Equity Residential Renters Beware

Why did not you move to the vacant apartment at lower rent than negotiating till the last minute?

You still have that choice.

They kept saying “you’ll need to pay a 1000 dollar fee”. And the one month free option is not available for existing tenants

It is not out of line with the way a lot of large landlords do things.

Sure. I’m just not going to take it. Especially the part about charging us for a month to month lease “because you didn’t give enough notice”. And people going into Equity apartments should know what they are in for.

Just move rather than wasting your time. Every one knows that this is what the landlords do. Give you a deal to get in and then increase your rent.

Do not forget the what the word “landlord” means. They can do what they want after lease expiration.

And considering you'll be the only person looking for a family apartment you should be able to get a really good deal.

Yes we have other options so we are moving. In fact they have already listed our apartment (9S) for a rent 100 dollars higher than 10S *without* the 1 month free. So effectively 800 dollars more than the same layout 1 floor above. The mind boggles.

10023, Are you going to go through the same brain damage and ultimately move after your new lease expires?

I'm sorry to hear this happened to you but frankly, your negotiating tactics need work. Rather than firing back to the renewal offer with incendiary invective like 'absurd' and 'won't pay more than...' it would have been far better to send a polite letter with a counter-offer on the new rate.

Replying with something respectful that outlines your reasoning and emphasizes what good tenants you have been and how much your family enjoys living there is a FAR better way to get to yes than going in loaded for bear and starting all-out war.

Obviously moot for this particular deal but perhaps worth considering for future situations.

Trust me we were respectful and politely outlined all our arguments for over two months. The anger is coming out now, only after the management decided to charge us for a “month by month lease for not giving enough notice”. Below is a cut and paste of the last email I sent to them before they sent us a “notice to vacate” to sign, thanking me sarcastically for the “effort and research you have done to come up with an offer but we don’t work with hypotheticals” and hitting us with the month to month charge for not giving enough notice. It was really that month to month charge that made me blow my top - trying to nickel and dime us. You tell me if there was anything wrong with my approach and tone. I can make every email public.

Hi Joe,

Yes today it has again gone up but yesterday it was 6750 - attached is the screenshot. Just 3 business days ago it was 6620. Your algorithm will keep moving it a bit for search engine optimization but I don’t really see the rent climbing up now.

Seeing that 10S has not been rented even though it was offered in summer I don’t expect 9S to be rented for at least 3 months after it is offered on the market in winter I am conservatively looking at 20,000 in lost rent assuming we keep renting at ~6.5K. Add to that the renovation costs and turn around time. I know equity is a big corporation and can absorb the loss but it still doesn’t make sense to me to take a hit of 30K for no good reason. Also the availability of two S line apartments offers more negotiating leverage to any prospective renter. We will take the rent that was offered for 10S on Sunday (6620), -25 dollars for a lower floor and you can throw in the 1000 incentive or repair of the apartment. I am happy to make the arguments to whoever higher up will do the approval.

Thanks,
-Vishal

This is how equity responded:

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Hi Vishal,

I appreciate the time and research you have put into reviewing the rates. However, since we have gone back and forth for a while I want to keep things simple. There are 2 factors that I would like to point out as to why we are not going to be able to meet the price you are proposing. See below.

1) We are able to adjust prices on vacant apartments as needed in order to rent them (this is why you see daily fluctuations in price)
2) We do not base renewal rates on hypothetical info like potential loss if a resident leaves or how long an apartment could potentially sit vacant

Therefore, I am sorry we cannot come to an agreement and will look out for your notice to vacate.

Regards,
Joe
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I ignored the sarcasm about appreciating my effort and responded, maintaining my composure:

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Hi Joe,

Sure. I also noticed that equity charged us for the full month and a higher rate for the last half of the month. I am assuming that is a mistake and we will be issued a refund for that amount. I should have the new address and NTV for you by the weekend.

Thanks,
-Vishal

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To which Equity responded with

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Thank you Vishal. To answer your question about rent for October, I see that you did pay for the entire month already. However since we require 30 days notice, you should expect to see a charge of approximately 20 days of extra rent due to insufficient notice. This will be detailed on your move-out statement.
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I know the way the tweets are phrased it appears I was angry and sending out invectives all through but as you can see from the exchange that was never the case. It was this last bit about "not giving sufficient notice" that made me lose it, especially since Equity was negotiating until the last minute when I had politely turned down their "final offer" back on September 1st.

30 days notice depends on the lease you had signed. You continuing to negotiate will not constitute as 30 days notice. I understand the anger of tenants when their rent is higher vs someone else but this is how landlords make money - Offer a discount to new tenants to get them to move and change more to people who do not want to move. At the end of the day, people do not want to move.

That’s fine if people don’t want to move. We decided to move - we told them on Sep 1st we’d move - they are the ones who continued to negotiate and reopened negotiation with a 10 dollar reduction every week. The reason offered for the charge was “On Sep 1st you didn’t tell us where you’d move to and what address”. And they levied the 30 day charge.
When I emailed asking them where I should send a legal notice to recover the late notice money (over 4K) and also that I want to file a consumer complaint they immediately waived the “late notice charge” which tells you exactly how much good faith they have been showing in dealing with us.

