[snuggleball]

I read with interest that bank interest rates and various fees are negotiable, as well as purchase of houses and cars. What about rental rates? ;) Will it reduce your chances of getting the rental?

Btw, besides realenz, open2view and trademe, are there other websites we can look at to hunt for a rental house (esp in Wellington)? What about the papers? I'm aware Lower Hutt has Hutt News papers which has rental ads. Say, if I'm interested in renting in Khandallah (but not already staying there yet, obviously), how do I find out if they have such papers?

I have tried searching some major real estate agencies' websites for rentals, but most are pathetic. I noticed there are such things as "property management" agencies. Is there a list of these I could check with? I tried yellowpages, but they don't differentiate between real estate agencies and property management agencies.

[firstkings]

Snuggleball,

Bank rates are negotiable? Sounds interesting and useful. Where did you read that? On the forum or elsewhere?

Cheers

[Diny]

Snuggleball - first of all, welcome to the forum.

As for negotiable rental rates. It all depends on where you are. If you are in an area where there isn't a huge demand for rental accommodation then you have a good chance (within reason) of negotiating a rental rate.

However, if you are looking in an area where rentals are in demand you have far less chance of negotiating. Basically it's a case of 'if you don't want to pay, the next person in the queue will'.

We own a rental property and fortunately for us it's in an area which is very sought after, we charge 'top whack' (for the location) and when we advertised it we had over 150 applicants.

I find that internet rental info - i.e. TradeMe, Realenz etc can't keep up to date with rentals, as soon as they become available they are 'taken' hence the websites usually being very much out of date. The real estate agents around issue a weekly (sometimes twice weekly) list of available rentals, these are the best way of finding out what's available - always work from the latest list - nothing stays vacant for long (around here anyway).

Good luck.

Diny

[katandbob]

anyone got any advise on the best way of transfering payment for a rental....my bank wants to charge £27 !!
rrrrrrrrrrrrr :mad:

[Smiler]

Hi Snuggleball

Welcome to the forum.

We negotiated a $30 weekly reduction. Not much but every little helps. :D

Have you seen this thread for rentals in Welly? http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5076&highlight=welly+rentals

Post no 6 has a huge list of agencies and often the big agents have a smaller company deal with their rentals.

Hope this helps
Deborah

[ruthyroo]

Diny is correct - the websites, even the agents own, tend not to keep up with the actual situation - good rentals go fast (partly becuase there is so much c**p around!). If you are still in the UK then I would advise you use the websites to get an idea of what / where / how much rental properties are like but remember that the lovely photo / description from the website often bears very little resemblance to the reality of the property! Also you don't get any idea about the city / town and where in it you would like to live until you have been here at least a wee while.

If you are in NZ then the lists from the agents are the most up to date - and even these change daily at busy times / for popular properties. We ended up getting the list, then phoning each morning to get the update. It's not something that's easy to do unless you are there on the ground, with a car, a street index and plenty of free time!!

Also as that wise woman says, anything popular is harder to negotiate on. We managed to get $25 a week off our first rental - becuase it was a bit out of the way, fully furnished and strictly no pets or children (all of which suited us - but not your average renter!). On our current property, we didn't go for a reduction in rent as we felt it was a fair price, but we did manage to swap the 1-year fixed term for a 6 month fixed with the option of renewal. In both cases the agent actually did all the negotiating for us - we told them what we were looking for and they got it. Being 'good' tenants - good refs, both working, no kids or pets - helped I think.

Good luck!

[snuggleball]

It's not something that's easy to do unless you are there on the ground, with a car, a street index and plenty of free time!!

Yeah, that about sums me up :laugh I'm thankful that I could do all these groundwork while dh is working, albeit dragging 2 little ones around.

Diny & ruthyroo, thank you so much for those info! Very much appreciated. These are exactly the information we were lacking! No wonder we were wondering how some people could get good rental places while those we saw from the websites (esp those that had been there for a while) are mostly cr*p. We refuse to believe most rentals in nz are that awful. We are currently staying in one, and still saving up to buy.

One question though, how do you negotiate for 6 month fixed term instead of 12? Most I enquired insisted on 12 months fixed. Any suggestions of what we could offer in exchange for this flexibility?

While we have all intention to rent for a few years, we don't want to land ourselves in a situation where we couldn't extract ourselves out of, in case we realize the place we rented is not quite up to standard. Eg, our current place is absolutely lovely; however, when it gets even slightly colder, the whole house freezes up, and we found drafts entering from everywhere, even from the rangehood! The windows are shutters, how do you insulate those?! The main door has poor locking mechanism, and when we suggested to the landlord we are prepared to pay for getting an additional door chain attached, he was very relunctant. These are not easy things to discover unless you have moved in. By virtue of it being a rental house, we can't fix these problems, even if we wanted to :(

Also, what are the "penalties" if we want out from the fixed term contract? Do we simply pay for an agent to advertise, let the landlord screen potential tenants, and continue paying for the rest of the rental until a new tenant is found? Or is there no way out at all?


smiler, thank you for pointing out that thread!! Even though I have combed hundreds of threads here, I have overlooked that post!!

firstkings, yes, I noticed from quite a few places (not sure if it's just from this forum), that bank rates are negotiable. Just ask!

[GeorgeM]

It's all a matter of supply and demand - if you are talking to a landlord whose property is standing empty he may well be open to offers on the rent and to taking a 6 month initial term as opposed to a 12 month one if he wants you in his property and he can't see any other suitable buyers on the horizon.

If on the other hand there are zillions of people looking for just that sort of property then you won't have much chance of bargaining - the power will be in the other side of the relationship.

Good old market forces...