Be Careful When Looking for Rentals (Providence, Pawtucket: real estate, apartments, insurance)
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We were helping our friends move yesterday into their new rental in Darlington, and while we were there, 2 different couples came to the door to look at the house. The owner of the house was there helping us, and apparently both couples had contacted an ad on Craigslist and had spoken to someone who purported to be the owner. He was "traveling" and told the couples to go check out the place and, if they liked it, send him a small deposit ($500) and he would take the home off the market. The problem is, the person was not the owner. He used the owner's NAME, as that can easily be found in records, but it was a scammer. Both of the couples were young, but I suppose it could happen to anyone. The person said he was renting the house out for $900/mo. The owner is REALLY renting it for $1500/mo. I've heard of this happening before, just have never seen it happen in person. My wife and I are moving across the country a week from today, and did everything sight unseen, but had the foresight to use a realtor. It can be done, just be careful of the scum out there running scams.
To write a check for a place you haven't seen the inside of is pretty stupid. Nor would I trust any realtor in this matter.
One of the best defenses on these scams (besides common sense) is to to research rents in a neighborhood. If the rent sounds too low and $900 for a house is too low, then it very well could be a scam.
(Property taxes on houses here- even in Pawtucket- are easily $500 a month- the landlord would be losing money after mortgage & insurance & maintenance)
To write a check for a place you haven't seen the inside of is pretty stupid. Nor would I trust any realtor in this matter.
One of the best defenses on these scams (besides common sense) is to to research rents in a neighborhood. If the rent sounds too low and $900 for a house is too low, then it very well could be a scam.
(Property taxes on houses here- even in Pawtucket- are easily $500 a month- the landlord would be losing money after mortgage & insurance & maintenance)
Yeah, that's what we were thinking. We would never fall for a scam like that, but there were at least 2 couple who were ready to. I guess the scammers feel like if they blast out enough emails, they'll get a response or 2.
True and understandably people are eager for low rents but there are good reasons why RI landlords can't offer low rents- most tenants just don't get the picture as well as you do.
The RI realtor site riliving.com has rentals now, realtors are listing rental property now and its open to the public to view. Safer than CG I would say.
The RI realtor site riliving.com has rentals now, realtors are listing rental property now and its open to the public to view. Safer than CG I would say.
ha, I just tried it, looking for a 2 bedroom in Providence. It returned exactly ONE result, the Waterplace condos.
I think people will be sticking to Craigs List and the local papers.
Don't mind me. I'm not even looking for an apartment - I own a house. I was just giving riliving.com a test ride for apts, since I'm very familiar with using it for real estate searches. I just thought it came up very short.
But that's always been the case for most online, realtor based sites. So many apt in RI are rented out by owners who just put a sign in the window or an ad in the Reminder or the Pennysaver or their town newspaper. For that reason, I think Craigs List is capturing a lot more of the rental market than realtor.com, riliving.com or other sites ever did. In the past there have been other sites to find apts at but they were more aimed at the upper end luxury and/or the big complex types of apts.
Just MHO, as someone who's lived in a lot of apartments but never, ever in a complex or a building that had more than 5 apts.
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