ATTENTION!!! BEWARE OF SCAMMERS!!!
My husband and I…read morecurrently live in Illinois, but we want to sell our two properties here, and relocate to the warmer state of Florida. Our jobs allow us to work from everywhere. We decided that we want to rent for a year, and see how we going to like it, and which place in Florida would be more suitable for us to buy our own home. In the beginning, I was looking to rent a house, but then we decided we want a less complicated living situation, so I decided to go for a condo. I saw one that I liked on realtor.com, and I applied. There were several red flags though:
First, the condo was too good to be so cheap compared to the other properties for rent. It was bait.
Second, it took the people from this company quite some time until they finally told me it was time to pay the non-refundable application fees. Now I know why - they were waiting for more applicants to pay the fees.
Third, despite I have an excellent credit history, perfect background, and income five times the rent of the property, I was still not a good candidate, so I offered to pay the rent for the whole year in advance plus two months of deposit. I kind of put them in a situation where they were out of excuses for why they wouldn't rent it to me, but listen to what I was told: "The overall picture was looking better for the other candidates", " The owner didn't want the whole year rent in advance", " My boss felt like she needed to go with the other candidates", "We try to avoid eviction"
What???? That was really offensive. I have never been evicted in my whole life. I wanted to pay the whole year of rent plus two months of deposit plus a hundred other fees related to renting this property, and in the end, I was rejected and offended by these people.
I didn't know it is so hard to rent a property, especially with this company. I can only compare the level of difficulty with running for senate. I am sure it would be easier if I was buying it instead of renting it. On the other hand, the level of incompetence of their associates was as low as it could be. They were supposed to send me an email with an attached application, but they sent me an empty email instead. They do not accept other forms of payment behind cash. They've never heard of quick pay.
I read most of the feedback from other people, and some of them described a very similar situation with a very similar-looking property. I wish I had read the feedback for this company before I applied, so I would know they don't actually look for tenants. They look for applicants!