Posted by Lor on January 30, 2002 at 20:40:16:
Exactly, so like I said - you make a little effort and drive around and look for addresses first.
On the other side coin, as an owner of rentals, I would hate it if there were lists of my rentals floating around. It’s bad enough that I get mailers from realtors every month asking to list my rentals for sale. I suppose you could call a realtor and ask how they get addresses.
Landlords?? - Posted by Madd Flipper
Posted by Madd Flipper on January 30, 2002 at 19:14:14:
I was wondering how would I go about finding out which houses in my target area might be rentals. I went to the county office but I was given the run around and the Tax assc office, they said bring them the address, but how am I to know which homes are being rented? If I could provide the address I would’nt need them.
Madd Flipper
Try this… - Posted by Talia (NY)
Posted by Talia (NY) on January 31, 2002 at 16:01:59:
When I was looking for a place to rent when I moved, I looked at places online and local papers advetising places to rent…
Obviously I looked at places in DC because that’s where I was moving to at the time…I don’t know where you are situated, but look at such places as aptsforrent.com, sharerent.com, etc…they are national sites. Find the listings in the area you are interested in and work from there.
Good luck and let me know if you were successful!
-TAP
Do like the Rental Agents, and other ideas - Posted by Frank Chin
Posted by Frank Chin on January 31, 2002 at 06:08:36:
Hi Madd Flipper:
I’m a landlord, so I get to see how some of the rental agents from the local RE offices operate.
Whenever I place a for rent by owner ad in the paper, quite a number of them would call me up, and ask if they could list it, or bring some clients over. They would of course ask for my name, the address of the rental, number of rooms, cost of utilities etc.
Sometimes I wonder if they’re not just making a list.
I know for a fact they maintain that information in a database somewhere. I use a telephone number that is billed as an additional line (for tenants and rentals) on my 1st number, and this number is not listed anywhere. But, I would get calls from it from time to time asking me if I have anything available for rent.
Coming to think of it, you can call ads up in your target area yourself on “houses for rent”, or even “apts for rent”, and over a short period of time, you’ll have your own list. Just make beleive you’re looking for a place for your sister or whatever, and ask for the address for a driveby to see if you like the neighborhood if you don’t care to make an appointment to see the inside on every one of them. Then, maybe you want to see the inside.
This will take a little time of course, and can be done little by little, weekly, over the telephone, so you don’t have to run down to the tax assessors office, or do a lot of analysis.
Sometimes, there are clusters of rentals. So if it looks like from making your list there’s a few on a block, you may want to check out others on the same block.
I also get calls from apartment referral services as well. What they do is call me to get the informtaion, list them, and charge renters looking for rentals a fee to have the list. The main citicism is that these lists are out of date, and the places are usually already rented by the time people get them. That’s why I tell them I’m not interested in listng with them when they call.
Now, these out of date lists may not be useful for renters, but useful for what you’re thinking about doing.
Then if you’re in a big hurry, you may have to do some analysis. I saw some posts about getting lists of properties and owners from title companies on this board not too long ago. I haven’t done it myself though. I also know there’s criss cross directories available where they list names and phone numbers of everyone by a certain street. If the name for the location in the phone directory does not match the owners name, you probably have a renter.
I also know doing work at some of my rentals that there’s voter registration information publicly available. I was standing in front of my rental when a lady running for the local council walked up to the front door, looking at a list, and asked if I’m Mr. so and so (tenant’s name). I said, no, he’ll be home later.
So, if you compare the voter registration to a property owners list, you can figure out the renters that way too.
At least, that’s a few ideas from where I am. Good luck hunting.
Frank Chin
Re: Landlords?? - Posted by Lor
Posted by Lor on January 30, 2002 at 19:41:22:
The records in my county don’t actually say they are rentals. You can usually assume that they are when the mailing address for the owner is different than the street address.
What I have occasionally done that works well is to drive a subdivision with similar style houses and write down the addresses of houses that look a little run down. Usually a list of about 30 houses. Then look these houses up on the tax rolls and more often than not, quite a few will be rentals.
Be extra nice to the clerks if you want help. If you know how to look up the addresses, offer to do it yourself so you aren’t wasting their time. Good luck.
Re: Landlords?? - Posted by Madd Flipper
Posted by Madd Flipper on January 30, 2002 at 19:58:09:
That’s my point, I can’t get any info to see where the tax bills are sent if I don’t have the address, or at least that’s what they tell me.
Madd Flipper