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Has anyone had any experience leasing a property through craigslist?
I like craiglist and use it extensively for selling items and never have had any problems. Rentals are another thing all together and I am somewhat skeptical. I never rented from an individual and worry that the individual may not be solvent and even close to foreclosure. Of course that could also apply to a rental agency or real estate firm. Comments appreciated, thanks.
I'm using Craigslist to look for a new apartment. While most of the ads are legitimate, there are some that are obvious scams. I wouldn't give anyone money until you've actually seen the place for yourself and know that it's a real property for rent. In the L.A. forum someone posted about an ad that was run by scam artists from Nigeria. It was written in broken English and had many misspellings; the ad claimed there was an apartment for rent, and that if you wired them money, they would send you the key.
So just be careful, and if you see any bogus ads, please flag them for removal so no one else gets taken in.
Has anyone had any experience leasing a property through craigslist?
I like craiglist and use it extensively for selling items and never have had any problems. Rentals are another thing all together and I am somewhat skeptical. I never rented from an individual and worry that the individual may not be solvent and even close to foreclosure. Of course that could also apply to a rental agency or real estate firm. Comments appreciated, thanks.
Craigslist is pretty much the only way I lease my properties. A lot of scam artists are definitely out there, though. I often get very fishy e-mails. For instance, one was a female who claimed to be coming to the US for an international modeling competition and they love my place and want to stay in it for 6 months. She wants to know where to send money. Others are more generic--some woman from Eastern Europe who needs a place to live because she's here on a mission of some sort, claims to be deeply religious, considerate, etc. and she wants the room just based off of the ad. Apart from people like that, everyone else has been fine!
We found CL the best place to advertise our rental. We got the best leads from the ad. I also noticed in our area that CL ads had higher rents than the newspaper or other places.
We get great response from running ads on Craigslist. Couple of tips:
1) If you really want to avoid scams, ask people to call rather than emailing, most scammers won't make the call.
2) If you do get emails, here's what to watch for:
Broken english
People who don't ask the right questions or want to send you money without seeing the property
People who offer to pay the entire year at once, which often leads to them wanting a check back from you for the "overpayment" just before their check bounces
3) Be aware that by running your listing on Craigslist, you also bring yourself to the attention of a different type of scammers. However, not posting on Craigslist is no guarantee of safety against this type of scam, as all the scammer needs is an address and access to the public record for basic info about a house.
One popular scam has the scammer listing the house with the information you provided (or obtained from public record), except their own contact info. They then will "rent" the house out to a half dozen or so people, take their money and skip out, and you have angry "tenants" showing up at your real tenants door. This is time to call the police, as it isn't your problem.
All that said, I find that overall, we get a higher caliber of applicants from Craigslist than off signs or newspaper ads. All of our current "best tenants" came from Craigslist ads.
I've successfully used Craigslist a couple times -- including one rental that was 3,000 miles away (although I admit that I was holding my breath a bit on that one and hoping that it was legit).
As others have said, just be wary. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and if anyone wants you to send money overseas -- run!
We too only use Craigslist to rent our property. We do provide a phone number for them to call us and then we ask questions before making an appt. to see the property. We've had great tenants
I have always found the best people and properties by posting housing wanted ads on CL. So conversely, you may find that the people who post housing wanted ads are well worth dealing with. Some of them may have special issues and are looking for a landlord who can be sympathetic to their particular plight (I needed space for a piano on a budget). So in this way you can get good tenants who might not have applied for your property otherwise.
There are some scams that are pretty obvious. There are also a lot of good renters that look at this site. We've had some positive experience and some rented units.
I rented my apartment from a Craigslist ad and it is great.
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