How To Renegotiate Your Lease

Variable costs like payroll, office supplies and advertising usually draw first blood in a recession. But some ostensibly fixed burdens are ripe for whittling, too, if you know how to negotiate. A big one: leased real estate.

In this market, even agreements inked for the next five or 10 years are open for negotiation. Indeed, landlords have all but come to expect the conversation.

"With the kinds of hits that most businesses have taken in sales, they can't afford to pay out at the occupancy rates they have been," says Ivan Friedman, chief executive of RCS Real Estate Advisors in Manhattan.

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