Carmen Leal was so frustrated in her search for a home to rent last summer that she remembers the experience with horror as "an absolute zoo."

But as Honolulu's rental market enters a much different summer this year, conditions are so renter friendly that Leal feels she's the one in control as she searches for an apartment for her 24-year-old son, Nicholas Hahn.

Leal posted a request on the Internet for a two-bedroom unit at around $1,600 per month and — unlike last year — landlords are suddenly coming to her.

"I'm just getting flooded with responses," said Leal, now emboldened to negotiate for a better price.

While there are no public statistics on the number of rentals available in Honolulu, The Advertiser Sunday classifieds listed 1,074 units for rent on Sunday, May 14, compared with 752 on Sunday, May 15, 2005.

Landlords and rental property managers say they can't be as choosy as last summer, when rental units were often greeted with 25 to 30 qualified applicants. Now, desirable properties can sit for a week or more before a single qualified applicant responds. Shorter-term leases of six months or less have become common and landlords find themselves having to include additional amenities such as Internet access and cable television — and even allow pets — to justify rents nearing $2,000 per month.

"All of us are experiencing vacancies unlike a year ago, where that was very limited," said Cathy Matthews, president of the National Association of Residential Property Managers O'ahu chapter and broker in charge of Callahan Realty Ltd. "Last year people felt an urgency even if the property wasn't ideal. This year we're getting a lot more people taking their time and looking around more."

MORE VACANCIES

Landlords and property managers say the increased supply is being fueled, in part, by military families moving back to the Mainland while their military members are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan; and by real estate investors who can't resell their properties at the prices they want and have to add them to the pool of rental properties already on the market.

The addition of even more rental homes means that some landlords — already facing rising property appraisals and property taxes — have to cut rents just to keep properties occupied and cash flowing through their units.

"Inventory is definitely higher than before," said Carl Frazier, owner and property manager of Cornerstone Properties and the immediate past president of the National Association of Residential Property Managers' O'ahu chapter. "Before, we had people standing in line. Now they're not lining up at the door anymore. People are waiting, and it can take a week or two to rent a property."

Frazier has been unable to find a tenant for a luxury two-bedroom, two-bath koa-accented condominium in the Punahou Cliffs building. The condo has sat on the market for more than a month. To try to generate interest, Frazier has dropped the price $100 to $2,800 per month.

"It's in excellent, excellent condition and has what we call the 'wow factor.' When people walk in, they go, 'Wow,' " Frazier said. "It would have gone very quickly one year ago. Now lots of inventory is driving prices down."

For investors, Frazier often has to tutor them on the change in Honolulu's rental market.

"I have owners that want me to raise the rent because their property taxes went up," Frazier said. "They don't understand that I can't arbitrarily raise rent under a lease. Their monthly bill has absolutely nothing to do with what we can get for rent. What the market will bear is what the market will bear, even if their monthly negative (cash flow) is too high."

ADDING EXTRAS

Kevin Au owns two apartment buildings in town — one with eight two-bedroom units and the other with 18 one-bedroom apartments — along with a two-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in 'Aiea. Au now understands that he has to offer improvements and extra utilities to justify the rents he's charging these days.

So Au has renovated the units, installed solar hot-water systems and coin-operated washers and dryers and added a new roof to one of his apartment buildings.

Many owners and property managers this summer seem to be asking for higher rents, Au said, "but when you talk to the owners they'll tell you that they don't get those prices. They have to lower it or include things like water and gas. This time a lot of landlords like myself will even take dogs — but will require a pet deposit or charge higher rent. Last year I didn't have to do it.

"The market is much weaker now," Au said. "Last June and July was the height, when I was getting 50 to 100 calls per day on rental ads." Now, Au said, he's lucky if he gets a few calls in a day. "So a lot of my tenants are calling up, saying they've found a cheaper place. They use that as leverage to keep the rent the same or try to get a lower rent — or to extend their lease for another year at the same price or a little bit lower."

