Julie Reddington

FINDING A RENTAL PROPERTY

 

Are you looking for a rental property? You will probably be seeing that the current rental market is CRAZY!! The demand to rent has sky rocketed.

 

I had firsthand experience of being the Landlord and let me tell you, as soon as the property hit the market, the calls began. Landlords are in a position to be choosey and can interview a lot of people before making a decision.

 

So if you are feeling frustrated trying to find a home to rent, here are some tips :-

 

• WEBSITES TO LOOK

 - Craigslist - this is the most popular website. I recommend you look several times a day

 - Zillow / Trulia

 - Rent.com

 - Hotpads.com

Note - they are some scams out there. Do you due diligience,  If you are not sure, call me

 

• DON’T EMAIL … call for an appointment! All the people that viewed, called me. You can pin an appointment down straight away. Emails tend to sit awaiting a response. If it goes to answer machine, leave a message, then follow up with an email

 

• DO YOUR OWN CREDIT /BACKGROUND CHECK. Do these checks for yourself and provide the documentation on your appointment. . They will probably have to do them again but providing this will show you are committed and organized. • If you have had a financial hit, provide the evidence of why this happened and show you are committed to rebuild you financial situation. Provide evidence that you pay your bills on time.

 

• GET YOUR REFERENCES AHEAD OF THE GAME. Again, get these before you make appointments. I recommend getting references from Employers, previous Landlords, an upstanding member of the community. Your Landlord will probably verify these again, but wouldn’t you be impressed if you were the Landlord and your prospective tenant came armed with all this information?

 

• PICTURES. Take pictures of your current home to show how well you keep it

 

• ADDED VALUE. If you know that the chances are that there is demand for the property, go armed with someone to sweeten the deal whether it be you sign a longer lease, offer an advancement of the rent, you can get the deposit that day (subject to the lease contract being satisfactory to you). Treat this process like you have landed your Dream Job Interview .. you will have to pull out all the stops in order to land that property.

 

Good luck​