Moving to Sarasota July 2016 - need info on finding homes for rent (Bradenton: for sale, real estate)

[klynn598]

Hi Everyone! We are family of 5 moving to Sarasota from the Philadelphia area. We have made multiple trips down to the gulf coast and have settled on Sarasota mainly the Gulf Gate /Palmer Ranch area. We are looking to come down again in spring to find a rental home. We are looking to rent for a year and then decide on buying a home in the same area if we area happy. We will have 2 of the 3 kids in school one in HS one is elem so hoping we can stay in the same area as we rent.

What are some good sites for rentals? Anyone know any good realtors that we could touch base with? I do search rentals quite frequently on craigslist and some the of the other realty sites like zillow, realtor.com and some small company sites I have found on my own. Just looking for some additional help in our search!

Thanks in advance!
Karen

[macrodome2]

Someone asked the same question about a month ago. Use the advanced function and search rental homes in Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice

https://www.city-data.com/forum/searc...rchid=19809495

[Cardiff by the Sea]

Rentals go very very quickly. You may want to consider staying in a vacation rental week by week until you find a suitable annual rental. No landlord is going to hold something for you for a month if you come down in advance. You are likely to be facing a "its available now, rent it starting now" situation. It is just an extremely tough market for renters currently.

And when you do that search that was recommended, you will find there is not enough money in handling rentals to make it worthwhile for realtors to spend their time on it. There are property management companies though.

[macrodome2]

Sorry- I tried to put the link in when I did the advanced search for rental homes in the S-B-V forum, but I guess it didn't work.

[beninfl]

Ask us again in May 2016.

[Michael Koester]

Contact Bonnie Bissett - she only works in local rentals and does an amazing job:

Sarasota, Florida Rental Homes, Condos, and Property Management

[TwangDjango]

Hi Karen, there is a lot of terrific info on this board and many who are happy to help. There are also however a few who get so quickly aggravated they slip into troll mode. Do not let anything get under your skin, just keep asking questions if you have them.

That being said, I am more a lurker on the boards because so much has already been asked. The search tool is terrific if you feel you have a question others may have already had and want to get immediate results instead of waiting for replies. Or double up, you received a solid contact with Bonnie Bissett above so your post is already well worth it.

Search Bar

Above this thread you will see the search forums bar. Click advanced so you can get into the details. I suggest searching for your keyword(s) "In Title Only" so you will see entire conversation threads based on your keywords not just a single mention in a post within a thread having nothing to do with your interest. The rest of the info boxes are pretty clear.


EDIT: So it ends up that linked searches do not work on this board. Odd and too bad.

Try searching for "rental" in the title only. If it gets too many results add a few words specific to your situation "looking for a rental" or "need a rental". 1 year ago and newer maybe be too limiting too but I'd personally want to stay pretty recent. It is too bad they do not have 2 years but you can always sort by on the results page.

What We Did

Before we moved down I read up on this board abusing the search tool for information. I also utilized the rental side of both Zillow and Realtor.com to browse what was available in our price range and make a list of re-occuring realtor names/management agencies to whom I emailed for further assistance/info. We ended up being in a 'nobody wanted us' classification due to wanting only a temporary rental, in season, with baby, and 2 cats + dog. So interestingly enough we ended up finding our temporary rental house on Craigslist by throwing more rent money at a home listed for 'annual lease only' thereby getting it for our required 4 months. Craigslist is often the first tool owners will use to get their rental out to the masses because it is free. Craigslist also had a few scams running at that time so keep your wits about you. I thought they were pretty laughable but they must be catching some people or they would not exist. I also found fishy postings on Realtor.com so it gets around - just a large rental population down here. Some here will scream about how dangerous it is looking for rentals on this site or that site but all too often they are also the same who say Sarasota is overly crowded (false) with too much crime (false again) and not for families with children (false again) and it goes on and on. The long drawn out point here is --> utilize all the tools at your disposal, this forum being just one of them.

And good luck! Nice to see you are planning ahead.

