Another tack is to seek reduced rents based on "warranty of habitability" laws.

Mr. Miller said today that negotiations with the Government were continuing but that the company was not seeking inflated rents.

For antique dealers seeking less glamour and lower rents, the search for space often takes them to offbeat locations.

Downtown developers generally are seeking rents around $45 a square foot annually.

Officials then cash in on the regulatory power by "seeking rents."

The society, which had been seeking lower rents, plans to build a new headquarters on a 4 1/2-acre site near Emory University.

Barbados is for long-term investors seeking rents, who are in no rush to sell.

Meanwhile, offshore production has shrunk the domestic textile business and forced the survivors to seek less expensive rents.

But since then real estate values in most sections of the city have soared, and owners are seeking rents that reflect that prosperity.

Nathan Brodsky, the 74-year-old founder of the business, has no taste for the land prices that oblige builder-buyers to seek superluxury rents.