Renting homes in Tampa area questions...

[Keeper]

To answer your question about realtor mgt fees, they will tell you the owner pays it, but in reality you are going to be charged the amount of the fee in your rent.

That is like saying, the seller pays the realtor fee, yes they do, but they also hike up the cost of the house to include that amount, so in reality you are the one paying.

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by Keeper

To answer your question about realtor mgt fees, they will tell you the owner pays it, but in reality you are going to be charged the amount of the fee in your rent.

That is like saying, the seller pays the realtor fee, yes they do, but they also hike up the cost of the house to include that amount, so in reality you are the one paying.

I guess everything is always charged to the consumer or in this case the renter, but you can only ask so much for a rental or you will get no renters. So I agree you have to charge it to the renter, but you can't always do that, that is the reason I want to rent it out myself so I can ask a lower reasonable price.
If I have to pay 1 month rent to a realtor for a 7 month lease, than I have to raise the price so much or loose a lot of money. (that is what the last realtor told me when he asked me about the for rent sign and told me I couldn't rent it out on my own and needed him. I rented it within a week without paying a months rent to him)
In my neighbor hood the rentals rented out by the owners are all rented out, the ones rented out by realtors are still vacant (2 in my street), mostly because of the crazy rental price, maybe because they have to pay the fee to the realtor and using them also for the maintenance issues.
So I guess you are better of with a local Landlord if he/she is a good Landlord.
The rental in my street was only onces rented out and the renter offered to pay 7 month upfront and the realtor took it, the renter thought he would get better maintenance or at least as it should have been. Wrong, the bugs were in the house and not even nicely cleaned. So this great renter left after 7 months and we as home owners regret he left because he maintained the yard and the property very well. Now it is empty for almost a year.....

[KEC]

^ How much do these realtor mgmt companies usually charge? Does it add quite a bit to the rent?

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by KEC

^ How much do these realtor mgmt companies usually charge? Does it add quite a bit to the rent?

I know they start with 1 months rent to get a renter. Doesn't matter if it's a 7 or 12 month lease. I'm not sure about the rest but if I'm correct it is 10% of the monthly rent + Landlord has to pay for the repairs. So if the Landlord lives far away or doesn't want to deal with these issues it can be great as we did with our over seas property. If you live close it saves everybody involved money since the only thing the management company does is call some one to get out there to do the repair. So for 7 month this can be: 1 month rent + 10% of the monthly rent amount + repair costs so that can make the rental amount pretty high or the Landlord will loose a lot of money every month because the property taxes, HOA, CDD, etc has to be paid aswell.

[ATN1328]

[FONT=Verdana]A realtor will typically ask the homeowner/landlord of a rental property for 1 month’s rent as their commission. I suggest calling up several real estate agents and talk to them about your needs. A good agent would be able to explain how they find rental properties, tell you about HOA approval in gated communities, etc. Most agents don’t deal in rentals, but they may know someone in the same office that does. Agent’s can easily look up houses for rent in the MLS and give you a list. If you can be specific about what kind of property you are looking for, price range, size, the agent will be able to provide you a better list based on your criteria. If he or she is an experienced agent, they will be able to give you advice about which are the best neighborhoods for you. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]But don’t completely rely on agents to find a rental. There are many more people that advertise their houses for rent in local newspapers and websites and not the MLS that real estate agent’s have access to. Try looking up houses for rent on [URL="http://www.tbt.com/"]www.tbt.com[/URL], [URL="http://www.tbo.com/"]www.tbo.com[/URL], www.theyflyer.com (broken link), [URL="http://www.craigslist.com/"]www.craigslist.com[/URL], [URL="http://www.rentals.com/"]www.rentals.com[/URL]. I think that if you can talk to the owners/landlords directly you can be in a better position find out more details about the house and neighborhood, and it’s easier to negotiate the price and terms. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]I would imagine most people who move to gated communities are family-oriented, hard working people concerned about their kids safety just like you, so I think if you’re driving around and see someone walking their dog or outside in the yard, it shouldn’t be difficult to start a conversation. Say you’re thinking of moving into the neighborhood, most people would be happy to tell you what they like or don’t like, whether it’s family friendly or not, whether the HOA is strict or not…[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]About finding multiple sex offenders living on the same street, my theory is when one of them finds a place they can live without being harassed, they tell their buddies who flock to the same area. The Tampa area is very large with many good neighborhoods, just keep doing your due diligence by checking the sex offender registry, talk to neighbors, talk to the property owners, and you’ll be fine. [/FONT]

[bentlebee]

Most realtors I called to ask about rentals all didn't have info about HOA, etc available and had to call back to ask the landlord. My suggestion is to go directly to a landlord so you might have a lower rental price and direct information.

[clevelandguy]

This is something YOU need to become more involved with.

We are moving from Cleveland, OH to Safety Harbor, FL in a couple of weeks.

Finding a house to rent was not as easy as you think it would be.

We had vacationed in the Pinellas County area for the past several years and traveled around to familiarize ourselves with the area. We really liked Safety Harbor because of its location and "small town" feel. We have been actively looking for a 3 bedroom home to rent since the middle of January and have just now signed a lease that starts March 15th. We wanted to move as soon as possible but rental house hunting from afar has proved extremely difficult.

If you decide to use a Realtor, you will be missing out on a tremendous amount of rentals that a Realtor either doesn't know about or won't mention to you because there isn't a commission involved with that particular rental.

If you have a particular move-in date (You mentioned June 1st) you are limited by rentals that are available on that date or before. We found that houses that were not rented almost immediately as they were listed usually had a problem after doing further research. Either they were asking too high a price or were located in a less desirable area or both. When I say less desirable area it might mean that you had to leave the development by crossing through a major highway. We have 2 boys so we wanted an area they could walk or ride their bikes around.

In Florida they have residential streets that empty out into 4 lane divided highways that have speed limits of 55 MPH! (Be aware!)

We used several websites to find homes that were for rent:

realtor.com (rental section)
craigslist.com
tampabay.com (This is the St. Petersburg Times newspaper's website.)
theflyer.com (Local Newspaper's website)

After you find a place you think you might like, do some more research about where the house is located and the surrounding neighborhood using:

Zillow.com (A really great photo of the address you punch in taken at an angle from an airplane not a satellite photo from above! A must see for everyone that reads this!)

Mapquest.com (Street maps and an aerial view from above!)

Google Earth (A free program from Google. Turn all the options on and it shows where all the schools, fire departments, city buildings, some restaurants, banks, and areas of interest are located!)

Once you find a place you MUST move on it as soon as you can. We contacted several places we wanted but had already been rented. As for contacting a Realtor, good luck!

Rentals seem to be VERY low on their priory list. I made at least 10 phone calls trying to contact a Realtor about one house we were interested in and never received a return call!

Hope this helps!

[PalmTreeLover99]

Thank you for all the reponses and info! I appreciate it! Wish I would have known about this site when we made a horrible move to Austin awhile back.

Clevelandguy-wow...that's a lot of resources you just gave! I will be sure to check those out, especially the one that shows what is all around the neighborhood. That's interesting that neighborhoods will dump out onto roads like that..will keep that in mind when we go searching! We're going to take a couple of trips down so we know exactly what we're dealing with, etc. Good luck with your move...I'm an Ohio native so you must be so happy to get away from that weather!

[bentlebee]

move.com

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