Btw, I respect the fact that you are disclosing your name and factual apartment and communication details in the thread. Many posters complain without disclosing their identity and providing facts.

It's generally required that 30-days notice (from either tenant or landlord) be done in writing. But certainly check your lease.

I do not believe that any tenant needs to give 30 days notice to move out at the end of an existing lease, and therefore can not be punished/fined for moving on that date or before. It is also not standard for Landlords to charge penalty rates for extending a lease for a month while attempting to negotiate a renewal.

Now 10S is at 6585 with one month free for new tenants. So 6036 per month. They still wouldn’t offer 9S to us at anything lower than 6800.

This happens all the time--landlord offers discounted rate plus perks like a month free for first lease term and then when it comes time to renew they jack up the price. Very common practice and rest assured whoever rents 10S will find themselves in the same predicament as you in the future.

Re: the other stuff please look carefully at your lease. It is possible that as 30yrs mentions above you are not required to submit formal written notice of plans to vacate if you are vacating at the natural end of your lease.

I had emailed them on September 1st that I was turning down their "final offer". Also, they only sent us the notice to vacate to sign last week. As I mention above, when I emailed asking them where I should send a legal notice to recover the late notice money (over 4K) and also that I want to file a consumer complaint they immediately waived the “late notice charge”

BTW - the Nobel Prize winner for economics last year, Richard Thaler, saw this thread and called the behavior by Equity sleazy.

https://twitter.com/r_thaler/status/1049947989085548544?s=21

His specialty is behavioral economics and he accurately characterized the behavior!

Vishal, The landlord has the right to charge what they like. Barring the late notice charge, which you have gotten reversed after going through some trouble, what is your complaint? A lot of renters end up buying as a renter you are always at the mercy of the current landlord if you do not want to move every two years.

That’s your opinion and you are entitled to it. I don’t like blatantly dishonest negotiation tactics - raising the rent of a comparable apartment for a day to get us to sign, claiming for two months that 10S is about to rent as they have a lot of foot traffic, not letting us move to 10S by claiming a phantom moving charge, today they entered our apartment without our permission or notification to do a pre-vacate walk through etc. I know this is considered standard practice in the rental management community but that doesn’t make it right in my opinion. All we asked for was a fair market rent after being model tenants for 6 years but that is clearly too much to ask. So be it, if people can sleep well after behaving this way all power to them.

I am guessing you continued to negotiate as you did not want to move and you wanted Equity Residential to give you the same deal as a new tenant. They did not want to give it you!!

Now they are going to lose 30-40K over their intransigence. As someone who has run businesses that itself is infuriating- what did you achieve in the end here!

Isn't it their problem?

The point I am trying to make it that as a renter you can not have an "entitlement" to renew attitude. Is it bad business decision for Equity Residential? Probably yes.

They are losing money on this deal and getting bad publicity. Yes it’s their problem. Thank you for telling me what I am entitled to and what I am not :-)! Do you work for the management at 300 Mercer?

I am just calling it as I see it as a neutral party.

Did not answer my question though. Maybe you approve of these tactics or use them and that’s fine, but I don’t!

I obviously do not work for Equity Residential or even own their stock. Besides for trying to charge you late fee, which could be right depending on their lease agreement with you, I do not see anything wrong in wanting to give new tenants 1 month free while the existing tenants do not get that deal unless it is in the rental agreement they have.

>>Now they are going to lose 30-40K over their intransigence. As someone who has run businesses that itself is infuriating- what did you achieve in the end here!<<

They'll just take a tax deduction. A big corp like that won't suffer one bit over a vacant unit or two.

Let's assume arguendo that they do the same exact thing for all renewals and that 10% of tenants balk and leave rather than paying the rent increase. How do they do revenue wise across all apartments as a result? (And as a total guess I would say 10% is probably a high number).

Average occupancy of 96.2% nationally which includes some expected vacancy as the apartments are being prepared for new tenants (painting, repairs, renovations).
https://www.equityapartments.com/corporate/library/pdf/Earnings/earnings2018/eqrpr2Q18.pdf

Vishal, I can see why you're upset. But after reading your tweets, some of your points seems odd to me. You claimed to deny their "final offer" on Sept and gave the notice to vacate. But after that, of course, Equity would like to keep you so they continued to give you better rates. That's why they call it negotiation. If deep down inside, you don't want stay, you could have just been more loud and clear about your intent to vacate. "We'd rather move" is definitely NOT a sufficient notice. And obviously, you were still interested in renewing that's why you continued to talk to them about the rate. I live in an Equity building so I know for a fact that they do ask a written 30-day notice with vacating date and forwarding address. It is a common practice, so educate yourself. They also only charge month to month rate only if you stay over your lease-end date and didn't renew. Any overcharged amount will be refunded. I was in a similar situation like you. I was frustrated and was about to blow it up, but Equity is a big corp. They know what they're doing so I decided not to be a smarty pant with them. And in fact, I was wrong and stubborn too. So, the best to do is get over it and move on.

