This is just adorable. To think that prospective renters have any negotiating power at all when the landlord typically (in my area anyway) receives triple digit numbers of applications.
The “move in promos” should be illegal as they use them as ways to strip you of rights and never lower rent for market prices.
For new-lease negotiation, you're right. For renewal, in my experience, New York City landlords happily made small edits if given a good reason. (While the larger companies usually can't change their boilerplate documents, they're almost always fine adding a rider.)
Because landlords and especially jobs may receive many applications and review relatively few applicants are often obliged to submit many applications leading to many applications for each job but not many applicants for each job.
The most obvious cause is not merely selectivity but the desire to leave the job app/dwelling listed until the process is fully complete and listings which already have a pre-selected applicants but which are listed for legal reasons.
In fact the sector is most often only actually spoiled for choice only when offering something that is fundamentally a better deal than the price as in any other market even when the factors are intangibles that aren't factored into the price like competent management and good neighbors.
That is to say that given 6 tenants and 6 landlords all 6 landlords may say they have 5 other tenants competing for the spot only if they all count the same tenants and those offering undesirable terms even at the same price will find they have to settle on average for less desirable tenants.
Then they can all go online and complain that all tenants are terrible and talk about how it took 6 months to dig the non-paying tenant out like a tick.
That's just adorable - to think that landlords have power in a place like Seattle or Portland or SF.
Personally, I don't think any of the "tenants rights" laws are actually fit for purpose. That is, they're designed to bribe the peasants into accepting their landlords. My ideal would be cities with complete bans on housing rental - i.e. a 100% owner-occupancy mandate - along with "HOUSING PRINTER GO BRRRR" strategies to completely obviate most demand for renting housing units.
Hasn’t been my experience on either end of the relationship.
(basically, renting isn't the problem, lack of supply of housing is, and abusive rental markets are a symptom)
This slowness of process is in fact a self reinforcing loop. Wherein it's possible to join a 6 month queue it makes sense for poor folks to do so. They might be able to get caught up or find adequate housing elsewhere. It can also even makes sense that that point to stop paying. If you fall $1000 behind and it is expected to take $3000 to move. If you should find it unlikely to be able to make up the $1000 in 30 days time and eviction should become inevitable but 6 months down the line.
At that point what is the logical thing? Should you continue to pay monthly as before but never catching up and find yourself living in a cardboard box in 6 months OR should you stop paying now and use the money to move in a few months.
The best resolution possible is to incentivize landlords to accept payment plans to bring tenants up to date whilst allowing resolution in 30-90 days wherein this isn't possible or reasonable. For instance when the tenant is damaging the property or otherwise violating the lease and can't be brought into compliance.
This aligns incentives. By agreeing to a payment plan the tenant is incentivized to make the landlord whole and the landlord is incentivized not to thrust the tenants family into the street lest he lose the expectation of repayment of the funds.
Because it isn't entirely objectionable from either side unlike losing 6 months of rent or homelessness we needn't fight a pointless legal battle over it. If it be the inevitable result of legal action the landlord will simply present it to the tenant as an option rather than pay a lawyer a substantial sum to find themselves on the same road.
The alternative imposes a very high cost on society in terms of human suffering and in fact monetarily because it spends a tidy sum per homeless person.
Lastly a squatter is someone who breaks into a property and sets up shop. Someone who lawfully enters into an agreement to live somewhere and ultimately fails to live up to their side of the obligation isn't a squatter and even in the red states hasn't committed a crime. They are a lawful resident until the eviction is fully processed and even should they outstay the judges order they will be removed by the police not processed into prison.