This is my favourite reality show atm. Really looking forward to next episode
Update: my downstairs ceiling is leaking due to condensation from the a/c vents pooling in my utility closet and not draining properly into the drain. This has soured me a lot on this place, there have been so many maintenance issues and they’re a nightmare in a pandemic when I’m trying to isolate.
I’m still taking this meeting tomorrow, but they’re probably going to have to come in extremely low in price to get me to stay. I’m almost taking the meeting just out of curiosity at how this strategy plays out as much as anything else.
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IT’S CUSE DAY
Which day isn’t?
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Meeting in t-minus 3 hours.
The strategy is a little different, given that I’m now more inclined toward the suburbs than here. The place in the burbs is $1650/mo, looks like moving would run me about $1,500, plus the cost of a week or two of missed/reduced poker hours and the general hassle of moving makes ~$2,000 competitive. But since I kind of prefer living there to here at the moment, I need them to drop to $1,800 today for me to sign anything.
If they’re not willing to drop more than that, I’ll probably just tell them I’ve got a showing at another place later this week that’s still cheaper than their offer, and their offer isn’t good enough to make me cancel it and sign.
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If I may, a suggestion to bring some additional flair to proceedings should they not put forward an acceptable offer.
As soon as they put the number out there, maintain eye contact but do. Not. Say. A word.
Climb up onto the table. Drop trough. Squat over the lease papers, and share with them the aftermath of your new vegan diet. Again, eye contact is key here.
Aside from making your feelings known in a most absolute fashion, and the sense of relief that comes with the bowel evacuation, there is an additional benefit to this spectacle. You can record it and add it as a new episode to your Youtube channel, titled “The Shart of the Deal”.
I hope you have found this post helpful.
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Best advice ITT obv.
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So that was the biggest waste of time imaginable in terms of moving things forward, but I do think I am in the driver’s seat here… They didn’t make an actual counter yet, but I got her to negotiate against her own future yet to be determined offer lol…
So I walk over, she pops out of the office, says she wants to print some stuff off first and leaves me waiting for a couple minutes, then heads outside. I’m expecting to sit down somewhere, but she clearly just wants to stand there. Okay, whatever.
She started talking about extending me and I cut her off, “I’m sorry to cut you off, but before we get into that, there’s a maintenance issue I want to address…”
I explain the leak, etc, arrange for maintenance to come in tomorrow. “Okay, sorry about that, go ahead…”
She asks me what some of my concerns are, other than the price. I was sort of expecting an offer here, so that caught me a little off guard. I explain that there have been a number of issues regarding the power going out, the water shutting off, fire alarms going off, etc over the last six months…
Her: “I know, we’re sorry about that, it’s construction across the street unfortunately and out of our control…”
Me: “I know it’s not your fault… But at the same time, when you talk about paying a certain amount of money to live in a nice place, that factors into it - I know construction is likely to keep going in the area, so those may be ongoing issues and they impact what I’d be willing to spend.”
Her: “We understand, and actually the price you’ve had was a construction special based on the pool construction and the inconveniences and lack of amenities.”
Me: “Actually from my perspective, when we signed the lease, I was promised that the pool would be done in early December.”
Her (cutting in): “Well, construction is almost never on time, I don’t know who promised you that…”
Me: “I know, I mean, I even asked then, ‘Are you saying December but realistically it’s going to be March or something?’ and they promised me that it would actually be done in December and hyped up the heated year-round pool.”
She asked me who told me that, I told her and she said that person is no longer with them, and she apologizes but I should have never been promised that.
Me: “I understand, and I’m not blaming you for it personally at all of course… But it was a promise I was made, and so as far as I’ve been concerned, that was not a construction discount, that was the price including the pool - so it felt like I’ve overpaid thus far, given the pool wasn’t done.”
She said she understood, asked me if there was anything else. I told her that I’m a big fan of living in the city usually, but with everything going on the things that add value to city life, like being in walking distance of bars and restaurants, are pretty much useless for me at the moment. She acknowledged that. She didn’t dispute that city life may be substandard for 6-12 months, at least.
She acknowledged their opening offer was high and blamed corporate algorithms that don’t factor in the pandemic - only square footage, quality of unit and amenities. She said that corporate could make a better offer, but she would have to get back to me. She also said it will definitely be an increase, which I balked at obviously.
Her: “I’ll reach out to corporate and let them know your concerns, and they can get back in touch later this week with an offer. But it’ll definitely be an increase, there’s no way the rent would stay the same.”
Me: “It seems like you guys are really intent on an increase.”
She nods.
Me: “I know we’re going through strange times, and that can make it difficult to figure out what the fair value is. That said, even looking at my current rent, there are 2 bedroom apartments in the neighborhood in similar buildings with similar amenities for significantly less. How am I supposed to pay more than that?”
