Since you are right in the middle of this, what prevents you from walking out on the lease? As in, what starts a flood of renegotiation / changing apartments from similarly lease-locked renters?
This exact discovery has me reconsidering now. Trying to solve the following now:
1) Convincing company to let me work remote full time in a much cheaper city.
2) Commit to learning how much it's gonna cost me to break my lease.
Before the factors was: "This is a lot of talk in SF about falling rent, but, what, a 10% savings?" (It's a lot larger than that, even locally. Knowing I'm overpaying in my locality is enough frustration that it makes me want to move, or get a new lease, or something) And how well the company was going to handle WFH, and they've been doing fine, so, good opportunity to find a cheap place to live.
yeah, the landlord will be chomping at the bit to find a new tenant in the middle of a pandemic to get you off the hook from your lease alright. real honest people, those landlords.
But what's legally binding? Can't the lease just be abandoned and you refuse to pay? It hurts reputation, but if the demand is so high for renters, they can reestablish reputation.
