Dulce Domem Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We need to find a rental home in the area we are moving to at the end of next month. We *had* a contract on our home, cash offer, to close at just the right time, then the buyer backed out at the home inspection. Nothing major, but apparently she changed her mind. So....we are highly doubtful that at this point we'll be able to sell & buy at the point we need to get moved. So, rentals it is. We are hoping for a home and not an apartment (4 young kids indoors all day would be crazy when they are used to freely roaming a backyard). At this point, we are just finding things on realtor.com. Does anyone have any great resources for finding a rental so far away? Any websites? How have you found a rental in the past? HELP!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I have found three rentals in the past (from three different sources). (when we moved to Texas from WA) 1st. I made an appointment with a lady whose job it was to show me several places in my price range and I could choose from them. We got an apartment rental out of this. No idea if she could do houses or not. 2nd I ended up with a realtor who also did rentals, somehow. Did a search on his website and found a house I was interested in and he got us in to look at it/helped facilitate the paperwork even though it was out of his normal area 3rd rental: A mobile home we found on Craigslist. Any ability to drive around and find homes for rent? I know the house across from us just put out a sign "For Lease" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmseB Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I like looking on hotpads because it shows listings from several sources and maps them. Craigslist is okay, but more difficult to navigate, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dulce Domem Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 Vonfirmath - Thanks for sharing! My husband is supposed to be flying up this week (originally to look for houses to purchase, I'm guessing at this point it will be to find a rental home) but he only has a day and a half to look, so he'll have to be efficient with his time. JodiSue - haven't heard of hotpads, but will have to give it a try. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisIsTheDay Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We've rented homes by advertising on Craig's List. We have also listed homes through the newspaper, which is ridiculously $$$. Now our paper has a digital ad-only option which is much more reasonable. The last time we put a house up for rent, we used the digital-ad only (available by going through the newspaper website). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisIsTheDay Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Oops, the Hotpads comment didn't post until after I posted my comment. I don't know what sources Hotpads culls, but I do know that our Craigslist house showed up on Hotpads. So I'm echoing that as another source. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshirtyogapantmama Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Zillow.com is good too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purplejackmama Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Best house we have rented was a Craiglist find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 depends where you're moving to craigslist can be okay, but you have to know which parts of the city you're moving to are okay to live in some places have more organized options - when we were considering a move to NH, we looked at NNEREN citydata forums can be really helpful with this kind of local info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We've used Craigslist to rent the last few times. I've found that to be the easiest option when we're far away. We arranged a rental in Virginia while we were in Kyrgyzstan. A future coworker was able to visit the house and take photos for us before we committed to it. I agree that getting good information about the area to figure out where you want to live is harder than finding the rental itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 The rental houses we own we only advertise on Craigslist as it's always been our best source of candidates and it's free. In your situation, I wonder if you'd want to go with a realtor and ask about rent to own places? There could be sellers out there willing to wait until your house sells if you find something you like enough to buy even if they aren't typical rent to own situations. I'd check for similar listings on Craigslist - those willing to rent or sell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatieJ Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We have a property management company handling our rentals as we live out of state. You could find them by searching for Property management companies in that town. All the homes they have currently available are listed, with pictures and contac information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia64 Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I LOVE Zillow and highly recommend -- just punch in "rental" and let it know how much you can spend. Alley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 Zillow.com is good too. Agreed. We just did a 1500 mile move in Sept, and dh looked in the area on Zillow. Granted, our situation was a little different as we were moving back to the town he graduated from 30+ years ago, but it allowed us to see what the options were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 In area there are a lot of rental postings on the ".....(city name) informed" facebook site. Craig's list also has some but facebook more. Another option would be to call a larger local church or place of employment etc. and ask if they know of any rentals that might be more word of mouth type things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We've used craigslist, local newspaper listings (found on-line), and Realtors. Oddly we had the least success with Realtors. They took too long and don't seem as motivated to get a place rented quickly. We needed something quickly as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meena Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We first narrowed down in what areas we wanted to live. I considered proximity to work, church, and activities, read through the forums on City Data, and checked out sex offender and crime data for areas that looked promising. Once we had that set we primarily used craigslist. Many ads on CL are from agencies or realtors that have multiple properties. If I saw that I would click through to the agency site and peruse their properties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 We've used craigslist, local newspaper listings (found on-line), and Realtors. Oddly we had the least success with Realtors. They took too long and don't seem as motivated to get a place rented quickly. We needed something quickly as well. This is another thing that might be important to know. When we list our houses on Craigslist they are rented within hours (once just two hours) to a couple of days. Pending where you are moving to, you might have to move quickly on a place you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer132 Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 We were moving from CA to OK, and found our rental home on Craigslist. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 For Texas, you can use www.har.com. It is the only site I have used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Girls' Mom Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 We had a move to another state and only a few days to actually LOOK at rentals. The best move we made was to get a realtor to help us. She knew the area and was able to steer us away from less desirable neighborhoods. She was also able to find something in our price range quickly. She was so helpful that we used her two more times before moving back to TN :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 We had a move to another state and only a few days to actually LOOK at rentals. The best move we made was to get a realtor to help us. She knew the area and was able to steer us away from less desirable neighborhoods. She was also able to find something in our price range quickly. She was so helpful that we used her two more times before moving back to TN :) :iagree: :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 the neighborhood is hugely important, unless you're moving to a small town where everything is fine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingiguana Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 http://www.padlister.com/or craigslist. Those are the two sites that get used most in our area. Mostly it's craigslist. But if you're not in the area, you may really benefit from having someone help you. Basically, they may use craigslist to see what's available but they'll be able to narrow things down to a decent neighborhood and do some preliminary contact for you. When I've posted rentals on craigslist we tend to get responses within minutes. People must be getting notifications on their phones. If you're trying to rent this time of year, however, there may not be as much competition. The big months seem to be May-July around here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingiguana Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 If the area you're moving to has an e-democracy neighborhood forum or a facebook group, that may also be a possibility. I know there are a lot of rentals around here that never make it on to craigslist because landlord and tenant find each other on forums. Or they just throw a sign in the window and some neighbor calls a friend who wants to live there. This may be even more true of houses than apartments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dulce Domem Posted February 17, 2015 Author Share Posted February 17, 2015 I got sucked into hotpads & didn't check back on to until tonight to see everyone's great suggestions! Thanks so much for all the help. We haven't rented since our newlywed days and I am just lost! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan C. Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Another idea: If you don't mind being apart a bit, have your husband go ahead and rent a small apartment month to month. Then he is there to hop on either a rental home quickly, or if you wait for a bit longer, to look for a house to buy after yours sells. We have been in your situation, rental time for a house is usually one year, so you won't be able to buy for that time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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