Any eager home seekers have in the past years fallen victims to rental frauds and they have lost a lot of money to the crafty individual posing as the legitimate owners of the rental properties that the victims were hoping to lease. These occurrences have affected the industry in a negative way. This situation however, can be avoided should the prospective tenants have adequate knowledge on how to identify frauds. The feeling of excitement and enthusiasm to move the new house may blind you decision making skills. This coupled by time constraints such as moving to a new county or city due to professional placement may cause you to be a likely victim to the rental property scammers. There are some red flags that home seekers should look out for before making any payments on the new home.
When the property owner is too eager to receive the payment for the home. Typically, property owner would want to verify your credit score and establish your needs for the property before they actually decide to lease the property to you. Scammers on the other hand, would want you to make the payments prior to verifying your financial records and credit scores. This should make you cautious thus, you should demand for the documentation from the property owner in order to determine the ownership of the property.
Secondly, you should be cautious of the property that have unbelievably low rental rates. When the deal is too good, please think twice. You could look up the listing on the property. Legitimate property owners advertise the property on multiple sites alongside the rental prices of the apartments. Should the description of the property on certain sites be identical with the said property but with significantly higher rent rates, this is a likely indicator of a fraud thus you should not give your money to the property owner before being sure on the ownership of the property.
Another way that home seekers are lured into rental frauds is when they are asked to pay many charges upfront. These may range from extremely high security deposit to other charges. This is an indication that the property owner might want to take your money and run thus you should be cautious. Moreover, should the property owner be too pushy, avoid making any payments because that is a sign of a scam.
As a rule, do not make any payments on the property when you have not viewed the property yet. This is the single most ignored rule by home seekers that make them a viable prey for the scammers. Should the property owner have a convenient excuse for not meeting you in order to show you the property, then you should be concerned about the legitimacy of the ownership of the property.
Property management companies are good management and can be used by tenants to get rentals from verified owners of the property. This is because the such companies have done thorough research on the clients and have records on the business transactions thus can verify the ownership of the property by the specific client. Ventura property management is a example of such a company. Their website has these services clearly outlined. Moreover, property management Ventura also caters for the needs of the property owners.