Just had to do this a few weeks ago. They have you taken a pic of your driver’s license, provide your SSN & run a credit check on the spot. Then they charge you to tour the place.
A very “fuck you, I’m getting paid regardless” mentality from rental companies.
My wife and I were looking at realtors and one told us we would need to provide our credit card info to look at properties, and I just laughed and said “go fuck yourself” and hung up.
The only valid response, IMO.
The fact that people actually pay this shit is infuriating.
I had someone actually try to get me to pay to see rental property well. Mine were a little mote greedy and wanted $30.
I told them I work too hard for my money to be handing it out like party favors.
What the actual fuck
Last few months… Grifting has seriously accelerated
Companies have been accelerating their grifting at an alarming rate since the COVID days
Indeed. They are using that floosing the zome tactic trump did with politics.
Sadly it appears to be working. Working class cant muster a back lash, they don’t know what to lash out at
i believe its russian, firehose of falsehood. going back to goebbels too.
shrinkflation, cheapflation really took off.
Get ready for stagflation as Trump kills our economy
We’re in the New Gilded Age
Just more rent seeking behavior.
But you suuuurely tip when you look at a rental?
Did you tip when you wrote this comment?
Of course, but I unfortunately cannot tip you because my payment processor doesn’t allow to tip NSFW comments.
Look, we’re not asking for much. Just the tip.
This mf out here trying to swipe Visa or MasterCard in the stripper’s butt crack.
Idiot.
It has a chip. You insert it.
gods you people are living in the past, these days you just hold it against one of the circular NFC readers up top
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were at least one person on the planet with a card reader/simcard combo implanted in their buttcheek for those occasions. I’m also pretty sure that Visa/Mastercard would have no issues with that, but if it’s a gaming storefront then they are “omg”-ing
Yeah we know her card slot only takes American Express.
I’ve got a tip for you.
(I’m referring to the tip of my penis.)
That’s the sex thing, right?
Not in my case, no.
bites the tip
There’s a 20% suggested tip on the $250 non refundable application deposit?
$250 non refundable application deposit?
LMAO I’d sooner torch the rental property than pay just to APPLY to hopefully live there.
If they nickel and dime simple visitors like that, I can only imagine what they do to the people who actually rent the place.
If this weren’t such a huge red flag, I’d just knock on the door and pay the current tenant $5.
Might get a coffee out of it
Rents are too high for a single income to cover anymore, so I’ve been looking for roommates. Even the websites about finding roommates expect you to pay.
To be clear, they have a free tier - but unless you pay, you can’t read the messages you receive. You can read the first line, but the rest is locked. I gave up with one place because the boomer trying to rent a room refused to send me an email. I told him three times to please just email me his message because I couldn’t read it on the site, but because he could read messages fine, he thought it was a setting he had to change. He kept responding with “Okay try now” and didn’t seem to understand that he can’t “settings” other people out from behind a paywall.
All he had to do was copy/paste his message and send it a different way, but he wouldn’t do it. I eventually gave up because the thought of living with someone that’s unable to follow such simple directions sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.
Anyway, point is, even if you’re so poor that you need to seek out roommates, you’re still expected to pay a subscription. I don’t even know what to do anymore.
Sounds like a market ready for disruption
In the romulan disruptor kind of way?
Isn’t this what Craigslist is for?
I’ve had decent luck with CL in the past for rentals, but understand that it’s generally: an illegal listing (eg no windows or the like for fire egress), sex traffickers targeting desperate women, or scammers - and you need to be able to jump on the legit leads ASAP.
But yes as a renter, sifting through Craigslist was vastly preferable to paying whatever some private equity firm decided “market rates” are (we are the market, teehee 🤭) for a hovel in a 1+5 complex, or dealing with the myriad of cutouts that paywall listings or communications like the OP.
At least with Craigslist you know its not the platform scamming you or helping to scam you. Solid website.
If you were replying with an email address odds are he was not getting it due to the site actively trying to keep people on their site.
Absolutely. A site charging to read messages will most definitely censor out emails and phone numbers and will have it in their ToS that you’re not allowed to take conversations outside the platform.
