As we all know, renters face background and credit checks sight unseen by strangers that may or may not have credibility themselves. A group of Chicago real estate professionals seeks to change that and so they started the national apartment review site DoNotRent.com.
DoNotRent.com helps renters simplify the process of picking a place to reside by allowing them to look up the proposed landlord’s ratings by former tenants before signing a lease. This is great news for landlords that have a stellar record of maintaining their properties. This is also great news for tenants that have had issues with their landlords because it gives them an easy way to report a landlord for not maintaining a property or committing fraud.
There has been a surge of landlord scams which encompasses con-men breaking into abandoned properties, advertising online, showing properties to potential residents in order to collect their personal, financial information and committing identity theft. Another scam is renters that are about to be evicted, pose as landlords in order to collect up-front security deposits leaving them with a worthless lease. A third scam is property owners that are about to be foreclosed upon, rents his or her property, the renter loses the security deposit, is forced into an eviction and has to move.
Rental rating sites became popular in 2008 but they left out the human elements of management. Because there has been a surge of multiple-owners pooling money to buy property for investment purposes, renters are often left with uncaring managers that tend to push out renters that voice their needs rather than fix the issues of the rental house or apartment unit.
Although there are tenants rights laws, they are rarely enforced because most people are busy going to work, school, and raising families and cannot take the time to go to court. Additionally, the courts are often unfair to the tenants even after they have paid a lawyer stating that ”the landlord is the property owner and that the renter should simply leave.”
The solution for the renter often is put up or shut up and the renter is stuck with the choice of a poorly maintained property, intrusive landlord or having to lose their first and last deposit all the while coming up with a new deposit amount for the next residence. Basically, there has been no solution for renters until DoNotRent.com came along.
Consider yourself educated. Go check out DoNotRent.com.
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