Where to Rent a 4 Bedroom House & Questions on Renting/Need good high school area (Phoenix: loan, how much)

[stevek64]

If you go the rental path, HOA rules aside, I think your biggest obstacle may be finding a landlord who will want to rent to someone with 6 cats or 6 dogs for that matter. Not to say you won't find a landlord that will take your 6 cats.....but I think you might have some headwinds here.

I have had several people tell me over the years who have rented their homes to someone with a cat(s) and they said never again. They said the cats used the carpet and walls as their litter box to mark their territory and it left a crazy bad stench. Not to say your cats behave different....and you may be a very responsible pet owner compared to others, etc......it's just something you might come up against. Renting is a business of course and a landlord wants to minimize losses/risk to their cash flow.

Good luck on your decision in all of this.....I've found some of the best decisions I've made in life didn't come easy/added a bit of resistance but in the end, it was worth it. And nothing in life is permanent.....something works out as good/better than you planned? Great. If not.....time to move on to the next adventure.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by stevek64

I have had several people tell me over the years who have rented their homes to someone with a cat(s) and they said never again. They said the cats used the carpet and walls as their litter box to mark their territory and it left a crazy bad stench. Not to say your cats behave different....and you may be a very responsible pet owner compared to others, etc......it's just something you might come up against. Renting is a business of course and a landlord wants to minimize losses/risk to their cash flow.

Logical. Put yourself in the landlord shoes. Why rent to someone with 6 cats when you can rent to someone with zero cats? What is the landlords upside? And their downside? Case closed. Only pet lover landlords would even consider this.

[Jkgourmet]

Originally Posted by PhxBarb

I would say you should just come out here and buy something and not worry about renting and landlords. If you have 6 cats in your own house, you could easily be a foster parent supposedly for one of the many animal rescues here. No one says a twit about that, so if your cats didn't run around the neighborhood, no one (not even the HOA) would know how many you have.

Actually, I know of THREE different homeowners in THREE different HOA's who had number of pets issues.

One was a homeowner who owned four dogs. HOA complained (or maybe it was the neighbors). After a long battle, they sold the house, which we purchased.

Another was a homeowner who was running a small dog breed rescue out of her home. We actually adopted one of those dogs. Years later, she got into a hassle with the HOA (or a neighbor), and now is limited to four dogs total. Period.

Another was with cats. I don't remember if she had six or eight of them, but they were all indoor cats. Very large house in a very upscale neighborhood. Neighbor saw "too many" cats in the windows, called the HOA, and a protracted court case ensued. During that battle, she went so far as to form a 501(c)3 for cat rescue, hoping that would help. It didn't. She lost. Truthfully, I've lost track of this lady and don't know if she sold the house or rehomed some of the cats.

So don't think it doesn't happen. It does, and will continue. I suspect all those Hoarding programs on TV only make the neighbors MORE aware and concerned about such issues.

[Jkgourmet]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

Logical. Put yourself in the landlord shoes. Why rent to someone with 6 cats when you can rent to someone with zero cats? What is the landlords upside? And their downside? Case closed. Only pet lover landlords would even consider this.

Or landlords with crappy properties that can't afford to replace an already destroyed carpet.

FWIW, I think Ponderosa is spot on.

[Sunshinegirl7]

Even if we go back to buying, I don't like the idea of if they found out about my cats all the fines and liens they could put against my house. It's just too risky after being secure in my home and my cats are my family, I can't risk something happening. I need to either find a NON HOA place to buy or rent where the landlord will work something out with me. I wrote today to a guy who told me it would be fine then I look at the policy on his company website and it said 3, he told me it must have been updated, so I have to be very careful with the ones who tell me as long as I pay more money because if it's in their policy, they could come back at me. We are all very depressed here feeling like our dream is slipping away

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by Sunshinegirl7

Even if we go back to buying, I don't like the idea of if they found out about my cats all the fines and liens they could put against my house. It's just too risky after being secure in my home and my cats are my family, I can't risk something happening. I need to either find a NON HOA place to buy or rent where the landlord will work something out with me. I wrote today to a guy who told me it would be fine then I look at the policy on his company website and it said 3, he told me it must have been updated, so I have to be very careful with the ones who tell me as long as I pay more money because if it's in their policy, they could come back at me. We are all very depressed here feeling like our dream is slipping away

There's plenty of places without HOAs. Your odds are many times better of finding a place with no HOA than both no HOA and a willing landlord. Probably not in Surprise though as that was built up mostly after HOAs became the standard. On the other hand, I had a co-worker at one time who lived in a home (KG or KB Homes I think) who had a large house that had no HOA and that was in Surprise. If you look in areas that are late 80's/mid 90s you will probably find what you are looking for. You might have to move to a different area of town than Surprise, but honestly, this place is so tweedle-dee tweedle dum with respect to suburbs that the only way you would notice is the street signs. You top priority is your cats come with you - so get to work and make it happen if that is what you want!

FWIW, there was a neighborhood on the news for the wrong reasons yesterday, but the homes you could see might be exactly what you are looking for. They said it was in the vicinity of 40th Street and Happy Valley Road. I don't know that area but when I saw the homes in the background I thought of you. I am sure someone on here can say more about that part of town.

[Sunshinegirl7]

Thank you Ponderosa, what city is 40th Street and Happy Valley Road? Is this Peoria?

[Desertspiritsteve]

Originally Posted by Sunshinegirl7

Thank you Ponderosa, what city is 40th Street and Happy Valley Road? Is this Peoria?

It's Phoenix. It's close to Desert Ridge, right?

As much as I love some cats, I wouldn't have them again unless I could have a screened in porch for the cat box with a pet door to the house. Nothing on earth smells like a cat box. No matter how clean cat owners are, You can smell a cat in the house the second the front door opens.

[TiredOfyycCold]

Originally Posted by Sunshinegirl7

Thank you Ponderosa, what city is 40th Street and Happy Valley Road? Is this Peoria?

Technically it is Glendale but if you cross Happy Valley it becomes Peoria and if you go about 6 blocks east it's Phoenix. I own a vacation home in that area and it's a fantastic neighborhood - really unfortunate what took place there yesterday...

Zip is 85310

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by TiredOfyycCold

Technically it is Glendale but if you cross Happy Valley it becomes Peoria and if you go about 6 blocks east it's Phoenix. I own a vacation home in that area and it's a fantastic neighborhood - really unfortunate what took place there yesterday...

Zip is 85310

I thought it was 40th Street but it was 40th Drive and that puts it where you are. What caught my eye was that the homes were good sized and looked like the styles of today except no tile roofs. That usually means a more reasonable price. The high school those kids went to was Sandra Day O'Conner. I don't know anything about it but we do play them in sports and have been there. It seemed like a nice enough school.