Probably. Not much I can do. I’m not paying for a subscription. If anyone has any advice for finding roommates otherwise, I would very much appreciate it!
Why did people stop using craigslist to advertise rentals?
It is just the old bulletin board / classified newspaper niche, usually there’s more than one venue in urban areas. In a lot of Canada people also use kijiji etc. I am not including fb marketplace in that, though if you can access Meta websites, too many people still use that.
Craigslist probably doesn’t have enough empty space and rounded corners for most people. I’m not joking.
still waiting for design fashion to circle back to gopher and tabular data… taps fingers and sighs in genX
Scammers go to fb marketplace over Craigslist because meta is slow to react if at all, while Craigslist is known to easily and freely offer information to law enforcement.
Yes, friends don’t let friends use Meta products.
Seriously, could get you stabbed in a police station parking lot or something…
That is a possibility with nearly any classified listing and always has been.
Situational awareness and good street sense are necessary. Bring a friend or be as public as you can, etc.
Most online scams, including phishing and tech support scams, are variations on ancient techniques.
Thank you so much! Craigslist is something I had completely forgotten about. I dropped off Facebook years ago and unfortunately don’t live in Canada, but Craigslist is a great suggestion and I’m perusing it now. You may have just saved me from living in my car (again.)
Seriously, thank you!
A client at work which is a local property management company (big enough to have 2 part time employees and one full time property maanger) lists all of their properties on Craigslist as well as many more commercial sites, so it’s not just mom and pops on there
Edit: another option is to call up a given property during business hours to ask about availability. Chances are your call will go to the property management company and they’ll have more properties than just the one building you saw the number on
You go! Also check for more niche classified sites, like specific to universities etc.
What is this app actually called? I can’t id it from screenshot, and every comment here seems to be talking about it without actually naming it.
Oh, I’m talking about roommate-seeking websites I’ve personally attempted to use, which were whatever non-sketchy-looking options came up on DuckDuckGo. I have no idea what OP’s post is from.
Just people making passive income guys, nothing to see here.
We once heard of a service that would help us find a rental house. So we went there, had to pay for an appointment. Turns out they do nothing you cannot do yourself, and you pay a lot. They literally just put you in the system, which you can do yourself, and when you get a house through that system, which is free and from the government, they make you pay through the nose for that house.
Of course, since I am native in this country I have no need for a service like that. Turns out they mostly do this to people who don’t speak the language. I guess they offer a service, but their fees are excessive for what they do. They abuse the fact those people don’t know any better.
There’s lots of people making a profit from somebody else’s house finding misery and I hate it.
God I love capitalism. Insert SpongeBob shouting meme
Sounds like France. There’s a whole industry of people charging a months rent or more just to make a few phone calls and assemble some basic documents. Not easy to rent a place by any means, but these providers do not offer a good value because they are not actually real estate agents.
my parent went through that service, except they were trying rent out the other house, they are rich by any means. but it was the same process the agents basically did nothing, just put your house in thier database thats it.
This reminds me of the Italian websites that resell tickets for exhibits that can be purchased much cheaper directly from the exhibit’s actual website. The exhibit sites tend to be in Italian only or are more difficult to find.
Hah what are you going to do, buy a house instead? We’re all fucked once this is the norm.
I don’t know if this applies in the US but multiple people can take out a mortgage against the same property. If you have 3/4 trustworthy friends then you can pool your money to buy a place. It’s complicated but better to invest your money in your own property than to line the pockets of cunt landlords and letting agents.
That would require people to have three to four close friends that could tolerate their presence. That’s an exceedingly rare thing in the US as we’re mostly all intolerable cunts.
Also, it would require every friend to have savings to put down a down payment and also credit good enough to actually qualify. That’s on top of finding 3 or 4 friends you’re willing to live with.
deleted by creator
4 people with 5k each can get almost 20% down on a 350k propery
Do you think that 20% of $350k is about $20,000? I feel like I’m missing something important here .
Maybe first-time home buyer programs? But those are like 3% typically so it wouldn’t get you there and that’s before including closing costs, moving costs, and possible repairs.
