Fear can come from out of nowhere.
Last month I got a letter from my landlord – one of these big impersonal companies that has many apartment complexes. For all I know, the person who owns it all might not even be from Texas, or the U.S.
In the letter, it said that I can choose my rent price.
The problem? All their options were at least $50 per month more than what I was currently paying.
Fear struck.
Fear? Why now? I’ve moved eight times since 2008. Multiple states, and at least 3 countries. Why would I be scared of a simple move now?
In the middle of my freaking out, I took this opportunity to apply what was written in this previous post.
Get more information to understand the problem –
– and get moving.
Austin is a bubble of craziness in America. It’s one of the few real estate markets in the U.S. that continues to ignore the Wall Street Journal and MSNBC – the housing market keeps going up, up, up. Even after the recession, Austin’s population grows faster than contractors can build. How was I going to keep prices low, and have a story completely different than the one being told for me?
With my delivery job, I had visited nearly every apartment complex in a 5 mile radius – many times. Combine that with my past experience being a Realtor, and my business education, and I was someone who could actually do something. Maybe it wouldn’t be much, but it might be enough.
I visited several apartment complexes and got quotes. Most of them were higher than what I was paying. Then I found two – both were closer to town.
One was over 100 sq feet less than what I currently had.
The other? superior in every way. I got on the waiting list for this one and then attempted to renegotiate with my landlord.
The landlord had an assistant who had zero business experience. You could see it in the way he carried himself. He was four to five rungs down in this big, plastic ladder.
I remembered the whole time to keep my cool, be polite, avoid ultimatums. I even offered to pay multiple months of rent in advance as leverage.
He pulled market pricing excuses (which were hard to cross reference, where did he get this info?) then looked at this big 3-ring binder filled with Excel spreadsheets. Then he countered to raise my rent a hundred dollars higher than the increased price their letter started with.
Bad negotiating.
You could say I ‘lost’. Sometimes a system is structured so you end up ‘negotiating’ with someone who doesn’t have the ‘authority’ to do anything. So many people are ‘just doing their job’ in a compartmentalized existence for faceless brand symbols pursuing false idols, leaving real human beings exposed to the damage left behind…but I digress.
By getting on a waiting list earlier, and not waiting until the last minute – I had options baby!
I signed a lease yesterday with one that will actually cost around 40 dollars LESS per month than what I’m already paying. It’s closer to town, is in a gated community, and has larger square footage. Combine that with the 50$ price increase I would have paid, I saved around 800$, including moving expenses.
Lucky? Maybe. But if I hadn’t reached out for more information, and if I hadn’t continued to take small steps forward, no amount of luck in the world would have made a difference.
So I lost the negotiation, but beat the victim mentality and got what I wanted. A way to keep costs down and continue to build momentum in a place I enjoy living.
Have you had any victories against the victim mentality? I’d love to know. I’d even feature you in a blog post if your story is (A: true) and (B: awesome). Until then, leave a synopsis of what happened in the comments…
