Renters want short-term leases as the pandemic makes it very hard to plan for what life will be like one year from now

• As the coronavirus rages on, the common one-year lease is becoming less popular as landlords and tenants look for flexibility in the midst of uncertainty.

• To keep tenants able to keep rent checks coming, landlords are offering incentives like month-to-month leases and discounts.
• Listings for short-term rentals are up since March, when the number of listings traditionally goes down.

As the coronavirus rages on, the common one-year lease is becoming less popular as landlords and tenants look for flexibility in the midst of uncertainty.

Month-to-month leases and lowered rent are just some of the ways landlords are trying to keep tenants as job losses and fewer hours are becoming more frequent as employers deal with the effects of the virus.

"A lot of people are still losing their jobs," landlord Deborah Pusatere told USA Today. "They don't know if their jobs are coming back. So I don't want someone locked into the lease if they need to relocate to another state, or have to move for a job opportunity in a month."

Pusatere is in charge of 80 units in upstate New York, which is also a hotspot for people who are riding out the pandemic outside of New York City.

Upstate New York isn't the only place seeing a rise in short-term rentals, as the demand for this type of lease agreement is becoming prevalent across the US.

Real estate listing company Zillow saw listings for short-term rentals rise 23% between March 1 and May 21, according to CNBC. Normally demand trends downward at that time period, but stay-at-home orders lead to more people looking for a place to stay.

Leases aren't the only thing facing changes right now. When sweeping job losses occurred in March as the coronavirus pandemic shut states down, calls to "cancel rent" altogether gained traction as tenants were trying to figure out how to pay for other basic necessities.

There have been "cancel rent" strikes on the first of every month since April.