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rogar6

Negotiating one month lease?

rogar6
11 years ago

I'm trying to sell my house and think i won't be able to get into a house without first living in an apt. I haven't started a serious search yet but was wondering if it's possible to negotiate a one month lease in a building that only offers 1 yr leases.

Comments (4)

  • camlan
    11 years ago

    Yes, sometimes. Really depends on what the management is willing to do. Be prepared to pay a rent that is significantly more than the regular one month rent.

    Also check out extended stay hotels, temporary apartments, furnished apartments and corporate housing type places. You could put all your things in storage and stay in a furnished place, which might be easier than packing, unpacking and packing and moving in a month's span.

  • harry_wild
    11 years ago

    Best solution is to head toward the college or universite apartments. Students are gone for the most the summer and it will be easy to get a month to month lease. Most come furnish too.

    Frat or sororities will do rent to you in a heartbeat too but you may have to party especially when the weekend come around! These people live for fun in these houses - with no school to hold them back. I lived in a frat house for three months in the summer on an out of state internship and it was better then I was in school. Get introduce to a lot of people too. Living room is the meeting place and they love to talk with alcohol and weed present about everything. You cannot go wrong in the houses. Week days they go out to do stuff because they know that people work.

  • rogar6
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Those are really interesting suggestions I had never thought of, thanks.

  • StPaulGal
    11 years ago

    Yes, it is possible! In fact, that is exactly what I did for this month. My lease was up on the house I was renting at the end of May, and I couldn't get into the house I am buying until the end of this month. Obviously, this left me with a 1-month housing gap.

    I went on padmapper and searched for anything that fulfilled my bare-bones criteria--any affordable 2-bedrooms in my area that could deal with my cat. Then I emailed the landlords explaining my situation and asking if they would be willing to work wit me. Out of a couple dozen emails sent, only a few in the affirmative. My roommate and I checked them out and selected the one with the most accommodating landlord. It is not somewhere I would want to spend the next year plus living, but it is more than adequate for a month.

    A few suggestions I have that may help you:

    -Focus on small, independent landlords rather than large management companies. The big guys are much less likely to deviate from standard procedure. My current rental is a duplex; keep those in mind if your area has them.

    -If you have the nerves for it, hold off until roughly the second half of the month before you need to move. At this point, landlords are getting desperate to fill open/opening units. Using my own situation as an example again: a guy a talked to earlier on wanted an additional $300 in rent for the month, plus the right to back out if he found a full-term tenant. When I contacted my current landlord less than a week before move-in, not only did he agree to let us have the place at its posted, market-value rate; he also threw in free utilities (not part of the standard agreement),waived half the security deposit, and let us begin moving our things in about 5 days before the first of the month. The guy was just thrilled his place wasn't going to be sitting empty, costing him money.

    -If you follow the above, have a backup plan. Is an extended-stay hotel a possibility? Bunking with friends and family?

    -My final suggestion is not to discount the power of explaining your situation. Sure it's a business transaction and potential landlords don't need a rundown of your life story, but frankly someone in your situation will be looked on quite differently than your average transient tenant. Being in the process of buying/selling a home speaks to a level of responsibility and stability that may not be present in a majority of ultra-short-term renters. Honestly, I very much doubt I would have been offered the perks I mentioned, (low security, extremely flexible move in/out dates, no background check) and possibly not even the apartment itself, if I hadn't presented an overview of my situation.

    Best of luck to you!

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