Cambridge rent negotiation

[birdbrained]

Hi everyone

We are about to start looking at rental properties. Prices seem pretty variable across agents. Does anyone have experience negotiating on the rental price? I guess it's a bit to do with how long a property has been on the market. But I was wondering if it was pretty standard to offer e.g. 10% below the advertised price.

Any advice appreciated!

We wound up paying £5 more a month than the advertised price as there was little stock when we were looking - we were told some relocation company wanted to put the house on its books so we panicked!

So I'm the very worst person to talk about negotiating

sadly, cambridge is just hideously expensive property wise - buying or renting! There is a huge market for houses and they go quickly :( worth a try though I guess!

Thanks guys, we had sort of figured as much. Just seems like some companies push their luck a bit - the same price for a house regardless of area or whether its on a major road. Have seen some ludicrous prices for tiny two bed properties...

We are considering a property on Long Reach Rd but worried about the noise from the new station development...

Back to pushing the refresh button on rightmove :)

Daughters rental reused one week after she moved out. Fast moving market for good rentals in good locations. Landlords market methinks

I read house prices went up by more here than in London last year. am I really talking about house prices, oh god yes I am

Haha! I find myself having earnest conversations along the lines of: 'yes, well obviously we would love to invest in more property in Cambridge as it's such a booming market. With the planned expansion of Addenbrookes, our house is going to rocket in price..'

Then i giggle and climb a tree or play hopscotch or something and remember that I'm not a grown up at all...

We have successfully bargained before, 3 years ago. Our argument was that the house was advertised as partly furnished and yet had no curtains or fridge.

I think although there's a lot of demand landlords really want to find that ideal family who look like they'll look after their house, etc

Well in the end, we did successfully negotiate the price down for one property by £50 a month but the owner wouldn't budge any further and we decided it was still too expensive (advertised as a 3 bed but the smallest would only fit a cot at a squeeze). So the property we went for we didn't negotiate on the rent, but the owners are happy to wait for us to move in at the end of March despite the property being available now - so kind of like a discount! They specifically said they thought the right tenants were worth waiting for...

From our experience the really really good properties do go very quickly, but there are a lot of other properties that well still decent I think are overpriced, and sit around unoccupied for quite awhile.

Another tip, I had discounted the house we went for from the photos on the internet - it was much nicer in real life, but be wary if the agents haven't put any/many photos online - they're pretty good at only presenting the positive sides of a place.