Ask your landlord to lower your rent — now

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI A few weeks ago, Marco Bario texted his landlord with an unusual request. Bario and his wife, Tracy Neill, rent a four-bedroom townhouse in Frederick County, Maryland, about an hour outside Washington, DC. When they got the place in June 2024, they felt lucky to find respite from a sizzling rental market. Recently, however, they'd noticed comparable rental homes in the area going for hundreds of dollars less — some landlords were even cutting asking rents in a ...