (And good for the landlord too -- helping someone out in a time of reduced income.)

For those of you interested, here's a post on six times it's easy to ask for a discount. The post includes several links to other "asking for a discount" posts as well.

Comments

[Personal Finance]

good for the reader! however I doubt it would be as easy in larger cities, but asking never hurts.

[Lynn]

I live in a large city. I recently got a permanent $25 rent discount just by asking. $25 is not a lot of money, but it's $25 that I get to save!

[Greg / Wise Bread]

Now is as good a time as any to ask for that rent discount. Bloomberg reports that U.S. apartment rents are falling as vacancies hit a 5-year high.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aitNnK7oTVKE&refer=us

"Job losses and falling wages are shrinking the pool of potential renters, bucking expectations that apartments would benefit from slumping home sales. "

[Richmond]

I just tried this a week ago, but was denied. The management company that owns and operates my apartment complex called my wife offering us the current special they had going, which was $500 off the first month's rent if we renewed our lease for next year now. When we signed our lease for this past year, we signed on to a deal of $200/mo for every month of the lease term. I went in and asked if we could renew our lease under the current $200/mo discount terms, but was denied. They cited the Fair Housing Act, saying that if they offered that deal to us they would be legally obligated to offer that to everyone. If they gave us those terms and someone found out, they could be sued.

I looked into it a bit and they seem to be doing things on the up-and-up, even though I was under the impression you could negotiate with your landlord and that they were copping out. Does anyone have a take on this situation? $500 off the first month's rent is nice, but it isn't $2400 off the entire term of the lease. If I can't get some leniency out of them, we may have to move.