How can you tell if an Internet rental listing is a scam?

Navigating Rental Listing Resources

"Owner Direct" listings in places like Craig's list are the most likely to represent actual units. If you call the number, and the person you speak to isn't the owner, you've been had. The problem is, brokers are colonizing the 'owner direct' web-sites with their own ads.

The listing databases maintained by local realtors are most often simply a marketing resource, consisting of 'representative' properties. Simply put, there is no incentive for these agencies to ever remove a listing. Each property is there to generate leads. With no address information provided in the listing, there is simply no way to put a stop to this practice by local agencies.

The purpose of the listings is to drive calls to the brokerage, and to allow customers to get a ballpark sense of what is available in a given area, and at what price point. After consulting a broker, the broker makes a series of phone calls to actually locate available properties.

On-line listing resources are Ok for getting the lay of the land--but they aren't useful for directly finding apartments. Unless you have the time and energy to track down an owner direct property, brokers actually find your unit in a time consuming orgy of phone calls--after you make contact with them.

New web based data services and business process outsourcing may change this picture in many markets in the near future.

Things to look for:

1. Date/Time Stamps: When was the listing you are looking at posted? Recently updated listings are a good thing, but if hundreds of listings claim to have been updated that morning, beware. Sites may be 'updated daily' but each listing's availability isn't checked daily at most agencies.

2. If it sounds too good to be true....Sometimes less is more. Portals which boast of thousands and thousands of listings are likely to list the same widely advertised apartment building properties over and over again. (with no address information, aggregate portals tend to fill up with redundant listings from multiple agencies.)

3. Third party verification: If you can find a service in your city which provides third party verfication (IE, the data is provided by someone who isn't a realtor) use that service. Avoid pay services, however--these tend to be lists of widely advertised apartment building properties as well.

4. Help Police Craigslist: Flag brokered properties posted in the 'ower direct' section of Craigslist. Until better third-party data sources come on-line, Craig's List is going to be one of the best data sources in town. Do your bit to keep it as clean as possible. (Again, without address information, Craig's List fills up with redundant properties too, especially in the broker section.)

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