Au recently cut the rents for two tenants in each of his apartment buildings and extended their leases at the reduced rates. In exchange, they each do regular maintenance around the buildings, such as watering and yard work and taking out the trash.

Au dropped one tenant's rent from $1,100 per month to $950, "then he called me this morning and said that if I keep the rent the same, he'll sign up for another six months," Au said.

Another tenant saw his rent fall from $750 to $625 for a one-bedroom apartment.

"That's what I've got to do to keep tenants," Au said. "Last year the rents were so strong that I didn't have do it. But that's what I have to do this year."

STILL IN DEMAND

Despite a softening in the market, both landlords and renters emphasize that there is still high demand for well-kept houses, condos and townhouses under $2,000 per month in nice, family-friendly neighborhoods in town or in desirable communities such as Kailua and Hawai'i Kai.

Maria Medina is so frustrated by her hunt for a larger affordable home in town for herself, her fiance and her two children that she's considering moving to the Mainland.

"If something sounds like it's a good deal, it's because it doesn't look good at all or it's not in a safe neighborhood," Medina said. "It's really sad because Hawai'i's such a great place to live, but it's just so hard to survive here."

Medina and her fiance rent a two-bedroom unit near McCully Shopping Center underneath their landlord's house at $1,750 per month. Their 8-month-old son sleeps in their room. Storage space is so tight that Medina's fiance shares the closet in her 5-year-old son's bedroom.

"We constantly have to throw things out because we don't have room for anything," Medina said.

Medina would love to find a clean, three-bedroom home for $1,600, including utilities, located in town and in a nice school district.

But after searching off and on for much of the past five months, Medina is close to giving up.

"Because of our kids, I have to be concerned about safety and finding a decent place," Medina said. "Everything I've looked at has been iffy — iffy neighborhood, iffy school district and the homes are rundown. We can't find a better deal in town cheaper than $1,750."

HAPPY RENTER

Other renters, like 18-year-old Franziska Roessy, have been happy at how relatively easy it has been to find her first apartment away from her mother and stepfather.

Roessy is finishing up her first year at Hawai'i Pacific University and works two part-time waitressing jobs. She hoped to spend no more than $700 per month for her share of a rental unit with roommates.

Roessy looked at a handful of rundown apartments, including one that had chickens running around inside.

But after just a week of looking, Roessy signed a lease on a three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bathroom apartment on Ward Avenue for $1,600 that she'll share with two other women.

Roessy's share of the rent will be $550 a month for her own bedroom in an apartment with a new refrigerator and dishwasher.

"We looked at it on one day and we decided on it a week later," Roessy said. "The landlord was really nice. She held it for us for a week while we looked around."

MORE CHOICES

Dr. Paul Eakin also has been pleased with the response he has gotten from his Internet posting looking for a place to live for himself; his wife, Maki; their 18-month-old daughter, Maya; and their 2-year-old lab/mix dog, Ichiro.

Eakin finished his pediatric residency at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in 2003, gave up his $1,000 per month Diamond Head apartment and moved to Dallas for a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine.

Now he and his young family are scheduled to return to Honolulu as he starts his new job on July 1 as an assistant professor at the University of Hawai'i medical school and to work in pediatrics at Kapiolani.

With a budget of $2,000 to $2,500 per month, Eakin has received several solicitous offers from landlords while he's still living in Dallas.

"A lot of them have reservations about the dog, but they're willing to overlook that," Eakin said. "I'd definitely say we can be more selective than the last time we lived in Hawai'i."

All of the changes since last year mean that Leal feels she can take her time this summer in the search for a new home for her son.

In one e-mail exchange, a landlord offered Leal a two-bedroom, two-bath condo in Salt Lake for $1,750, not including utilities.

"I wrote back and I said, 'I think we can do better than that,' " Leal said. The landlord "wrote back and said, 'With utilities, I can probably drop the price.' " Leal hasn't bothered to reply to that landlord.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.