Where Do You Look for Rentals?

potsticker

Active member
Context: I am listing my 2bd/2ba condo in Eastwood Village for rent. I want to self-manage the property so don't want to involve a realtor.

Question for both landlord and tenants:

Tenants, where do you search for rental homes when you're in the market?
Landlords, what source/website/search engine generates the most success and interest?

 
Also download zInspector apps for iOS if you have iPhone.

The tools is very comprehensive for landlords with details walk through inspecting and documents of move in / move out materials with pictures capture and storage capabilities for each and every items otherwise would be a easy messy without it.
 
When we were apartment hunting we primarily used: Apartments.com, Zillow, Craigslist
 
Thanks all. I've had my unit listed on all these sites for about 2.5 weeks now. Decent return with about 15 Contacts and 6 people who have showed up to see the unit. Most contacts have come from the Zillow network - but I don't like that it buries your listing to the bottom as the days go by.

Trying to deactivate and reactivate to see if it gets bubbled up to the top. The big apartment complexes are constantly at or near the top of the listings.

Seems to be a slower time of year. The price is right, but tenants are being pretty selective with a decent amount of options out there.
 
best_potsticker_in_town said:
Thanks all. I've had my unit listed on all these sites for about 2.5 weeks now. Decent return with about 15 Contacts and 6 people who have showed up to see the unit. Most contacts have come from the Zillow network - but I don't like that it buries your listing to the bottom as the days go by.

Trying to deactivate and reactivate to see if it gets bubbled up to the top. The big apartment complexes are constantly at or near the top of the listings.

Seems to be a slower time of year. The price is right, but tenants are being pretty selective with a decent amount of options out there.

Price it slightly below rental comps if you can afford to shave 100 dollars off. Renters knows their market well and if you give them incentives such as a discount goes a long way. Also you want to write the contract such that the move out time frame will coincide with the summer month as parents looking to move in during the off season school. If lease is up at end of June or begins with July is prefer as you want to target those renters and they tend to stay longer term once they love the school where their kids goes to.
 
Curious on how much are you listing the eastwood rental. Would you share the ad?

I have used a realtor was my rental. Its expensive - 5% of annual rent ,but saves time. Next time I may try zillow rental.

I have found that April to July is the best period to attract tenants.
 
I have rental clients coming to me to verify ads they see online since there are so many rental scams out there now. They send me screenshots mostly from Trulia and FB Groups.

To take a rental listing, I usually charge 1/2 of whatever the first month?s rent is. For example, if you?re renting the property for $3,000, I would charge $1,500. I treat a rental like a for sale listing- Professional photos and an Open House. We handle all of the legal/ compliance documents required for Landlords, prescreen, run credit and background-checks, conduct Move-In walkthrough. When you?re ready for the tenant to take possession, I prepare and deliver a professional binder with all of your organized documents for each of you. It saves the landlord from having to run around and try to figure out what the latest laws are - we button it all up for you and keep you protected.    ;)
 
This is especially true when renting out higher-end home with pricier listing. A proffessional realtor is a good way to invest in to get your rental occupy with a qualify applicants.

When we were renters in the South Bay area, we found a listing on a local paper ad, we called and the landlord lady met us with a few documents to sign and she was the owner of the property. Each and every month she would show up at the front door on the first to collect the rent like clock work. I thought it was weird that she would show up and not having us mail out the payment. This was going on for 6 months, until we got a notice from the bank to vacate the property as the property is now foreclosed and the bank finally taking the possession of the home.

Make the story short, the landlord lady was the owner and she had not make payments on the property for over a year. We litterally had 1 month to move out. That was pretty stressful. So in this instance, having a realtor on your side of looking for a property was well worth the efforts. Also like Nicole mentioned above, listing your property with an agent so they can checks and filter your potential renters may well worth it.
 
