Is it normal to offer less rent than the house is advertised at?

[Preschoolermum]

Or not? The house is nice, and competitively priced. There are other interested parties. Is it normal to make an offer anyway? Do most people make offers? I thought that was the practice if buying but not renting, but maybe I am wrong.
Thank you for your views!

I guess it depends on how much you want the house. If I was a landlord/letting agent I know the person trying to knock £10/25/50 a month off of the rent would be wayyyy down on the list.

I've never heard of offers being made for rentals, but in my area, rentals go in hours.

In fact for the house I currently live in, there was a couple bring shown around at the same time. I left them still talking with the agent about a parent guarantor for the rent while I went outside and phoned the office to pay my initial fee to secure the house from under their feet. It's that tight a market here, its what you do to get the house you want.

I'm a LL and have rented out our house twice - both to tenants who offered us less than the advertised rate. But they were nice families and both stayed far longer than anticipated. It wasn't much less - maybe £50 a month.

I also think the agents big up the price, too. Just like they can overinflate a price to sell a property.

I've lived in two rented homes in the last eight years. Offered below (by about 7 or 8%) on one, paid asking price on the other - different locations, very different markets.

We did offer significantly below on another house (20% ish), which was insanely over priced - family were relocating unexpectedly after renovation project. Apparently they were quite pissed off with our offer! But it sat untenanted for almost a year; then it vanished from the listings. They lost out on a lot of money.

We negotiated on our rent, and also that someone would come in to tackle the garden before we moved in, because the house had been empty for months and it was like an actual jungle!

We've been in the property five years now, and our rent has come down slightly further in that time because the landlord has taken account of other similar properties for lease at the same time and what they were advertised at. We always pay our rent early (1st instead of due on the 5th) and look after the property really well, so I guess it's better to keep us on board than have to re-let the property and potentially have it sitting empty with no rent being paid for months.

I think they then listed it for sale, IIRC.

My DD has just rented her first house and she had to make an offer

We have always made offers and they have always been accepted......

I have negotiated rent based on some things not being perfect in the property. I've also challenged the rental contract successfully- if some clauses are idiotic or unclear ask for written clarification or a change to the contract.

Depends where you are and your market.

Around here people tend to offer MORE than the asking rent to secure a property! Completely bonkers, but if you offer less, you have no chance of getting it.

If there's no lack of interested tenants, why would a landlord lower their price? It's unlikely the mortgage company and maintenance will lower theirs.

Where I am it is normal to offer less than the asking price. However there is over supply so tenants can play the market.

I'm a landlord and I'd say it depends how much discount you ask for. If tenants offered £100 less then I'd be worried that they were looking at houses they really couldn't afford to rent, so might default, and also that's £1200 a year I'm losing. If it was under £50 it wouldn't put me off, though if I chose you I'd probably offer to meet you half way with £25 off. What I look for in tenants is people I think will want to stay at least a couple of years, are reliable, will look after the house, and not annoy the neighbours - all of that is more important to me than a few quid off the rent.

I made an offer when I rented and had it accepted (well, in another form - I offered 10% below the advertised rent, they offered to throw in parking worth the same).

If a landlord thought I was a CF for even daring to ask them they aren’t the sort of landlord I’d have wanted to rent from.

Never heard of 'offering' a rental price before. The price is the price and it's up to the landlord to pick who they want as their tenants

We did. And we lived there for 5 years. It was in a very good area but may have been too big for a lot of people and not modern enough.

No-one was offended, the agents knew it was a bit outdated, the owner wanted it rented so he got an income, and although the usual suggestions were made of an increase in rent, it never went up. We were lucky. So was he because we never bothered them unless something broke down which was not often.

It depends on the area, the interest, and the property, and whether the owner needs the full rent, if you really want it you may have to be prepared to pay more.

Depends completely on local supply and demand...
We've always had a reduction by having excellent referencesand offering 3 months up front, asking for a longish lease, and being nice people .

As our lovely landlord said... One bad set of tenants can completely stuff any profit for a year!