Except they explicitly said “nearly 20%”. Which is blatantly false. Terrible at basic math. And this is why people will remain poor
350,000 x 0.20= 70,000
70,000 / 4 = 17,500
17,500 - 5000 = 12,500Each person would need 17,500 for a 20% down payment, 12,500 more than the 5000 quote.
Not to mention 3 or 4 ppl that can and will reliably make mortgage payments for 15 or more likely 30 years. Once someone drops out because of life events then they’ll want to be bought out by the next person which introduces a whole bunch of headaches. Having watched this exact thing play out, this will most likely turn into a bitter nightmare of endless paperwork and some ruined relationships.
And bam, new laws come out that makes it illegal for more than X people who aren’t related to each other to share a home.
This is actually a thing in many places so people can’t do what you just described, isn’t American Freedumb so beautiful
This is called tenency in common. I’m unaware of it being illegal in any states and a cursory search brought up nothing. Do you have any leads you can share?
I searched “illegal for more than X people who aren’t related to each other to share a home” and came up with quite a bit.
I imagine many of those are ordinances intended to regulate fraternities and sororities—or similar college student shared housing situations.
LOL, look up “brothel laws”. :)
And typically unenforceable.
deleted by creator
I see it now. I’m looking at tenancy in common based on the original comment, you (and presumably the previous commenter) are talking about unrelated occupancy provisions. One is about co-owning, the other is about cohabitating.
This is exactly why people DO use exact language, despite your utterly bizarre insistence otherwise - because those that don’t confuse the rest of us with their shitty communication.
“You no one use right word, too big. Use small normal word like me, me big big smart, good Google hunter. Me find many result. No end.” Seralth reaches into his loincloth, scratches his scrotum, then vigorously snuffles at his fingertips, oblivious of the glob of spittle making its way down his dirt smeared chin.
Yours has to be the most American comment I’ve seen this morning. BTW, you’re literally using literally incorrectly.
Co-ownership is kind of a horrible idea overall. What happens when one of the 4 people wants to use the property as collateral for a loan?
Not to mention that this promotes increase in property costs without fixing the issue. If the norm is to continue pooling money between individuals then real estate can continue to raise prices. Then you just need 6 friends 10 friends 14 friends etc. we need a market crash and we need corporate residential ownership to be heavily regulated.
wants to use the property as collateral for the loan
Nothing major honestly. If they default, they would lose their stake in the claim. Since they don’t own the entire house, the bank couldn’t foreclose but they could assume ownership of their portion of the loan. The bank would view it more like a financial instrument rather than a real property.
Millions of tiny houses isn’t the worst idea.
From experience, basically no banks take collateral on co-owned homes. You probably won’t run into problems like that specifically. You can also easily structure an agreement with a lawyer. In many states you have to have an attorney to buy a home anyway (CT, MA, GA, DE, KY, LA, MD, MI, NH, ND, OK, RI, VT, WV, WO). We used ours to write and tack on the equivalent of an HOA arrangement you’d see in a condominium for our shared rooms.
I do find it amusing we have redditors arguing landlords should be illegal and others arguing co-ownership is a bad idea. Yes, let’s build millions of single room houses for everyone who is single that span the entire continent.
deleted by creator
Create a trust instead.
Contact an attorney to draft a trust where you all share equity at an amount you all agree to. The terms of the trust should indicate how someone sells their interest and what happens upon default, etc.
The trust buys the property and owns it. Ownership is managed through the trust.
The hardest part is qualifying for a loan. You’re essentially operating as a business and most home loans are designed for people and couples.
I’m not 100% certain what our attorney did to structure our trust but we were able to do this without the trust having to buy the house itself and still could utilize a CRA loan program loan from a traditional bank and avoid PMI at a lower down payment.
I knew people who did this after college with an apartment building. Not sure that’s feasible these days but that seems like it would be much easier to transition out of than a roommate situation.
I haven’t really had any delusions that I’ll ever be able to afford to buy a house anyway, but I’m kind of at the point where I don’t even want to.
This has gotta be some NYC shit
In a region near me the rental market is 99.3% full.
