Galilite

We're about to arrive to the US (Massachusetts), and more or less picked the place where we want to rent our home. We got a list of the realtors in that area, but after browsing their websites it seem like they are posting what they have in realtor.com and zillow.com.

Is it even worth visiting their offices for the 3-5 matches they have for us or it makes more sense to hit the internetz and go from there?

markcst

I got myself a Realtor to act on my behalf. There is/was no fee for this as they get their money from landlords and other agents.
In Texas, and I presume its the same elsewhere, there is a central register of property for rent/sale. This is generally more up to date than Zillow, Realtor and Trulia. (and others). It has more statuses for property for a starters like "under offer". Our realtor was able to give us a login to this to see custom searches that she had setup (ours was catchment area for a particular school, 4 bed house).
For example the house we have leased and signed contracts on, over three weeks ago, is still on Zillow as available. It plainly is not!
I did everything from home though. And the Realtor I had did all the leg work. She visited places we liked (if they were still available) and checked for marks/stains etc. She feedback on condition and the owners attitude, then we did go to see 4-5 to finally pick out house (which were all different realtors marketing them). Having her with us, she told us honestly about what we could expect and if the place was priced correctly. She was totally unbiased and took us through the whole process and will be meeting us with the owners to do the "snagging" when we move in next week.
On Zillow you can see reputations of Realtors. Its best to find one who understand relocation and lack of credit history as we did (ours was an immigrant themselves some time back!).
Hope this helps

fozzyb

If you are fresh off the boat with no local credit history, no SSN yet, etc, some landlords may not be willing to deal with you as there is too much uncertainty etc.

You may find that going through a realtor makes you seem more "respectable" - hence gives you a better chance of getting the places you like.

Having said that we got our first rental off Craigslist, with very little problems (Needed to show visas and copy of contract of employment)

zzrmark

Whereas my wife tried to engage the services of a local realtor to help in finding a rental property and after only half-hearted responses from only one or two of the several she contacted she gave up and continued looking herself.
I think it very much depends upon the type of area you are in, my wife was looking within an area that is inhabited by, easily, over 250,000 people, has a high proportion of rental properties and yet the local realtors have absolutely no interest in the rental market.

Pulaski

It might depend somewhat on the local practice, but round here, and I believe generally, most realtors have little to do with the rental business. There are few exceptions.

It is likely that you will need to go it alone, contacting landlords directly.

ferdy555

As stated above public sites like realtor.com, Zillow etc, may well be out of date. They pull the data from the realtor MLS system when a property becomes available, but do not automatically update the info. Hence a home may have sold/rented weeks ago and still show as available. The realtor MLS has the up to date info. Depending on the rental cost, their may not be a great $ incentive for a Realtor to handle these properties as commission can be minimal.

Galilite

Thanks everyone, very informative.

The list of realtors was received via the AIG TravelGuard service concierge, which, sad to say, has proven to be of little value so far (even though they were supposed to help with rentals), so it's unclear whether these realtors are actually interested to work with us.

Hanco

What he said. A good realtor will also review the lease details with you and advise you and the landlord of the things that might not be really fair (or legal)

My first landlord had repairs to plumbing and even the fridge and cooker if needed, all being my responsibility. The realtor said to him that this was pushing things to far my way. He agreed to remove the clauses.

In fact he became a great landlord and we had a great relationship over the year. Anything that needed doing (leaking toilet cisterns happened on all THREE of them at some time and he paid ME to replace the flappers and deducted from my rental cost each month)

I would never have done CL for property rental but if you feel ok with that go for it!

Sadly our landlord put his house on the market in June and we moved on because it is a very fast market here near Atlanta. We ended up (without the new visa in place) having to take a townhouse on an apartment complex which is NOT what we wanted. We are not exactly happy in this place we have, but looking forward to mortgage time soon!

Hanco

VERY true. Realtor can see the factual latest info. Plus, here anyway, a property is on the market for a short time before it is snapped up.

kodokan

In Arizona, it's nigh on impossible to get a realtor to help you with rentals (said a realtor friend of mine). They apparently only get a couple of hundred dollars in commission, tops, so it's really not worth their while to spend days showing you stuff and negotiating contracts. Whoever's newest in the agency and lowest on the totem pole tends to get stuck with the rentals; that's your best case.

You might have more luck if you mention how you're initially renting, but then looking to buy in the near future once you're established...

See if there's a Facebook group you can join for the neighborhood you're looking at - a lot of rentals get mentioned on those. It's like middle-class Craigslist, with no anonymity

Pulaski

As far as I know few rentals are input to the realtor MLS system, only those "placed" with a realtor would start in the MLS system, and as already discussed above, relatively few rentals are handled by realtors.

markcst

It must vary by state. In my searching in, I have found in (North) Texas it has to be registered as a rental property and in some cases pre-inspected by the local council, before being available to lease. The standard lease contract format is standard across all (North) Texas leases, with only odd addendums being different. Just about every realtor deals with leases and uses NTREIS (North Texas Real Estate Information system) which has all the register property in the area within in and its status (including occupation status).
I guess its because Texas absolutely relies on property taxes?
Of course people can probably still do rents "under-cover" and there are commercially run suite/apartment blocks which were outside of this system (that I found).