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Just returned home from trying to negotiate with my rental company (Equity) for a renewal on our lease. I thought I'd relate the experience, although I haven't been very sucessful getting what I wanted. The whole time I stayed very friendly and agreeable, but the leasing agents became progressively more agressive and angry.

My fiance and I have lived in our appartment for three years. Our rent has gone up $180.00 in that time. That's an extra $2,160.00 a year. This is tough since I'm "topped out" at work, and haven't even recieved a cost of living raise. I'm asking to renew the lease with out raising the rent this time.

We've been exceptional renters, never late even by a day. We are quiet and professional, a sharp contrast to the tenents Equity began renting to, as soon as they took over the property. Equity signed a deal with several schools in the area and provides short term leases to the students of a nearby golf school, the student interns for the Walt Disney Company, and others. I figured, what with the noise, litter, trouble, and damage these new tenets were causing, I might have a bit of leverage to try to keep our rent from going up with this new lease.

From the beginning I wasn't allowed to speak with the Manager. I was told he was very busy in meetings, so I should come back the next week. When I returned on the day specified (after calling first to make sure the manager was there) I was again told he would be busy in meetings all day. The guy I originaly spoke to obviously felt badly when forced to lie. I remained pleasent, but persistant, asking when I could be certain to see tha manager. At that point the "bad cop" leasing agent came over and offered to take care of things for the first guy. What that meant was the Bad Cop sat me down and basically told me a bunch of lies about how much properties were going for in the area. I had researched this on the internet, but made the mistake of not bringing the paperwork with me. ****TIP*** Print out the prices you find on the internet and bring them with you! The Bad Cop wouldn't meet my eyes, started a long story about the previous company that owned the property being crooked (a story that had nothing to do with what I was there to do- negotiate my lease), finally she said she would try to do me a HUGE favor by increasing my rent by only 2% instead of 5%. She wrote down some numbers on a small piece of paper which she didn't show me, but I looked at anyway. They said, "Market $1,087" and some others. She walked into a back office. Since I am paying $1095 currently for my 2 bedroom, 2 bath, I figured, "Aha, I'm right at market value," even though she was telling me she just rented my size appartment to some one for $1200 a month.

When Bad Cop returned. She said they would allow me to renew at a 2% raise. She went into another speech about how lucky we were to be able to negotiate since negotiation wasn't allowed in places like New York. I told her I'd think about it. I went home and printed out the price qoutes for our appartement complex and others in the area, none of them were anywhere near what they were asking us to pay, The Equity website lists our appartement at $1065 a month, a sixty dollar a month difference from what they want us to pay. I called Bad Cop back and asked very nicely (again) to set up an appointment to see the manager. She got very angry and told me she'd have him call me, then she hung up on me without taking my number. I called back, got the original, nice guy, and politely said I'd been cut off before I could leave my number. He said the phones had been acting up, and took my number to give to the manager.

Not surprisingly, the manager hasn't called me back.