Websites for Renting Property (by Owner)?

A few years ago, if someone wanted to rent property from an owner, they'd go to Craigslist. Renting that way usually meant no background check, credit check, application fees and/or other extra fees. Now that real estate agents have taken over Craigslist, I'm wondering if renters have gone some where else. And that got me thinking, what other sites offer what Craigslist use to offer: for-rent-by-owner?

 

I think real estate agents do a great job of buying the tenants for the landlord's with a considerable amount of profit that is quite high at times. I also think Craigslist is useful for certain people who need the certain apartment and do not want to go through the process of hiring an agent. I also think it is quite easy for people to search places in Craigslist rather than through real estate agent. Hence the era of Craigslist has not yet come to end.

 

In my case scenario, we are pulling efforts from all sides, Craiglist, other classifieds online, word of mouth, networking, till we get this needle in the haystack{ideal tenant}...thankfully i got professional real estate agents helping me pull this off...otherwise it would have been real tough, am guessing as an owner one will have to look far than Craiglist if you are out there looking for a tenant.

 

You are very right, real estate agents do save the landlords from getting high risk tenants, like tenants who do not like to make their payments on time, yet at the same time craig list is still there to helpout those who want to do their stauff in a private way without all the exposure.

 

I suppose seeing how people love to use social media to interact with others, you can use sites like FB to find a house to rent or if you are a landlord, let prospective tenants know you have a house to let. It might take slightly longer to get a response because status updates get buried fast but if you count on your connections sharing the post, there's a possibility that more people will see it and you'd have someone contacting you after a little while with an offer.

 

I believe real estate agents are usually much better than the cariglist. But I have never come across any other site other than cariglist till now. It is the only one which is so popular.

 

There are so many different websites that allow you to do this. Often they are location specific (often they serve the whole country but sometimes much smaller regions) so you need to find the one suitable for you but there are a lot out there and most of them are free and offer quite a decent service!

 

I agree, there is a wide offer and this is something good because it allow us to compare all that we want and we can even make a good negotiation with all the info available.

 

I've always had success with using the classified adverts section of local newspapers. There's always plenty of accommodation being advertized by private landlords here and the newspapers are still the first port of call for many people.

 

I recently saw a rental listed on Zillow, I had to do a double take, thinking that maybe it was a typo, but it was an actual rental. I don't know about every area but in our area there is a periodical paper called Home Finder where there are ads for both rentals and home sales. The rentals can be listed by owners or by agents. I think the advantage of an agent is they are not emotionally attached to the property so it is easier for them to actually find a tenant. With that being said hopefully they have taken the time to check out the prospective renter to save the owner all sorts of issues down the road.