House closing next week, where are all the rentals? (Sarasota: for sale, real estate)

[nomosno]

We are ready to get out of Northern Michigan before we get snowed in and make the move to Venice. We love the area and would like to call Venice home. The plan is to rent for a year before buying. Our house closes next week and we would like to be settled by December. The rentals appear to be drying up in Venice per the myfloridamls site. Any recommendations on sites to look at for rentals? I have gotten some great insight from reading prior posts regarding the area and a few visits to the area sealed it for us. Thank you for all of your great posts!

[TamRE]

We are entering the snowbird season, so rentals are at a minimum. New rentals do occasionally come on the market. Here are some rental sites to try:

Craigslist - www.craigslist.com
Vacation Rentals by Owner - www.vrbo.com
Ebay Classifieds – http://www.ebayclassifieds.com/
Florida Rental Ads – http://www.floridarentalads.com/
Real Rentals – http://www.realrentals.com/
Rentals.com – www.rentals.com
Rent Range – www.rentrange.com
Sarasota Herald Tribune - http://www.heraldtribune.com/
Sun Herald – www.sunnewspapers.net

[Sunshine Rules]

The inventory of rental properties is low at the moment, especially for tenants wanting to spend less than $2000 per month.

You may need to expand your rental search to Osprey, Nokomis and even Sarasota in order to find something.

Here is my short list of rental sites to suggest:

Rentals.com http://www.rentals.com/Florida/Sarasota/ (easy to use search engines)

Real Rentals http://www.realrentals.com/houses_for_rent/?city=Sarasota&state=Florida+FL


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

RentalHouses.com http://www.rentalhouses.com/find/FL/SouthwestFlorida/SARASOTA-BRADENTON

Rent Range www.rentrange.com


FlipKey http://www.flipkey.com/search/l/34618/?featured=true&gclid=CLql6oiwtqsCFY125QodFhQwiw

SarasotaRent.net http://www.sarasotarent.net/

Trulia www.trulia.com/FL/Sarasota/

Ebay classified http://sarasota.ebayclassifieds.com/homes-for-rent/?catId=100043



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
http://www.stringermanagement.com/


Sarasota Management
Sarasota, FL
941-377-8400
http://www.sarasotamanagement.com/owners_choose.html?gclid=COiWw9qvtqsCFYlM4AodaE9Ze g


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.

Under the "Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009," tenant leases now survive a foreclosure -- meaning the tenant can stay at least until the end of the lease, and that month-to-month tenants would be entitled to 90 days notice before having to move out.

An exception was made for the buyer who intends to live on the property (owner occupy). This buyer may terminate a lease by giving the tenant 90 days notice.

There are some other concerns about renting from a landlord who's property is in foreclosure. It is doubtful that the owner will maintain the home or make repairs if something breaks, such as A/C, appliances or leaks.

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. The state of FL has a law that allows a community association 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. Also, the association typically will not allow the tenant to use the community amenities such as community pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, etc until the back due HOA or condo fees are brought up to date.


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 clerk's web site is:
SARASOTA : Clerk of Circuit Court & County Comptroller (click on "online services" & then "official records")

For Manatee county, the site is: Home




One last suggestion is to be very careful of rentals listed on a very popular, freebie website that starts with CRAI. We have had a number of issues over the past few years here with people listing properties for rent on that site that they do not have the authority to rent. Typically they are short sale listings from the MLS that are vacant. Neither the owner of the property or real estate agent knew someone was trying to collect rent money up front on the property for sale. We agents now receive periodic warnings from our local board of Realtors to monitor such sites to see if someone has posted our for sale listings as rentals.

[Enigma777]

We were thinking about renting out our house last spring and we met with a really nice guy whose company is All County Property Management. He was very honest, knowledgeable, efficient and professional. Had we gone forward with renting, we definitely would have used his services.

[beninfl]

For the "Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009" -- does this allow homeowners who are already in foreclosure to then rent property out and still fall under this exemption, or is it for homeowners in good standing with their mortgage company who have their property rented out and THEN fall into foreclosure?

[kmarc]

You can also find rentals on Zillow. www.zillow.com
Although the rental market does tend to get tighter during the "season", don't let that deter you. It just means you have to work a little harder. We live north of Venice and got quite a reasonable year round rental and the landlords are happy to have us, because we pay the rent on time and take care of things. We are going on our third year and plan to wait until this crazy RE market settles out.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many landlords in Florida rent seasonally because they've given up on finding a decent year round tenant. In other words, some would actually prefer to rent to a stable annual tenant if they could find one. I wouldn't hesitate to ask a seasonal landlord if they'd consider doing a year's lease for a lesser monthly rent, if you like their property. I guarantee you'll find at least a couple who would jump at the chance.

[nomosno]

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Thank you for the replies.We are going to head down in the next couple weeks to look for a rental. Ithink we will have a better chance of getting what we like and I would like totour the property before renting. I like the idea of approaching seasonal rentersto see if they are willing to do annual.
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I am currently a realtor inNorthern Michigan but we do not do too many rentals in my area. Would it beadvantageous to contact a local realtor in our search? Or would that limit oursearch to only the rentals on the MLS?

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[kmarc]

Whatever you do, try to avoid renting from one of the "investor" firms like American Homes 4 Rent, Invitation Homes, etc. Or at least be very wary. Just read an article this morning on Huffington Post about some of the difficulties that tenants in some of those homes are having. Like no one could have seen that coming.

As far as dealing with a realtor, that would be up to you. I've had luck with both realtors and individual landlords, so it's hard to say. But I would keep my options open. Do a google search for the little local weekly newspapers in the Venice area. They will be more likely to have rental ads by individual landlords, and most of these weeklies now put their classifieds on line.

[loves2read]

and be aware that as a renter you are still subject to any HOA/condo association covenants--no matter what your landlord might tell you to the contrary...
not that you intend to violate any rules...but some landlords are certainly capable of misrepresenting the situation/obligation of tenants...
we have them in our neighborhood...

[nomosno]

Thanks Lovetoread this is an issue I did not give much thought. I am still having difficulty even getting realtors that represent many of the rentals to respond to my inquiries. I am guessing it may have to do with our out-of-town status currently. Our house closed here in Traverse City on Friday.

No luck in Venice thus far, we may be expanding our search to Northport. What are the more desirable areas? Thank you