There are typically two experiences in negotiation with landlords, at least in the US:
* You rent from a small time landlord, where you're talking to the guy who owns the property. They'll negotiate if you talk to them like a human being. (and if the rental market is not very hot in that area)
* You rent from MegaCorp. The leasing agent was hired off of indeed.com last week and has zero power to negotiate and will likely tell you "sorry the lease and prices are set by corporate"
the main issue here is that this might only work in small markets and landlords like me, “just a guy.” for any property owned by large corporations (the percentage of these is increasing by the minute across the country) this is not useful. even for someone like me, last time my condo was on the market I have received 73 applications. someone tries to negotiate too much I’d just move on to the next if the negotiation is not reasonable