Tips to Find Your Ideal Rental Home

Home is where the heart is, regardless of whether you own or rent. Unfortunately, too many renters make the mistake of committing themselves to a property that proves to be inconvenient, unnecessarily expensive, or does fulfill all their needs. Avoid these mistakes, and more, by following these simple ways to find the ideal rental home.

Set Your Priorities in a Rental Home

A good plan is more effective than the most ardent legwork. Create a prioritized list of the most essential features you would like in your rental home. This could include proximity to your workplace, quality of schools, the availability of daycare and recreational facilities as well as the local public transport network. That isn’t as hard as it sounds – sites like Zillow and Trulia make searching for amenities in and around a neighborhood simple and virtually effortless. You simply enter the criteria you want and they filter out all the listings that don’t match.

Tips to Find Your Ideal Rental

Set Your Budget

A rental agreement is usually a year-long, legally binding financial commitment. Resist the temptation to push the limits of what you can comfortably afford over the entire period. As a general guide, your rent should not account for more than 30 percent of your monthly income (after tax).

Recognize Good Rental Home Listings

It is human nature that anyone trying to rent out a property will highlight its positives and try to downplay – or completely omit – its negatives. Ads with multiple photos of the building’s exterior as well as of different angles for the rooms tell you that the owner believes the home is rental-worthy. Bad lighting and blurry images can be accidental but they may also be deliberate if the owner wants to gloss over the downsides. It is a huge leap of faith to rent a property that you haven’t viewed personally and we don’t recommend it.

Ask Questions

Online house-hunting is a great way to begin your search because you get instant access to thousands of properties that match your needs. However, you should follow up with pertinent questions about the rental home. Here are some of the essentials:

  • What is the duration of the lease on the rental home?
  • What amenities and utilities are covered in the rent?
  • Who is responsible for wear-and-tear damage?
  • Will there be owner inspections? How often?
  • What are the neighbors like?

Finding the ideal rental home is much simpler today than it used to be. After taking all the above into consideration, please contact Noahs’ Preferred Properties for your next rental home. With over 37 years in the business and over 4,500 properties leased, we are the go-to property management company to find condominiums, townhomes, and single-family homes to rent in Montgomery County.