lovinmyboys Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 (edited) We are moving to Northern Virginia so we went and looked at houses to rent this past weekend. We put in applications and should hear back today. I am so nervous. The houses go so fast and there are multiple applicants for them. I don't know how the owners decide who to rent to. We haven't rented since 2002. Ugh, if we don't get one of the houses we want the kids will be so disappointed. I really don't like the unknown. I wasn't expecting it to be so competitive to get a house. I don't think we will have time to go look again, so hopefully one of these will come through. Update: we got a house! Thanks for the hugs and good lucks! I am so relieved. Edited July 11, 2017 by lovinmyboys 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Hugs and good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selkie Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 I hope you get one that you like. :grouphug: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 :grouphug: It took dh several months of searching to find a house here. Hopefully you get into one quickly in your area! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovinmyboys Posted July 10, 2017 Author Share Posted July 10, 2017 :grouphug: It took dh several months of searching to find a house here. Hopefully you get into one quickly in your area! I am worried about this too. Dh lived away from us for part of 2014 and all of 2015. I'm not really wanting to do that again right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 When we lived in NoVA, there were multiple places we looked at that even though they were available when we walked in, by the time we walked out of the house, it had already been rented to someone else. We got really lucky with the place we ended up renting and when we moved out, a friend of ours moved in so they could avoid the whole "sorry, it's already been rented..." thing. I hope you get one! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Best wishes to you! To answer your question about how owners decide... for us, we're merely looking for the "safest" applicant for our rentals financially. This means a nice guaranteed income and someone who looks likely to take care of the place overall. (The first comes from a credit and income check - the second comes from previous rental history or various other intangibles.) We've only guessed incorrectly twice and have learned from both of those experiences. Many times though, there are second (or third) choices that seem just as good as the first with only minor details (like who applied first) making the difference, so if you don't get one of the places, don't feel you're "awful." 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 NoVA is a very tough place for housing. Friends of ours are up there, temporarily, for one year. I think they rented an apartment in Arlington. I think it is about USD $2000 per month and that's probably a pretty basic apartment. He went up there in mid June and began working. She and their DC will go up there in 2 weeks. Much good luck in finding a house that you and your family like and can afford! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastforward Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Best of luck with finding something that suits your family! We were in this position last year when we moved to North Carolina. We hadn't rented since we were newlyweds, over 17 years ago. We had sold our home and decided to relocate to a new state for my husband's job, and figured renting would be good until we get our footing here. I hope it works out well for you, also. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 We live in No VA, and have friends who rent. They have pets and many kids, and finding a rental is stressful. They usually need a real estate agent working with them, and still they look at a high number of houses and face a lot of rejections. (Their credit is excellent, its due to the pets and family size.). It's brutal. If you don't have a real estate agent yet, and this first round doesn't yield a rental, please consider finding one. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 I'm sorry! If you attend church, maybe you could contact the church you plan to attend and see if someone there might have a home to rent. My husband did that in college and when he interned and it worked well for him. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovinmyboys Posted July 10, 2017 Author Share Posted July 10, 2017 (edited) We live in No VA, and have friends who rent. They have pets and many kids, and finding a rental is stressful. They usually need a real estate agent working with them, and still they look at a high number of houses and face a lot of rejections. (Their credit is excellent, its due to the pets and family size.). It's brutal. If you don't have a real estate agent yet, and this first round doesn't yield a rental, please consider finding one. Good luck! We are using a realtor. We don't have any pets but we do have four kids. All the houses we looked at have 4 or 5 bedrooms so I didn't think having 4 kids would be a problem, but it seems like it might be. I guess if owners are choosing between a family with 2 kids or 4 kids they are going to choose the smaller family. Our credit isn't a problem. ETA a colleague of Dh is looking too. They have one dog and 3 kids and they haven't gotten any of the houses they applied for. Edited July 10, 2017 by lovinmyboys 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenn in FL Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 :grouphug: and Good Luck! Just a thought... Would you consider writing a letter to the owners to be submitted with your applications? Not at all intended to 'explain' your four children, (I also have four kiddos,) but rather just to let the owners or management company learn a little bit about you and your family. IME, sometimes this has been a tie breaker, all other factors being somewhat equal. My kiddos are all grown now, but no one would ever rent to us these days, too many house cats!! :lol: Good luck! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Write a letter. And consider a townhome. When we moved to NOVA we were selling our house as a short sale, our credit was about to tank. We ended up in a townhome b/c the owner wanted to help us out. That letter got us the rental. It ended up being a fantastic place to live. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 We just had some drama trying to rent with the number of kids we have. Lots of places have occupancy limits and it was obnoxious and stressful. Working with an agent is a good way to go, worked for us when just calling landlords didn't. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellen Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 We went through that last year. It was so hard to find a rental we ended up buying. We figured it would be easy to rent if necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovinmyboys Posted July 10, 2017 Author Share Posted July 10, 2017 We went through that last year. It was so hard to find a rental we ended up buying. We figured it would be easy to rent if necessary. I know I have thought of that. It seems like a pretty safe investment if people are lining up for rentals. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 I think, in VA, they can't reject you based on kid number. My friends have 5, though, and they definitely felt that it was a factor in being rejected, though unspoken. It's very frustrating! I do think you'll find something, you just have to persevere. The timing is everything. And do look at townhomes, rather than ruling them out entirely, if you haven't considered that. It's a mindshift, but can widen your options. Glad to hear you have a RE agent! I like the idea of a letter introducing yourselves and you kids, too. :) If you end up on the southern end of NO VA, shoot me a PM and I'll share some ideas re: getting to know the area, if that helps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoGal Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 We are in the same situation and it is really stressful. I was wondering if having 5 kids was the reason we didn't get the rental we wanted. :( We are trying to move back to CA and our house in Portland is taking forever ("forever" being 2 months so far) to sell. Our oldest is having a really hard time with moving because he doesn't want to leave his friends here. If we can't move until after school starts, we are going to be stuck here another year at least. Ugh - I don't even want to think about that. That would also mean that we wouldn't be in the district to register for high school for him (charter school that currently has a waitlist). It is a mess. I hope you have better luck than us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 I hope you get good news today!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 They can't reject you based on the number of children. That's Fair Housing Act, and fundamental Constitutional right stuff. They shouldn't even be asking how many children you have on the application. That's just...yeah. It can be difficult to prove, though, unless the landlord is a complete idiot. Usually there's an acceptable pretense (credit score or something). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 (edited) They can't reject you based on the number of children. That's Fair Housing Act, and fundamental Constitutional right stuff. They shouldn't even be asking how many children you have on the application. That's just...yeah. It can be difficult to prove, though, unless the landlord is a complete idiot. Usually there's an acceptable pretense (credit score or something). Yeh, our friends with many kids (many being 5, so of course it's relative), have found that they will be verbally asked how many children, on the pretense of "how many occupants?" They will then be asked about pets. They have two cats. One realtor actually told them, about the LL, "he can't say no because of your children, so he's going to say no because of the cats." It's frustrating for them. But they always find something. I'm sure they'll buy again once they know their permanent area wrt work, but they've had to move a bit the past few years, so renting made more sense. We once rented a house that had questions about our health on the application. Aaack! I don't know if that was legal either, but whether it was or not, it certainly felt invasive. There were no other rentals we could find, so we sucked it up, but yuck. Edited July 10, 2017 by Spryte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Usually it's up front whether pets are okay in an advertisement. I would ask about what pets are allowed when putting in initial inquiry, so they can't change their minds about it as their pretense. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoGal Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 The problem is if the area has a lot of people looking for rentals, they don't need to give a reason. They just "went with someone else." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 (edited) They can't reject you based on the number of children. That's Fair Housing Act, and fundamental Constitutional right stuff. They shouldn't even be asking how many children you have on the application. That's just...yeah. It can be difficult to prove, though, unless the landlord is a complete idiot. Usually there's an acceptable pretense (credit score or something). They can deny based on occupants. Not children. So we would try to rent a house and they'd have a five person occupancy limit, which we were over. Or they'd just decline to rent to a family and prefer single people, but they didn't have to say that - they'd just pass over the application. For single family homes it is a legal loophole. They can also ask for a list of all people who will be residing on the property and ask their ages, under the pretense of figuring out who the adults are for signing on the rental agreement. With the rental company we used there were occupancy limits too - two people to a bedroom. So even though we would have been much happier in a smaller and less expensive rental we were stuck with inventory that was 4+ bedrooms (ie: not very many) and the pricepoints were high. But by looking out further in another town we were able to find one in our budget and it will just be a little more of a commute than we wanted for the time we are there. They can't discriminate specifically based on children. But the rules can be written in such a way that a larger family is unable to rent even though there are only two renting adults with fantastic credit and more than adequate income. It stinks that they'd prefer, say, four college students to a married family who'd owned a home and maintained a property, but that's exactly what we ran into. Edited July 10, 2017 by Arctic Mama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waa510 Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Where in NoVA are you looking to rent? There's a townhouse in my neighborhood for rent right now (just went on yesterday). Pm me if interested. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 They can deny based on occupants. Not children. So we would try to rent a house and they'd have a five person occupancy limit, which we were over. Or they'd just decline to rent to a family and prefer single people, but they didn't have to say that - they'd just pass over the application. For single family homes it is a legal loophole. They can also ask for a list of all people who will be residing on the property and ask their ages, under the pretense of figuring out who the adults are for signing on the rental agreement. With the rental company we used there were occupancy limits too - two people to a bedroom. So even though we would have been much happier in a smaller and less expensive rental we were stuck with inventory that was 4+ bedrooms (ie: not very many) and the pricepoints were high. But by looking out further in another town we were able to find one in our budget and it will just be a little more of a commute than we wanted for the time we are there. They can't discriminate specifically based on children. But the rules can be written in such a way that a larger family is unable to rent even though there are only two renting adults with fantastic credit and more than adequate income. It stinks that they'd prefer, say, four college students to a married family who'd owned a home and maintained a property, but that's exactly what we ran into. They said they were looking at 3 and 4 bedroom houses. Usually "reasonable" is defined with something like HUD standards or a written policy they have spelled out for consistency. A family with 4 children (described in the OP) is easily within any reasonable definition for a 3 or 4 bedroom house. I've lived mostly in college towns, where they tend to be far happier about a nuclear family than multiple college students, and really wanted everyone in a home to be related, or close to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nixpix5 Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Hearing these stories is really disheartening. It makes me hope we don't need to relocate anytime soon. We didn't have an issue renting our current 4 bedroom house. We have been here 5 years and when we moved in we had 3 small children (2 potty training) and 2 teenagers. I thought we would be turned down but I wrote a letter and pleaded my case unapologetically. He took pity on us :) What really surprised me was my older sons just rented a house 5 months ago after being tired of apartment living. They have four 24 year old guys and a 24 hear old girl all living in a 4 bedroom house with 3 large dogs and a small dog. I was shocked they got the house but they all have good paying stable jobs and great credit. I think the landlord just must have liked them but they really advocated for themselves. They also wrote a letter. I think sometimes showing a bit of vulnerability is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy101 Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 This large family discrimination was our experience before we became home owners 16 years ago (back when we only had 4 kids) and is the current experience of everyone we know with 4+ children as well. I know a family of 7 who has been looking for 4+ bedroom rentals for over a year and no takers. Because landlords simply choose smaller families instead. If they can get a reliable renter for the same $ with 2 kids vs 4+ kids, they go with the smaller family every time. And since large families aren't the norm, this means they have a hard time finding a rental in the current housing crunch. Honestly this scares me and is a major reason we can't move for better employment opportunities. There's just no way I can risk being homeless if we can avoid it. Right now, we can pay the mortgage payment. It would make more sense to move now instead of waiting until things are dire enough that we can't and still have the rental housing problem. But rental housing in the areas we would need to move to is really expensive, hard to get with less than good credit, and hard to compete for. Also it should go without saying that there is legally they can't and then there is legally they can't but totally do anyways *wink wink* 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Murphy - we ended up going with the company American Homes 4 Rent and they have been lovely. It was a much better experience than just trying to apply by ourselves. Unless it's an area with zero inventory (our market was tight, less than a page of rentals on zillow!) I don't think you'd have an issue. But like I said they stick to two people per bedroom. We tried renting three bedroom houses because we like a boys room, girls room, master and everyone turned us down, even though we made it work very well in our own home. Worst case scenario we could have purchased a home but because we are trying to build it would have been a bad bad choice. We found that having the common application with the rental company and being able to apply to anything in their inventory we qualified without discrimination worked the very best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Oh, one more strategy is to offer the landlord several hundred more per month, if it's a tight market. Write a letter with the application and express a desire for the rental and willingness to pay a higher than stated rent or additional security deposit and that might also edge out competition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sangtarah Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 