Her: “Well, I can see what corporate says and they can give an offer… that doesn’t have to be the end of it, we can continue to negotiate from there.” (LOL what a fuck up on her part, right?)
Me: “Okay, I appreciate that, thanks.”
Her: “We definitely do want to work with you and keep you as a tenant.”
Me: “I appreciate that, it seems like there are a lot of vacancies in the neighborhood, and I know I can look across from my terrace and see about a quarter of your units are vacant.”
Her: “Well, I won’t dispute that…”
She then tried to interest me in downsizing to a 1br, but I said it would have to have enough space for an office and still be a competitive price, and frankly I’m more interested in a 2br. She said she could put me in an unrenovated unit, I told her I had no interest.
She said they’d get back to me in a couple days, so given that they’ve already had several business days to come up with a counter offer, I can only assume that they’re trying to waste time and push me up against the deadline to give them notice that I’m moving out, thinking they can apply some pressure. They counter later this week, I counter that at the end of this week, they get back to me middle of next week and oh shoot we’re out of time I better take the offer.
That’s not going to work… The joke’s on them as far as time pressure, because I’m sitting here right now lining up walkthroughs in the suburbs this week. There’s a decent chance I’ve got a place lined up in the burbs in the 1900-2200 range by the end of this week or early next and can flip that around on them and give them 24 hours to beat that price or lose me.
Even if that doesn’t work out, I’m more than willing to call their bluff and turn in my notice with no place lined up, and see if it makes them scramble to come in lower. I’m extremely confident I can find a decent place in the suburbs for < $2,200 in 6 weeks or less, so the pressure is truly all on them.
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One of my companies “clients” is hiring out in San Diego. I’m not sure if I want to apply, since I’m not sure I want to leave my current job and especially not in the middle of a pandemic, but I really want to live in San Diego and I’m curious what the salary would be. Not sure how to get that info without pissing people off. It’s a fairly niche market.
From the management company’s perspective, there’s no way they should accept a year’s rent up front unless they are literally about to lose the building or something.
I live in SD, and I work as an executive recruiter. So, I may be able to provide some insight, depending on the industry and position.
Feel free to PM me if you want.
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Sounds like she actually knows how to negotiate. She’s feeling you out for what she can give you in exchange for price concessions.
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I’m pretty sick of this goddamn pool.
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What do you mean? Wouldn’t they prefer to get it up front than month by month? Or are you saying they shouldn’t accept a big discount?
Like keep in mind that I can go half a block one way or one block the other way, and get a 2 bedroom for 1800-2000, one of which has access to this very pool. Like right now the only argument for paying more than that is, “This is worth more than that because we say it is.” It sounds like some management companies have a policy of never ever ever giving rent decreases. Which is like, okay, cool, the identical unit next to me has been vacant since November, their building is 25% empty, add one more to the list.
They’re almost certainly having cash flow issues. My understanding of the industry based on research is that a 6-12% profit margin is standard, as is 90-95% occupancy. Let’s be generous and say they can turn a 20% profit at 90% occupancy. That means at 75% occupancy they’re breaking even, at best.
Meanwhile, I know they financed a new project to the tune of 11 times the value of this building. They own 6-7 other buildings, but never the less that new project is not bringing in any positive cash flow. If their buildings are approximately break even right now, then they’re in some serious trouble with their financing. They may be forced to sell assets.
Fair. Not sure that I gave her much in that regard, unless they come back with like a decent offer on a six month lease and then we all re-evaluate.
I haven’t even swam in it yet, I did pop my head in today and walk through. But it’s apparently a magical pool worth approximately $1,500 a month in rent if you live here, but worth $100 a month in rent if you live a block away.
I haven’t looked into it too much, but I recall reading that there are legal reasons why landlords don’t want to get a year’s rent in advance.
I think this was the premise of a porn video I saw.
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It might vary by state or city, but if you accept many months of rent up front from a tenant it can be much, much harder to evict before the covered time period is up if a tenant becomes a major problem. Obviously I don’t think you would trash the building or something, but there are legit reasons to shut that down.
The magic pool sounds good though.
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Most institutional-quality commercial real estate (which this definitely is) is financed on a non-recourse basis, which means the lender can’t do anything but take the building and the owners have no personal liability unless they commit so-called “bad boy carve out” acts like fraud. Therefore, when a building has negative cash flow the owner often opts to turn over the keys instead of funding negative cash flow out of pocket. In a case like this, where the long term prospects are probably pretty good, they could also try to recapitalize the asset with new investment but that can be really hard when you’re already fully levered.
Which is a long way of saying in some cases the owner won’t or can’t fund negative cash flow and will try a hail mary management strategy to generate positive cash flow as it is their only hope of retaining ownership.
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We could be in for unlikely lockdown sex scenario #2.