Tiffany, I did not reopen any negotiation - they kept sending us offer after offers. So if they keep sending us offers, and only send us a notice to vacate to sign 20 days *after* the deadline to notify them - how is it my fault? Why did you continue to negotiate and send us offers?

Also, the big corporation offered and gave a 1 month free to existing tenants in my building last year (they are our friends). Equity themselves reduced our rent by a 100 dollars from their initial offer a couple of years ago.

On the question of "10% balking" above - what would I know anything about probability - I only teach graduate level classes on probability and optimization at Columbia :-). Have you also heard of the statistician who drowned crossing a river because he knew the average depth was 3 feet? The point is - you deal with things on a case by case basis. When you know that I am not going to agree to your terms that are far above market rate, and refuse to give a lease to me at *700 dollars above* what you are offering a newer apartment with same layout and a higher floor, then I have to question the judgment of the person who is negotiating it at the other end, as also of everyone who is defending those tactics by saying "this is what landlords do".

Sorry, I meant they reduced our rent by a *1000* dollars a couple of years ago, not a 100.

Vishal, they sent you offers because they wanted you to stay since your "we would rather move" notice wasn't clear enough for anybody to understand your intent. It's like you're throwing tantrum! If you're not interested anymore, you can tell them to stop sending offers and that you're moving out on your lease end date instead of being so non-responsive. If you being firm with your intent to vacate then they would stop. I think it is a matter of misunderstanding between both parties here, not that they tried to trick you or anything. You can also ask them how to send an official notice, or write a formal letter to the office saying you're leaving on a specific date.
I completely understand why you're upset over the rent increase, but it's a bit much to complain about the late notice to vacate when it's clearly just miscommunication.
I believe you're also a professor at Columbia. So you must be really good at what you're doing, and I admire that. But this is business, real estate, something that maybe not your forte. You may understand how probability works but may not know revenue management. These people have done this for so long, that's how they become so big! At the end of the day, it is still their property and we are just renters. Without you, they will still be just fine.

It's interesting that on the one hand you throw off a very flippant "what would I know anything about probability - I only teach graduate level classes on probability and optimization at Columbia" but at the same time you ignore the actual question and issue - I guess it's because you realize actually paying attention to it would prove you wrong.

I agree that the behavior is sleazy, but par for the course with large LLs. You should try to find a condo owner renting out their apartment--in my experience they are much more negotiable as if their apartment sits empty they are taking a direct hit to their pocketbook. Plus lots of investors bought condo units in new developments and there is a ton of inventory. Good luck.

You are right, I know I am afraid I would be proved wrong. However I did respond to your actual issue, you can’t brush everyone with a broad stroke of “10% balk”. Of those 10% there are people who would accept a fair offer and conditionally addressing them makes sense for every business that is trying to optimize their revenue. “10% will balk” and saying you will lose all of their business is the same thing as saying you won’t drown crossing a river whose average depth is 3 feet.

Everybody was right in giving me advice that I shouldn’t be complaining and there is nothing wrong with the behavior of Equity and I should get away from my sense of entitlement and move on.

Now I don’t know what to do about this:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1uvnu6L3XkFVXmEh8

Credit where credit is due. I wrote to an Equity executive, politely explaining the events and pointed them to the twitter thread etc. They promptly reached out, apologized on behalf of the company and want to speak. Whether we decide to stay or not, they have done the right thing here and it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that.

>>So if they keep sending us offers, and only send us a notice to vacate to sign 20 days *after* the deadline to notify them - how is it my fault? <<

If there is a clause in your lease that requires 30 days' notice to vacate then it is indeed your "fault"; the onus is on YOU to comply with the terms to which you agreed, whether or not you get any reminders or notices from the landlord.

Happy, though, to see you may have a resolution with the company. Maybe things will work out after all. Though frankly, if it were me, I'm not sure I'd want to continue renting there after all the unpleasant back-and-forth.

I feel sorry for anyone who actually thinks they are learning anything about probability in any class taught by you.

You are right @Squid - there is too much bad blood. They did a “pre move out inspection” without informing us or taking our permission. That’s borderline harassment. The equity VP did call up and apologized and tried to keep us but could not explain why they entered our apartment.

Yeah they should have certainly given notice before entering.

There is an issue of building employee entering without permission and then there may be computer science professors phishing when angry.

https://www.usa.gov/online-safety

For the second ones, fortunately the help is easier to come by.

Equity randomly sets the daily rental price on all of it's properties. I have seen this fluctuate as much as $475 in less than 22 hours. When I queried, the rental offices in several buildings, they more or less admitting it is close to a coin toss; this was after I boxed them in from telling me any real estate "lies."

Equity does show some nice pre-war buildings, but the price and the lack of support to the residents from most building maintenance crews is abysmal. This is NYC and there are plenty of other choices out there.

I highly doubt they "randomly" set their prices. They have an algorithm which is proprietary and don't want to disclose to you what the elements factoring into pricing are.