Want lower rent? Think like a landlord
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To do this, you'll probably need to designate an objective, third-party source, like an active rental real estate agency or an organization that tracks local rents, in order to avoid fighting over just what current rents are, Portman says.

When advance planning doesn't help you, there are still last-ditch options for renters caught in a downward spiral.

Hardball negotiation
If you've signed a long-term lease and rental prices in your area have since dropped dramatically, you still have some options.

"A smart tenant will go to his landlord and say, 'Rents in this neighborhood have gone down by two to three hundred dollars,'" Portman says. "The tenant can say, 'I'm going to break my lease, and you're going to have to sue me. Legally, you can sue me, but that won't amount to the time and trouble, because you'll have to take me to small-claims court. In the long run, you'll be better off dropping my rate to market rates and keeping me.'

"That's a hardball argument, but a smart landlord -- if he wants that tenant -- might say yes."

Breaking a lease still means that the landlord can sue you for what he loses -- meaning the monthly rent for an empty apartment or the reduced rent since the market is in decline, Portman says.

"More typically, the landlords keep the entire security deposit and call it a wash," she says. "That can be quite high -- twice monthly rent -- and in states like Texas and New York, it's not regulated.

"If your monthly rent is $1,500 or $2,000, that's a lot of money," she says.

Lower-end housing still a challenge
Luxury rentals or downtown pads may be going for a little less and may be vulnerable to the effects of speculation, but at the low end of the market, there has been no change, affordable-housing advocates say.

"There have been reports that prices are softening, but that's at the high end," says Linda Couch, deputy director of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. "We focus on the low end, and those are in short supply, nationally, for people who need them."

In other words, the news media hype about a bubble burst might not apply to everyone.

"We are not seeing any breakthrough in the vacancy rate or in the affordability for low-income people," Couch says.

And requesting public housing is still a dead end in many municipalities.

"In most metro areas, the waiting lists for public housing or vouchers are closed and have been for years," Couch says.

The waiting list in Washington, DC, is 40,000 names long, she says, and in New York it's 250,000.

Meanwhile, the percentage of income that lower-income workers pay toward housing continues to grow.

"The Federal government says that if you're paying more than 30 percent of your income for housing, it's unaffordable," says Couch. "A lot of people pay more than 30 percent and that's OK with higher incomes, but if you make $11,000, which is the minimum wage, and $3,000 is for housing, that's not OK."

She says that according to a 2004 report called Losing Ground, 47 percent of renters paid more than 30 percent of income toward housing in 2003.

Fifty-six percent of people who earned 30 percent or less of the median income in their area paid more than 50 percent of their income toward housing costs.

As for negotiating advice, Couch says, "If you can't find affordable housing in your area, you should let your congressional representative know about the affordability crisis."

But if you're looking at midrange or high-end housing in markets that seem to have a little breathing room, try thinking like local landlords as a first line of defense.