Having just moved to Northern Virginia, I have contempt for two of the landlords in this area. The first house we signed a lease for wanted extra money for pets after the signing. It went from an agreed upon $500 deposit to a $1000 fee. We declined! The second house we were supposed to move in last week, but upon walk-through we found mold in multiple rooms. Landlord was going to "scrape it off and paint it, no problem". Well, that would have been a problem for us! (These were both with realtors.) Third time is a charm. A clean, by-owner home that has a nice landlord and we have moved in. OP, I sincerely hope it doesn't take three tries for you! It's been very, very stressful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendy not in HI Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 (edited) We had a terrible time finding a place to rent in NoVa a couple years ago. After we were rejected by landlords for several homes, we decided to find a new home for our sweet dog so that we could find a place to rent. That was heartbreaking! I wish we had bought a home instead... We rented a 4 bedroom home in Burke. We loved the area but hated the house. It turned out that the house we rented (sight unseen) was terrible and stinky. Mold issues in the basement and definite pet smells. The home was "pet free" for us - but the previous renters had a dog that was generous with his potty throughout the house, especially the basement, dining room and one bedroom... Landlord failed to mention the fact that petfree was a new thing for his home. Our first walk through was terrible. And the landlord acted like it was perfect - he didn't seem to notice the terrible animal and mold stink. It was such an odd experience. It wasn't a light bit of animal stink, it was like a wave - thick in the air, there's no way you couldn't smell and taste the stink. We felt like we couldn't walk away from the home, but we should have - the house had all sorts of issues. The windows couldn't hold themselves up, major mold all over the outside of the house, cracked tiles, basement stink and mold issues, grimy kitchen, a water main break - twice, unusable fireplace with deteriorating bricks, heating and AC issues, etc. And all ours for just $2900 a month! I hated it. But then I helped a friend search for a house and we started to realize that our house was actually pretty good. Landlords really do have the upper hand in that area. We moved in in June and house hunted online most of the spring, but we had friends who moved in at the end of August. They didn't house hunt at all until they got there. They brought their two dogs. They were able to find a house to rent in Springfield/Burke without any trouble. It made me wonder if we renters cause the rental panic in the spring, but things calm down later in the summer? Good luck with your move! We loved VA and I miss it!! (except for the house) Edited July 10, 2017 by wendy not in HI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 10, 2017 Share Posted July 10, 2017 We had a terrible time finding a place to rent in NoVa a couple years ago. After we were rejected by landlords for several homes, we decided to find a new home for our sweet dog so that we could find a place to rent. That was heartbreaking! I wish we had bought a home instead... We rented a 4 bedroom home in Burke. We loved the area but hated the house. It turned out that the house we rented (sight unseen) was terrible and stinky. Mold issues in the basement and definite pet smells. The home was "pet free" for us - but the previous renters had a dog that was generous with his potty throughout the house, especially the basement, dining room and one bedroom... Landlord failed to mention the fact that petfree was a new thing for his home. Our first walk through was terrible. And the landlord acted like it was perfect - he didn't seem to notice the terrible animal and mold stink. It was such an odd experience. It wasn't a light bit of animal stink, it was like a wave - thick in the air, there's no way you couldn't smell and taste the stink. We felt like we couldn't walk away from the home, but we should have - the house had all sorts of issues. The windows couldn't hold themselves up, major mold all over the outside of the house, cracked tiles, basement stink and mold issues, grimy kitchen, a water main break - twice, unusable fireplace with deteriorating bricks, heating and AC issues, etc. And all ours for just $2900 a month! I hated it. But then I helped a friend search for a house and we started to realize that our house was actually pretty good. Landlords really do have the upper hand in that area. We moved in in June and house hunted online most of the spring, but we had friends who moved in at the end of August. They didn't house hunt at all until they got there. They brought their two dogs. They were able to find a house to rent in Springfield/Burke without any trouble. It made me wonder if we renters cause the rental panic in the spring, but things calm down later in the summer? Good luck with your move! We loved VA and I miss it!! (except for the house) That sounds completely atrocious. Ugh! I hate markets like that, where the best option is mediocre at best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovinmyboys Posted July 11, 2017 Author Share Posted July 11, 2017 Update! We got a house! Thanks for all the well wishes. And hugs to those of you going through the same thing. Our experience was stressful, but relatively painless. I'm just so relieved. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Wooooohhoooooo! Yay! That is great news! I hope you love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waa510 Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Yay! Glad you found a house to rent! They really do go quickly around here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Update! We got a house! Thanks for all the well wishes. And hugs to those of you going through the same thing. Our experience was stressful, but relatively painless. I'm just so relieved. :party: :party: :party: :party: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Hurray!!! Anne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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