Oh.

Sorry for misinterpreting what you said.

I'm a landlord and when I have 3 potential tenants to choose from, I go for the one that has a permanent, well-paid job and very good references. First come / first served rule doesn't apply. What if the first one has no income?

I would assume that the same applies in other parts of the world. No?

Gosh, I really wasn't expecting this to turn into a 4-page thread.

I'm one that likes to negotiate/haggle and have done so successfully loads of times (this does though exclude renting). I just wanted to know whether it would be faux pas if I did so on Canada. Thank you for the interesting responses.

I've been monitoring rentals in Coal Harbour (and recently also False Creek and Yaletown) on a daily basis. Loads of apartments (condos) come up every day. Some a regular repeats. I actually now feel like I'm seeing the same properties over and over again. Wouldn't a landlord be willing to go down $50-100 and secure the rent rather than have it empty for another month and miss out on $2000 or so?

Is it possible these repeats are the scams we are often warned about? Or are these listings through managment websites or the like?

That's a good question, one that I continuously ask myself. It's a mixture of both (i.e. private and agencies).

Contact the ones you see repeated and see what sort of response you get. You will soon know if it's a scam x

I assumed I wouldn't need to state the ****ing obvious. Blimey.

On the face of it, yes.

The rental vacancy rate for the 13 years I have been here has been around 2%. It was above 2.5% for the last count I read (spring this year) and this suggests that the market is slightly weaker than normal. But certainly within the normal range. The provincial government sets limits to how much landlords can increase rents each year and it seems that landlords are achieving these increases. This again suggests that demand is not noticeably weaker than usual.

My experience is that good quality units, priced sensibly, are in demand and aspiring tenants do their best to make themselves an attractive prospect to the landlord - not vice versa.

Obviously, markets are not homogeneous and from Alan2005's description Coal Harbour rental units buck this trend. This is only speculation on my part but this is a fairly new neighbourhood for high rise apartments and I wonder if it has yet to find its place in the rental market. It is very convenient and many units must have gorgeous views but there appears to be little sense of community. Especially compared to the nearby West End. The rental units seem to be priced at a premium to the West End. So, if there really are plenty of vacant units then it may well be possible to get $50-$100 a month off. As long as there are alternative places available you don’t have anything to lose.

If you are in a position where you can negotiate then you can also try being creative. In commercial real-estate landlords will never negotiate rent. It creates a precedent for other tenants and, as the value of a building is a function of the rental income, depresses its capital value. If they need to attract tenants they will offer a rent-free period or pay to carry out adaptions for the tenant’s business that would normally be the tenant’s expense.

Some landlords might keep posting the same unit every day on sites like craig’s list to keep it at the top of the list. It is definitely worth wondering why. The most likely reason a unit is sitting on the market is because it is overpriced for what it is. When you think about it, this is the only reason.

There were a dozen or so units every month, but they weren't the same units every month. Was just natural turnover, and not lack of demand. It's probably the same in any high rise all rental building.