Need advice on a home rental - FAST! (Huntsville, Madison: rentals, insurance)

[azgkrudi]

My husband and I are moving to Huntsville within the next two weeks. We are moving from Florida - loading a truck and hoping to find a home rental over the weekend right before my husband starts his job. We REALLY need a single source - a realtor who can show us several rentals over that weekend and we can just quickly move on in. We have 3 small dogs so the properties must be pet-friendly. PLEASE - anyone who knows a great realtor/property manager who can help us out, we would greatly appreciate it. We don't have time to be emailing each rental we see online.

Thanks in advance! Please email me at azgkrudi at aol.com.

[CoreLysium]

You can probably eliminate a lot of properties and get an idea of which ones you might want to see at the Valley MLS site.

(There won't be people telling you a realtor on here since it's against the rules, but I see you included your email address.)

[bmrisko]

Can you provide the general area he will be working? That may help with the rental location. Also, do you have a budget in mind?

[azgkrudi]

Thank you both for your replies! He will be working right around US 231 & Byrd Spring Road, southeast of the city. I have never been there so I really have no clue! Looking for a newer home, something in the $1000-$1400 range that has all appliances.

He is used to a 30-minute commute now, so it doesn't have to be "right-right" near his work, but then, I am clueless about the traffic there as well, so any advice you can give would be great.

[FatTails]

When we first moved here we hunted for rentals on our own using Valley MLS. None of the realtors/managers went to the houses with us. They either gave us a key at their office or told us what the combo was on the lock outside the front door. It didn't take long for us to find a house. We also have a dog so the house had to have a fence and allow pets. If we narrowed out the houses far from my work we were literally left with about a dozen homes. Rental prices are outrageous here, at least in my opinion. Complete contrast to the cheap prices to actually buy a house.

[LCTMadison]

You are going to have a challenge finding a Realtor to take you around to show rentals. I'm just going to be honest....we literally don't get paid anything for them (and this is our job, so most don't work for free). Its also a liability if we don't carry additional insurance covering property management because our E&O does not cover us regarding property management activities....even just showing a rental. I don't show rentals at all because of this.

The property managers are going to show you the homes they are managing, and that's it. I would be happy to send you a couple of names of the better property managers and you can contact them to see what they have. One tends to have a lot of properties in the South HSV area where your husband is going to be working.

Best bet is www.valleymls.com. Your husband will be working in South Huntsville area if you wanted to start there.

[azgkrudi]

Thank you all for the great advice. And LCTMadison, if you would send me the property managers' info via private message, that would be much appreciated.

[RatSnake]

When we moved here 5 years ago, we looked up houses for rent at valleymls.com.
We looked at 5 homes (shortlist as we only had 3 days -- as we flew in from the west coast) --- all five were managed by various property managers/realtors - a KW agent, Rosenblum Realty, Davis Team ... and one more (can't recall what office).

The one agent showed us 2 homes (2 homes on the list just happened to be under them).
2nd agent met us at the 3rd home.
The 3rd agent due to the tight schedule could not meet us ... but they gave us the combination to the lock. We went to the rental house unescorted. It was our fault as we gave them only 2 hours of warning - whereas we made appointments with the others days in advance (over the internet).
The fifth one met as at the rental home.

So --- 4/5 met us at the rental home ... but our experience is no guarantee. LCT is correct. These realtors don't get anything unless the house happens to be managed as a rental by their office. From what an agent friend told me (who is also a property manager), their office gets under <10% from the monthly rental - which isn't much ... unless they have lots of properties to manage (like Rosenblum and AH).

I personally enjoyed dealing with one agent --- but the actual owner/landlord was a real pain!). Their staff was so apologetic! ...

[HB2HSV]

Interesting. Our realtor took us around ALL DAY looking at rental houses while we were here on a house hunting trip. I had just assumed this was SOP. She drove us all over the city, from Hampton Cove to SE HSV to Madison on Countyline. Her good karma paid off though. Later when I found this house myself, I wrote her down as my realtor so she did get her commission.

I agreed about the rent prices here is ridiculous. For the single family homes we look at, they wanted almost $1 per sq.ft., literally a 1,500 sq.ft. home was asking for $1,500 a month rent. They didn't even bother to paint over dirty walls leftover from the previous tenant. That was when I realized it was cheaper to buy my own home here instead renting (I was going to do the "smart" thing of renting the first year until we know the city & figure out where we want to live).

[LCTMadison]

There are Realtors that show rentals and manage them, and have no idea the liability they are putting themselves under not being covered under their E&O insurance and not having additional coverage specifically for property management. A couple of years ago I had an eye opening meeting with a local attorney here who specializes in property management. She has also had to represent many agents who simply opened the door on a rental, and when something went array with the property the tenant came after the agent that put them in the house and sued them. She advised our forms committee to not provide lease agreements for agents to use.

That's my broker's call. No property management activities. Too much liability. We live in a society that just sues us for sport. We have two great referral partners we work closely with for that. Both have someone that spends 100% of their time managing the properties, not an agent who is focused on selling also trying to manage rentals. The average "referral" on a rental is about $50 and the liability is just not worth it.

When I have clients moving here to rent, I'll do everything I can to help them find a rental if needed but will not open the door to it....I'll meet the property manager with them and let HIM show the house.

And typically the managing agent gets 10%/month property management fee, essentially one month's rent a year...and then has to split that with his/her broker depending on their commission structure.