Best Website(s) for Landlord to Locate Quality Tenant?

Craigslist is infamous for fake, incomplete, and misleading apartment listings that rightfully annoy apartment hunters (many of these are placed by brokers). On the other side of the coin, landlords gripe that the quality of Craigslist hunters are often lacking. A good broker can split the difference by weeding out both poor apartments and unqualified tenants. However, this involves the tenant paying an often outrageous fee. Are there any websites out there that screen both listings and renters? As a landlord, I prefer to list no-fee apartments, but it involves more work than it should and increasingly I just hand it off to brokers. Perhaps I’m out of touch and there are websites out there that seem to produce quality renters AND get a lot of traffic. I’m familiar with RDNY for instance, but the traffic is minimal. Any suggestions?

ejalbk

in Real Estate - Rentals 12 years and 7 months ago

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adamg | 12 years and 1 month ago

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Hey, My wife and I are truly ideal tenants.  Excelent credit, non-smokers, no pets (not even a smalle one), mid-30s, professionals looking to escape our manhattan walk-up for a reasonably priced 2 (1.5) bedroom garden unit in Park Slope, Beurum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, etc that we can hopefully “grow in to.”  Our move-in date is flexible as we are currently in a month-to-month.  If you or anybody on this thread is looking for respectful laidback responsible tenants who are looking to settle in and avoid a brokers fee, please drop me a line at 215-901-5408.  Thanks!  Adam

allans | 12 years and 7 months ago

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This was just on Tech Crunch’s SF Disrupt Conference – _Zumper_ makes finding an apartment easy. https://www.zumper.com

m926bk | 12 years and 7 months ago

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No, you’re not out-of-touch.  Even with its shortcomings, Craigslist is still the go-to place for renters of all kinds, since brokers and landlords alike post there.  It’s still the site that allows you to cast the widest net.  No other sites have that kind of volume, and renters know that brokers can only show you listings within their company, so it’s extremely limiting to focus anywhere else.

Bklnite | 12 years and 7 months ago

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I use craiglist too with good results. Like hoffster I get a first impression based on an email and a google search. re: renters bending the truth, tell them (or include in your ad) no pets & minimum 680 FICO (or whatever cutoff you want) and you can always compromise later (cats ok, 660 fico is good enough if your gut tells you the renter is ok).

webby1000 | 12 years and 7 months ago

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Craigslist is great for several reasons.  One, you can tell a lot about a person from how they write an email.  Two, get their phone number, name, and email address in advance and you can google them and see what comes up.  In this day and age, you can find out so much that way.  A broker just wants to make a quick deal, more than finding you a great tenant.  They have a hard job too, so I don’t totally blame them.

renoishard2 | 12 years and 7 months ago

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I’ve always found brokers for apts to be used (as a tenant and as a landlord).  All you need is a reasonable product and rent, an open house, and then let the market know via craigslist and the NY Times.  If you have a faily priced product, the applicant pool will be there.  If you don’t, a brokers fee just makes it worse.

scarter | 12 years and 7 months ago

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I’ve had great success with craigslist as well.  I set aside an hour to show the unit and invite whoever responds.  In the past I have found a tenant within that hour.

ejalbk | 12 years and 7 months ago

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Alan, I appreciate the offer but if I have to start taking time to pre-interview the tenants (who don’t even know if they’re interested in the apartment before they’ve had a chance to see it), I might as well just get a broker involved. I’ve also found that potential renters will bend the truth a lot just to get in to see a place, “It’s a very small dog” when it turns out be a 50lb-er, or “my credit score is excellent” only to find out they have a FICO of 450.

allans | 12 years and 7 months ago

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ejalbk, I use Craigslist to find my tenants and I’ve been extremely successful finding quality renters.  If you like contact me offline and I’ll walk you through my process and send you an email template I use when potential tenants contact me. Best, Allan S allans1935@gmail.com