[Sunshine Rules]

Unfortunately there is no one "go to" place to find rentals in our area. Instead you'll find them scattered about on various rental sites. Some also get listed in our MLS if the rental manager is also an agent. You can search a public version of the local MLS at: Florida Homes for Sale direct from MLS


Some other suggestions for finding rentals:

Rentals.com Houses & Homes for Rent in Sarasota, FL (easy to use search engines)

Real Rentals Houses For Rent In Sarasota, FL | RealRentals.com

RentalHomesPlus.com http://florida.rentalhomesplus.com/Sarasota

RentalHouses.com Sarasota Homes for Rent, Bradenton FL Rental Homes, Apartments, Home Rentals in Sarasota Bradenton Florida | RentalHouses.com

Rent Range www.rentrange.com

FlipKey http://www.flipkey.com/search/l/3461...FY125QodFhQwiw

SarasotaRent.net Sarasota, FL :: Apartments and Houses for Rent, Local Apartment and Home Rentals, House, Townhome, and Condo Rentals, Vacation Rentals, Roommate and Sublet Classifieds::

Trulia Sarasota, FL Real Estate & Homes for Sale | Trulia

Ebay classified Homes for rent | Housing in Sarasota| eBay Classifieds (Kijiji) - Page 1


For pet friendly rentals: Pet Friendly Siesta Key Vacation Rentals Homes, Condos, Hotels Ocean Front Dog Friendly Lodgings



You might try the classified of the local newspapers:

Sarasota Herald Tribune Sarasota Florida news, weather, sports and business | HeraldTribune.com | Sarasota FL

Bradenton Herald News, sports and weather for Bradenton, FL| Bradenton Herald & Bradenton.com




Here are also a couple of the better known property management companies in our area that handle rentals:

Stringer Management
Sarasota, FL
941-922-4959
Stringer Management :: Home


Sarasota Management
Sarasota, FL
941-377-8400
Top 10 Reasons To Choose SML


I'd like to offer some additional information for you and others looking to rent in our area. There are still homes and condos in foreclosure that the owners are renting out, since the foreclosure process can literally take years to complete. These are often offered at prices slightly below the average for the area. You do have to take some precautions if renting a property in foreclosure.

If you rent a property that is in foreclosure, it might be a good idea to contact the attorney listed on the foreclosure documents and forward a copy of your lease to him/her so the owner's lender is aware that a tenant is residing in the property. You wouldn't want to come home one day and find the bank sent an asset management company over to change the locks because they thought the home was vacant.

One other thing - most landlords in foreclosure are also neglecting to pay the mandatory HOA or condo fees on the property. FL has a law that states that a community association is entitled to recover the monthly rent amount from a tenant when the owner who is renting the property is delinquent in the payment of association assessments. So in a case such as that, the monthly rent would be paid to the HOA instead of the landlord until back due fees are recovered. There is a specific process in place for HOAs to follow in order to do so.


To see if a property you are looking to rent is in foreclosure, you can go to the Clerk of Court web site in the county where the property is located and look up the owner's name. If you see a Lis Pendens filing, the foreclosure process has been started.

For Sarasota County the link is: Browser Test - Sarasota County Public Records Web Search

For Manatee County the link is: Official Records
Click on the "I agree" and it will go into the search feature.

[klynn598]

Thank you all to everyone who provided such great detail and even names! We truly do appreciate it! To answer Cardiff by the sea we would be looking to rent at the time we come down prob late May , early June and then come down in July due to our daughter graduating HS and waiting for all that to subside.

So thanks again for all the great info and how this all works!

[macrodome2]

Originally Posted by TwangDjango

Hi Karen, there is a lot of terrific info on this board and many who are happy to help. There are also however a few who get so quickly aggravated they slip into troll mode. Do not let anything get under your skin, just keep asking questions if you have them.

I may have been a little terse (and I did try to include a link with search results) but there is a wealth of information already on the board if one uses the Advanced Search. That would get the OP some answers faster than waiting for other people to reply.