Quick question on renting a house

[FreddoBaggyMac]

I'm renting a house for the first time and need a bit of advice. Is it normal to offer the rent advertised by the agents (eg. £750 per month) or is it normal to negotiate as you would when buying a house (eg. start by offering them £700 per month)? Thanks for your help!

[OnlyWantsOneFartleBerry]

my house was advertised at £590 pcm - I beat the agency down, and offered £450.

They accepted that £590 was a bit steap, and accepted £480 :-)

I was very happy. It's ok to ask - they can only say no can't they?

Good Luck x

[nancy75]

if you want to bargain with them make sure you pont out all your assats! can you move quickly, will you take a really long lease that kind of thing.

[FreddoBaggyMac]

Thanks - so the figure given is not a definite price then, we should at least get a bit knocked off

[somewhathorrified]

It depends if the landlord is willing to negotiate. If they have a mortgage to cover then it's unlikely to be negotiable.

[paisleyleaf]

You know it's never occurred to me to negotiate on rent.

[bergentulip]

We negotiated and got 30 off the monthly rate in our last place but one.

[TheHappyCat]

Definitely worth putting in an offer.
Our lettings agents told us at the start of the year to put it up for quite a bit as people were offering standard 30% discount. We ended up taking quite a discount but it was a real tenant's market at the time, and there is a large ongoing building project at the end of the (tiny) street.
Less of a tenant's market now and also prime central London always exaggerates the trend but I would say it is absolutely worth making an offer!

[Scottie22]

Definitely worth a try! My Dad got a discount as he paid 6 months in advance - depends if you could afford to do that though?!

Some areas are more swamped with rental property than others and depends on landlords's situation too.. Good Luck!

[smackapacka]

Be careful stumping up 6 months in advance though. If the landlord goes bankrupt and gets reposessed you may lose the house (and your money).

We tried to negotiate our rent but didn't get far. It was advertised at 1025 originally and over time came down to 950. Tried to negotiate down to 900 but lost our bottle and paid 950. Just glad we didn't agree to take it when it was 1025!