Renter’s Advice and Resources

If you turn on CNN, half the headlines you’ll hear will mention the mortgage crisis and the bailouts that the U.S. government is planning for American homeowners facing foreclosures. But there are a couple of numbers that seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle: while the planned bailouts are being paid out of everyone’s taxes, almost a third of Americans rent their homes. They’re paying into the system, but they aren’t benefiting.

You have narrowed your apartment search down to two possibilities. One is managed by a property management company (PMC), or is a part of a large group of apartment communities (e.g., AMLI, Archstone-Smith, Equity Residential). The other is managed by an individual owner who may own a few properties or just the one rental you’re looking at. Before you sign on the line, you weigh the pros and cons just like you are supposed to. What side of the list does this fall? Is it a pro or a con to rent from an individual landlord?

We first started this blog in 2005 and we wanted to bring a few posts back to the forefront to help those of you who will be moving this spring or summer. Because landlord-tenant issues are so common, the most important legal posts are grouped below. We hope these are useful as you start planning your next move.

With the holidays behind us, there are thousands of people cramming the Internet, gift cards in hand, buying the gifts that they really wanted. As a matter of fact, I went online this morning and discovered that the leopard fur foot massager I ordered is due to be delivered today, and not a moment too soon–those bunions have been killing me!

Remember the good old days, when finding an apartment was as easy as walking up to the landlord and asking if there were any vacancies? Today, apartment hunting is a bit more involved, leaving renters with many things to consider before choosing a place to live. For instance, it’s no longer the noisy neighbor–you know, the one who plays Molly Hatchet CDs until two in the morning who is the big problem. The real concern is the kindly neighbor in Apartment 12, who just happens to be a registered sex offender. In this day and age, the old hippie with the love for southern rock may just turn out to be your favorite neighbor.

You’ve moved into a new apartment, your stuff is unpacked and you’re finally settled in- and that’s when you notice it. It might be the neighbor’s insufferably loud music, a broken security gate, a clear fire hazard or water that smells like sewage running down the only set of stairs to get to and from your apartment. Get ready to file a complaint with your landlord or management company, because little will get fixed if you don’t. But first, you’ll need to take some steps to make sure you come out on top. Keep these five tips in mind to ensure that your complaint will not only be read, but that some action will be taken.

We often decide to move apartments to help improve our financial situation: for a better job or more affordable housing. Unfortunately, the process of moving always seems to be more expensive than we anticipate. The little costs we don’t think about can really add up. If you want to avoid that unexpectedly low checking-account balance, it helps to make a budget as soon as you decide to move.

David, a Mexican-American, was looking for an affordable one-bedroom apartment in the Washington, D.C. area. After spotting an ad in the local paper, he called the landlord who described what sounded like the perfect apartment over the phone. But when David showed up to meet the landlord and tour the apartment, he was told it was no longer available. David suspects that the landlord would rather not rent to him because of his race.

After you’ve found that perfect apartment to move into, the rental application you may have to submit is easy to forget about. You fill in your contact information, check a few boxes and hope for a positive phone call in the coming days. While most renters assume their landlords know something about their histories, most don’t know quite how much a landlord can learn about you from your rental application.