Rental Agencies to rent my home (Concord: section 8, real estate, leasing) - City-Data Forum

kkn006 · 02-26-2011, 06:35 PM

Forum members, can you recommend some rental agents who can help rent my house. My house is near Concord Mills, north charlotte.

spankys bbq · 03-03-2011, 01:23 PM

I can't make any reccomendations, but why do you think you need to pay someone to rent your house out for you? Background checks aren't too expensive. You're paying a company 10% or more to collect rent each month.

USCRugbyNo1 · 03-03-2011, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spankys bbq

I can't make any reccomendations, but why do you think you need to pay someone to rent your house out for you? Background checks aren't too expensive. You're paying a company 10% or more to collect rent each month.

What? They didn't want property management just someone to help rent out their house.

There are many agents out there who will help rent out your house. By using an agent you will be on the MLS and that's where I would recommend. Also, craigslist is a great source of traffic.

palmetto75 · 03-04-2011, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by USCRugbyNo1

By using an agent you will be on the MLS and that's where I would recommend. Also, craigslist is a great source of traffic.

Will again take the opportunity to caution the general public on the use of Craigslist. 2 weeks ago we received over 40 calls in one day on a property out the blue. Turns out the owner (before she started using us) had put her own CL ad. Sure enough it got hijacked by a nice gentleman in Nigeria and was reposted at 1/2 the actual rent. People being desperate as they are were lining up to wire this guy money and rent the property. Afterall who can pass up such a deal right!

If it wasn't for quick thinking (and driving) on our end we about to have a nice couple of squatters living in the property.

Also, not all PMs charge 10%. Can actually be a good bit lower.

Also, not all people have a clue when it comes to reading credit reports, background reports and/or evictions. Not to mention the time to meet every prospect at the property only to find out they had nothing to do for the day and decided to just window shop properties so they can see if the grass really is greener for when their lease is up 5 MONTHS FROM NOW.

Riley09swb · 03-04-2011, 01:41 PM

We rented our house out in that area in October. You can use any real estate agent(they will generally only charge half the first months rent) or you can go with a property management company (though they will charge you 8-10% monthly). I actually emailed a couple of agents to list it for rent and I never heard back. From what I gather agents don't make alot of commission if any on rentals.

Edited to add: You can also try to list it on rentals.com as well. That's where alot of the people that came through our house found out about the listing. I really don't recommend craigslist either to rent a house. YMMV.

juliekm · 03-04-2011, 03:46 PM

Use a rental agency if you can afford it. Not only do they secure a tenant, they handle all repair requests and evictions if necessary. They also handle all paperwork if you choose to accept section 8, which isn't a bad idea of your house is eligible, it is

jayhawks91 · 03-05-2011, 07:51 AM

My parents have a home that they rent on LKN. They use a real estate agency and it has been a very easy process and they take care of EVERYTHING. I can find out the agency's name if you are interested, but I am not sure if they would cover a house in your area.

Riley09swb · 03-05-2011, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayhawks91

My parents have a home that they rent on LKN. They use a real estate agency and it has been a very easy process and they take care of EVERYTHING. I can find out the agency's name if you are interested, but I am not sure if they would cover a house in your area.

Most likely they won't. I called a place in the LKN area for my home and it was to far. My home was near the area of the OP's.

spankys bbq · 03-05-2011, 10:27 AM

I understand that not all mangement companies charge 10%, but its about the average. And from my experience, the service calls that are handled have always seemed to have some premium built in to the final bill.

This is probably my bias showing, but tkae it for what it is. If you cannot keep a cool head when something gets broken in your house by a tenant, do not go with Section 8. I am not saying that all Section 8 tenants are bad apples, but there are plenty. And the rules for Section 8 are a little more strict than with conventional housing. The one that bugs me is even things the tenant tear up are considered a "landlord deficiency" (this is straight from the mouth of an inspector I had to deal with last year after the tenant tore a bunch of stuff up and then called for an inspection because I told them to get rid of the dog).

If you're in a decent neighborhood, I'd just put some For Rent signs out and maybe a couple around the area outside of the neighborhood. It'll take a little longer, but won't cost you anything more than you have in the signs. Now, if you're in need of the income and have to get the place rented ASAP, go with an agent. It may be a little faster.

palmetto75 · 03-07-2011, 07:50 AM

With all respect to the general brokerage agents out there (i.e. Realtors that primarily buy and sell real estate), I would not use them for leasing a property. 90% of them have no idea about leasing. The good ones will tell you that and won't even mess with it. The more desperate ones will say "Sure I can do that" not knowing what they are getting into.

Lets break down the numbers:
If an agent gets 1/2 the first month's rent to lease a $1500 house they would get $750. Lets say this agent is on a 70/30 split with his/her broker (remember not a top producer) so they net $525. Lets say the agent has at least an idea of what they are doing and buys a premier rentals.com ad at $100/mnth and maybe another ad for $50 and of course uses CraigsList

. So now they are down to $375 max profit. Lets also say the agent offers other agents 10% to bring in a referral. So thats another $150 and their bottomline is now a whopping $225!!! Now factor in a more realistic scenario where where you buy 2 month's of advertising and you pay a 20% referral fee and all of a sudden you are looking at RED numbers.

When the agent has that finally realizes whats involved do you really think they are going to work that hard for you? You think you will not be the farthest thing in the back of their mind when their phone rings with a hot buyer moving down from NJ that wants to buy a house asap. You think they won't spend 4 solid days with that buer looking at 60 houses while your "rental" sits there gathering dust.