Should You Look and Lease your Next Apartment?

If you have toured apartments recently, you may have encountered the look and lease special. The leasing agent offers you the opportunity to receive a discounted rent, a flat credit on your account, or some other reward if you sign your lease to live there.

The catch is that you have to sign up almost on the spot. The leasing agent may give you a day or two to decide, but the basic notion is that you look, then lease.

Why do apartments offer look and lease specials?

Apartments offer look and lease specials because, in almost every case, an occupied apartment is better than a vacant apartment. They are willing to come out of pocket upfront if it means they get a lease for the next 12 - 15 months out of it.

On the other hand, surrendering profit is - to put it mildly - not a good business strategy. Leasing offices know that they don't want to offer steep discounts or payouts without requiring something of potential renters.

So, they attach a time limit to the deal. It's a fairly standard sales ploy, of course, but they keep doing it because it's an effective one.

They may also put time pressure on the overall eligibility for the look and lease special. In other words, you not only need to act fast once you tour, but you need to act fast before you tour because the deal won't last long.

How to handle look and lease specials

Now, even though look and lease specials are a fairly brazen and blatant sales trick, they aren't necessarily a bad deal for you. In fact, as long as you do your homework before you visit a property (or you get me to do it for you), you can take advantage of the deal and realize some benefits from it.

If you take nothing else away from this post, make sure to remember the following:

KNOW ABOUT LOOK AND LEASE DEALS BEFORE YOU VISIT!

Before you visit any property, you should call ahead and find out if they have any leasing deals like look-and-leases or move-in specials. Because these deals are so time-sensitive and can appear or disappear without warning, you should try to make contact as close to the time you plan to tour as possible.

What you don't want to do is be surprised by a look and lease deal as you walk the grounds. You'll already be processing whether you like the amenities and fixings of the place, and the notion of an "act now" deal might cause you to make an emotional decision when you lease, rather than a rational one.

Instead, get all the information about the apartment beforehand. Many deals offer discounts on the first month or two of rent. Find out if you can apply the discount across the life of the lease, because applying a discount to the entire lease effectively lowers your rent.

In short, be ready to sign before you set foot on the property. The tour isn't a time of discovery, but of confirmation. Your goal is to confirm the apartment and amenities are as advertised online, not to find out about all the things the apartment has to offer.

If you've done your preparation properly, you can use look and lease deals to your advantage. However, if your tour is the first time you hear about one, you should be quite cautious about moving forward because you may not have all the information you need.