The Apartment Blogger

I’ll try being as objective as possible. I don’t know what the best way is but I only know of three ways to go about your search and I can enumerate them and present the pros and cons.

1. CLASSIFIED ADS – That’s how everybody gets started, whether you are going through the local paper or various other websites. Weeding through listings is the only way to start.

The most popular source for the do-it-yourselfers is craigslist.org, a totally free online classified bulletin board that allows you to contact some private owners directly. Some other popular sources are rent.com, apartments.com, boston.com (The Boston Globe web site) and homefind.com (The Boston Herald web site).

CONS:

• Unless you plan on making a career of looking for an apartment, don’t bother. Yes, there is a chance you might be able to get lucky and find an owner directly without paying any fees to anyone but from the get-go you limit your options severely.
• The other sources are paid advertising. The landlord or property manger pays to try and drive attention to their property. In many cases the listings are rarely up-to-date or super-accurate.
• Craigslist is a free classified board so anyone can put anything they like on there and it will never be verified or updated.
• Most of the so-called “free” listings are brokers advertising properties on behalf of the landlords. So while you think you are saving money by doing it yourself, you are actually wasting time because most probably you will end up paying a broker fee.

PROS:

• I’m still trying to figure that one out, I know that a common belief is “You save money when you do the work yourself” but when trying to find your next apartment, this cannot be further from the truth.

2. REAL ESTATE AGENT – A licensed real estate agent will drive you or with you to apartments that are as close to your desired criteria as possible. A good agent will preview the apartment before you see it so you end up saving a lot of time.

CONS:

• A broker fee in MA is the equivalent to 1 month’s rent so a successful search with a broker is pretty costly.

• As in any profession it’s difficult to find a really good, reliable, trustworthy agent that will actually do all the leg work for you.

• Because of the agents business model you are, for the must part, shown units that are at your budget or, more often, exceed your budget. Why? Simple. The more rent you pay, the more they put in their pocket.

• Brokers are very localized. No broker can search and find you units in several different neighborhoods. So unless you have a very specific area you are interested in, you have to run around with few different agencies.

PROS:

• Huge time savings if you use the right broker. They (should) do all the leg work for you, drive you around and then help you throughout the application and lease signing process.

• Rarely, extremely rarely, a broker will have an exclusive listing with a certain company or landlord. In order to get to that specific property you must use the specific agency.

3. To be continued…

Filed under: Apartment Renting, Tips and Tricks by IG on 10.14.2007
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Knowing when to start looking for a new apartment is key. It will result in your getting a better deal, both with the quality of the apartment and the amount of rent you pay. Timing is everything in life, especially when you are looking for an apartment.

Management companies will be able to show you model units or similar units several months in advance.

Private owners tend to advertise 30 to 60 days prior to vacancy. The unit gets listed when they receive the 30-day notice from their tenants. Sometimes it is listed 60 days in advance when they have a vacant unit that will be renovated or when they already know the tenants are not renewing the lease.

For most moving dates I would recommend starting 60 days in advance.

For high-demand moving dates, especially September 1st, you can’t start too early. I would say start your search around February.

Starting your search early gives you a better idea of what you can get for your price range and it also gives you an edge on the rest of the competition when you get first dibs on units that have just hit the market for later dates.

Another advantage of renting early is price negotiations. Finding an apartment 30-45 days in advance puts you in the driver’s seat to negotiate the price down. As opposed to finding an apartment a week or two before your moving date which gives the landlord the upper hand.

Management companies will often have specials early in each season to try and entice early seekers to secure a lease. Take advantage and start early! Good luck.

IG

Filed under: Apartment Renting, Tips and Tricks by IG on 10.11.2007
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Have you ever opened the real estate section or read a real estate-related article online and realized that unless you have already bought property and in the process spent some serious time learning the real estate dictionary it doesn’t really mean anything to your situation because you…

rent¹

verb 1
1. Pay someone for the use of.

2. Let someone use (something) in return for payment.

You and approximately 34% of the population (which in MA means about 1.5 million people) rent.

That is the reason I decided to start this rental blog and I hope it helps renters get relevant tips and information about their current or future living situation.

IG

Filed under: Apartment Renting by IG on 10.10.2007
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