Not a lot of options to negotiate rent downtown, unless they seriously overprice it and it sits and sits.

Because the housing market in the burbs is so screwed right now, renters that would normally leave and buy a house are just continuing to rent, for one thing, and in general besides that some first time homebuyers are still fearful of interest rates, even though they don't realize those rates of a couple years ago were really abnormal and not coming back . This past couple weeks anything decent downtown in the rental market priced fairly goes in a week or less, basically depends on how easy it is to show.