Realtors!! Really??

LilacTree · ‎03-25-2012

My daughter and I finally went out "rental house hunting" with the realtor for the first time. (I have been talking to her for almost three weeks now, but she always seemed to have "family issues" that had to be taken care of.)

Anyway, we were to meet with her yesterday at the first house at 2 PM. We arrived ten minutes early and she arrived twenty minutes late, all kinds of excuses. The house was a disaster inside. She then didn't seem to have anywhere else to take us, we were supposed to see six or seven rentals between 2 and 4 PM. She gave us some listings to look at while we were sitting in the car and she was on her cell phone the whole time. We were supposed to pick out what we wanted to see. By this time it was almost 3 PM. She seemed to know nothing about these properties, and we could not see the inside of the homes because all she gave us was the listing page with the description, but no way to see the photos.

My daughter finally had it and told her again what our needs were. She wasn't writing anything down, she was just standing there nodding her head. What a waste of time! Today I received two more listings from her via email (these go out automatically, by the way, according to our original description of what we required, which I have tried to get her to change and that still hasn't happened). They were both duplicates of properties we had already expressed no interest in.

My daughter spoke to a guy realtor a couple of days ago who said he works with his brother and they get quick results. He sent her an application on line and asked her to fill it in and send it back. It was a sales application, not a rental application and there was no way to fill it out online. The typing just does not show up, so when I exited it, I received a message "welcome to our agency" . . . blah blah blah. It was a totally blank form and I had not electronically signed it. I have no idea what will happen next.

We have two months to find a place, then pack up, get a moving company, and move. And we are totally back at square one after three weeks of starting this process. I realize realtors are more interested in sales than rentals, but this is more than frustrating.

Formerly Ford1224
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel 1986

bikerbabe · ‎03-09-2010

I realize it was mentioned that you don't want to use craigslist but I am a property manager and we do all of our advertising through craigslist. It's now very common in real estate.

esmeraldagooch · ‎03-10-2010

We've been dealing with realtors and property management companies too. There are lists of homes you can see online to narrow your search, them pay for the background check and deposits to get the keys to look inside yourself. There must be little money in this line of work so you have to do the work. DH did finally find a realtor who had one for him to view that was just perfect.

tansy · ‎01-02-2011

It's been a long time since I have rented a home but I used to drive through the neighborhoods I liked looking for to rent signs. There's just not enough commission for an agent to want to spend much time on you probably. I'd at least look at Craig's List.

ivanatrump · ‎06-26-2014

Maybe it's a local thing but realtors in our area do little with rentals. Private home rentals are usually advertised in the local weekly newspaper or posted in workplaces, churches, stores. Anyone I know with rental properties act as their own agent as opposed to paying someone to show the properties.

Apartment complexes have their own rental offices.

LilacTree · ‎03-25-2012

On 1/29/2015 bikerbabe said: I realize it was mentioned that you don't want to use craigslist but I am a property manager and we do all of our advertising through craigslist. It's now very common in real estate.

Perhaps it's time to try that, but our area of interest is very small. I will try to navigate the sight, I've never used it before. Thanks for the advice. I will do that now.

Formerly Ford1224
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel 1986

LilacTree · ‎03-25-2012

On 1/29/2015 tansy said: It's been a long time since I have rented a home but I used to drive through the neighborhoods I liked looking for to rent signs. There's just not enough commission for an agent to want to spend much time on you probably. I'd at least look at Craig's List.

We did that Tansy. We went through at least six neighborhoods yesterday looking for "For Rent" signs and out of hundreds of single floor rancher type homes, we didn't see one sign. Then we thought perhaps we should go into the community office, but by that time it was dark and we were exhausted.

I am going to look at Craig's list though. I'll post here if I find anything. Smile

Formerly Ford1224
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel 1986

Qwackertoo · ‎03-11-2010

On 1/29/2015 Ford1224 said:
On 1/29/2015 bikerbabe said: I realize it was mentioned that you don't want to use craigslist but I am a property manager and we do all of our advertising through craigslist. It's now very common in real estate.

Perhaps it's time to try that, but our area of interest is very small. I will try to navigate the sight, I've never used it before. Thanks for the advice. I will do that now.

It is pretty much narrowed down by zip code. You can search a LARGE area like D/FW Texas or you can narrow it down to a specific city within the metroplex OR you can go even narrower by zip code. Heck, you might be able to search by specific streets. I don't know that though, you could try.

Go to housing wanted . . . you can even narrow search by cats allowed, dogs allowed, number of bedrooms, square footage range, $ range, housing type, condo, house, duplex, assisted living . .. and I just tried after clicking on housing wanted and typed in my zip code in the search bar and came up with 5 so you can search by zip code. Next I tried typing in a street name and that works too. You should probably type in rent or rental or you'll also get for sale results under the "housing wanted" category.

edit typo

dmod nj · ‎10-04-2011

Ford, what about looking on rent.com. You might be able to find realtors, in your area, that do work with rentals.

Search properties in the area you are focused on. Even if you don't see a property for you, take a look at the realtor dealing with the property. He/she might be able to help you in your search.

You can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take Jersey out of the girl. Jersey Girl living in CNY.