Scumbag landlords charge $200 to view these horrid places no one will ever rent, and their job is showing people the place, one after another. It’s only a half-dozen a day, but that’s a good wage and there’s no end of hopefuls. Apparently, needing a landlord to come out to show you the place is a “call-out”, even if he’s just upstairs.
Of course that’s the “frbo” market; the rental companies can’t get away with that yet. They wish, though.
Well if you have 5 vacant units artificial scarcity is pretty easy to achieve by only putting one to market at a time.
Ding ding ding
The same is done with commercial property too. Holding out (or more correctly, withholding a property entirely) vacant for X months is more profitable overall as it keeps the supply low for office/light industrial space, driving the same demand to fewer units until ✨ a
newly renovatedunit ✨ is available on the market.Until X months inoccupancy exceeds the profit of Y units generating Z extracted profit each, they come out ahead. And not even ‘we covered the mortgage and local tax’ ahead of break even, but the potential earnings if all were listed and rented.
They literally make more money keeping housing vacant. And that needs to change.
5x the property tax rate for all vacant housing?
In a region near me the rental market is 99.3% full.
I hear that from every landlord in every market, whether the economy is booming or shrinking and people are coming or going.
I have never been quoted an occupancy rate less than 90%. I’ve been in buildings under construction and heard “Yes, we’ve already leased most of our units! You’re getting the last ones! So lucky!”
Wait so the people who refuse to go with those big companies (aren’t there principled folks like that, maybe they have a name I’m forgetting) have to deal with that instead?
It was like people who have to pay some fee I thought… searches oh it’s the no broker fee people. So do no broker fee ppl often pay viewing fees? And viewing fees are legal?
Do the unlimited and have constant tours for all 30 days. Get friends to individually do the same. Pester the ever living fuck out of them.
r/maliciouscompliance
Oops, bad habit.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You should make a Lemmy alternative. Could become useful, you know, with all the ongoing fascism.
See, you pay us for the privilege of being considered as a candidate to pay us.
Why would they sell/rent when they make so much money on tours?
I mean really just spruce up one unit, charge for tours, charge for applications, why even bother renting?
I mean places already charge just to submit an app.
People do that, its pretty clear cut fraud though so it usually doesnt work out the best in the end.
The idea is proably just to filter out people who aren’t serious / not gonna show up.
I can’t imgine it’s about the money
Its common to pay a down payment to hold a rental, this is just a shittier version of that.
You pay the downpayment to reserve the spot, so they cannot rent that to someone else once you pay. Touring does not apply the same restriction to the property.
Yeah thats why I said its shittier. Still costs money but the renter gets nothing for it.
agencies: “housing is just not unaffordable enough. I wonder what else we can do to contribute?”
This is why I’ll boondock until its completely illegal. Then if they don’t force me into the gray pod then I’m going feral hobo until I die in a fight with a racoon over some berries.
I’m going feral hobo until I die in a fight with a racoon over some berries.
Stop, my brother! We are not enemies! There is enough berry for all, if we but put down our differences and turn our attention to the dreaded hording bourgeois!
I know this is funny, but to anyone reading this comment, I implore you:
What’s the biggest thing you miss? The idea certainly appeals to me; you have to pay to exist as a person but there’s free parking everywhere. And you can do a bit of nomadism.
A nice shitter and a bathtub. I have a toilet and do shit in the woods as much as possible. But a reliable porcelain throne feels great. I can realese some genuine horrors and its just gone in a flush or two. I also like just laying down in a nice hot bath with some bubble bath, little scented Epsom salt, drink a beer and smoke a j.
Hmm, what exactly is your toilet situation right now? Cassette, tanks, composting, other? This is Lemmy, so I hope it’s not rude to ask.
I know you can get porcelain inserts for some cassette models, although if the flush doesn’t work well that’s not too useful.
Nobody tell OP about rental application fees, they’ll explode.
If we can get people to do it near landlords we might fix the system
…or we could raise our children to not be landlords.
This is 100% worse, though. Both should come with being shot in the street as punishment but at least application fees is paying for something you want and not paying to see if you even want it at all.