Yeesh... you hear about those rental scams from time to time, but never knew anyone that experienced it. I'm terrified of renting to a "professional" squatter.
 
hurijo said:
Yeesh... you hear about those rental scams from time to time, but never knew anyone that experienced it. I'm terrified of renting to a "professional" squatter.

Times have changed. If I was renting I would probably get an agent or like deal with the agent on site at the apt.

I read about the fake listings on the news. (They take your deposit and can?t find them.)
 
From my experience, a good to great credit history will dismantle all of the fake and squatter from your pool of applicants. Only choose the top applicant of strong job history and solid credit history.


Believe it or not a lot of well qualified applicant can buy but chosen to rent and wait out. So they often bubbles to the top.


They are adding to the pain of lacking rental. And seem like price range in the 3500 to 4500 SFH goes pretty quickly.
 
Compressed-Village said:
From my experience, a good to great credit history will dismantle all of the fake and squatter from your pool of applicants. Only choose the top applicant of strong job history and solid credit history.


Believe it or not a lot of well qualified applicant can buy but chosen to rent and wait out. So they often bubbles to the top.


They are adding to the pain of lacking rental. And seem like price range in the 3500 to 4500 SFH goes pretty quickly.

I agree with you in principle, but this could put you at risk under the Fair Housing Act.  The way most landlords and property managers deal with this is by evaluating the applications in the order that they are received.  The first application that meets your written policies and procedures for qualification needs to be approved.  So if you have a requirement of income 3x rent, credit score above a certain number, and good references, you should approve the first applicant that meets these criteria, even if a later applicant is stronger.  Then it becomes difficult for somebody to sue you for racial discrimination, etc.
 
Liar Loan said:
Compressed-Village said:
From my experience, a good to great credit history will dismantle all of the fake and squatter from your pool of applicants. Only choose the top applicant of strong job history and solid credit history.


Believe it or not a lot of well qualified applicant can buy but chosen to rent and wait out. So they often bubbles to the top.


They are adding to the pain of lacking rental. And seem like price range in the 3500 to 4500 SFH goes pretty quickly.

I agree with you in principle, but this could put you at risk under the Fair Housing Act.  The way most landlords and property managers deal with this is by evaluating the applications in the order that they are received.  The first application that meets your written policies and procedures for qualification needs to be approved.  So if you have a requirement of income 3x rent, credit score above a certain number, and good references, you should approve the first applicant that meets these criteria, even if a later applicant is stronger.  Then it becomes difficult for somebody to sue you for racial discrimination, etc.

Very difficult to prove with private landlord. Now if it?s TIC, then it will be a different story. A family of 5 or more don?t want to pay big bucks and live in apartment styles dwelling.

And as a private landlord, the only sure way of eliminate squatters and headaches is to choose the best applicant. It works for me.
 
Do you at least let your applicants know that they will be part of a pool and that although you will be pulling their credit, they may not make the cut?
 
mads said:
Do you at least let your applicants know that they will be part of a pool and that although you will be pulling their credit, they may not make the cut?

Any application that does not have a credit pull are not up for consideration. This is part of the application process. An incomplete application will weed out the squatters.
 
Compressed-Village said:
....Make the story short, the landlord lady was the owner and she had not make payments on the property for over a year. We litterally had 1 month to move out. That was pretty stressful. So in this instance, having a realtor on your side of looking for a property was well worth the efforts. Also like Nicole mentioned above, listing your property with an agent so they can checks and filter your potential renters may well worth it.

Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry this happened to your family. What an awful experience. I've actually been just as selective when working with Landlords, as well. So far, our track record for screening and helping the landlord select tenants has been 100%. Our process is tedious and most flaky or squatter type tenants won't put in the work we require. (Recent example, we had 50+ interested on a condo in OC and only 1 was willing to go through the process. It took only one week but the details are very specific - it paid off!) The landlord owns the property outright and serves on the HOA board so everyone was a winner.

Side note - Have you seen the show on Netflix based in England? It's called, "Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords". It's quite unbelievable!
 
Back
Top