Is it risky to rent from a private owner?

[cdmurphy]

We rented a house in Falls Church for four years. The owner lived just a few miles away in McLean. He'd bought the house at least a decade earlier as an investment, hoping to give it to his sons to manage after they graduated from college. At the time (1999), the rental market was HOT, and this house was in a very desirable area (22043, in the McLean HS pyramid, right between EFC Metro and WFC Metro). There was a bidding war between us and another couple, which is how we ended up with a four-year lease (seriously - we were first in line for the open house which had only been advertised once the previous Sunday in the print edition of the Washington Post, and there were at least 20 people behind us). The lease did include minor rent escalation, but at the end of the four years we were still paying well below market rate. The house was empty for a while after we left, since the owner had bought the house for practically nothing; the rent was almost all gravy, and he could be very particular about choosing renters. It was nice that he and his family treated us like family, but there were a few times that it was annoying that he lived so close and was so involved in his rental property.

[novaman99]

who is a good realtor to work through for finding rentals in northern VA (west side of the Beltway in Sterling, Reston, Herndon, Great Falls, Dulles). I would love to find a private place to rent out and not deal with a management leasing company.

[1000]

craiglist

[ajzjmsmom]

we found our current rental on craigslist, we signed a 2 yr lease knowing we would not be leaving for at least that, we brought with us excellent rental references and so far so good, we also rented from a private owner with our last house, we got much faster reponses from them in regards to repairs then we did from property management companies.