Where to find private/non-brokered rental houses in Dallas/Arlington/Mesquite? (Howe: rental car, rentals)

[gwu243]

I'm looking for a rental house (because of dogs), preferably south of $1000, around East Dallas, Arlington, or Mesquite (definitely open to other areas). I have pretty awful credit but a decent income and no late payments on my current $1400 rent, utilities, etc., so I figured trying to work something out with a private owner may yield more success than dealing with a management company. However, I've found close to zero private owners advertising on CL, Zillow, and Trulia...is there anywhere else I should be looking? I visited the Metroplex recently and drove around looking for "for rent" signs in parts of Dallas and Mesquite, but most were brokered...are there even a sizable number of private owner rentals in the area, or are most just brokered? I'm not opposed to dealing with brokers or management companies, but I'd also like to try to avoid the prospect of having to spend $500+ on application fees when my fiancee and I come back to town to look.

[Grainraiser]

There are alot of rentals in Mesquite that are by owner. The only way to find this is to drive thru the neighborhoods and look for the signs in the yard. You should focus your search in the Creek Crossing area when looking at Mesquite.

[gwu243]

Thanks for the recommendation...definitely will be putting miles on the rental car when down there, more or less just curious as to whether there are actually a decent number of non-brokered rentals to be seen.

[bencronin04]

We used an agent to find our privately owned property. He uses a management company to do maintenance and such, but everything else goes directly through the owner of the house. Have you considered using an agent?