Chins

So assuming the visa goes through we will be moving to NJ at the very begining of Jan.

We will rent for the first year and see how it goes from there. My better half is the USC, we have a house in San Diego so a physical address (its rented out) and luckily my wife has a good credit score.

She understands buying and selling houses, but has less experience renting (even though hers is )

In the UK I would just get in touch with a few local estate agents, tell them we are in the market and looking for a house on the 1st Jan. I've looked on Trulia etc and can see rentals, but each property seems to have a different agent even if they work in the same office. Do we not just send an email to office that seem to be active telling them we are in the market ?

When should we really start looking ?. My wife is convinced not until early Dec, whereas in the UK I would start looking in about 4 weeks when people advertise property a couple of months ahead of availability.

Insight really appreciated as it will determine when she flies out with me to activate my visa (fingers crossed) and we view properties. This is made harder by having 2 cats and miniature schnauzer.

CA-NY

If you want to work with an agent, pick one of the big chains like Keller Williams, Coldwell Banker and call the office in the town you're looking to move to. Tell them you're looking for a rental and they'll assign you an agent. That agent becomes your point of contact, they're working for you and it's their job to find you a home. They can either present you with properties that they think meet your needs or if you want to be a bit more proactive you can do your own research and tell them which properties you want to view and they'll set up the viewings. Check out New Jersey Multiple Listing Service - Search for Homes in New Jersey for what's available. They'll also give you access to the agent database to view all the current listings if you decide to work with them. You'll go out with your agent and view a few properties at a time.

You probably want to be viewing around 4-6 weeks before your move in date, the previous tenants will likely be on a months notice and that gives the landlord a week or two to turn it around for new tenants. In NJ you'll be required to pay 1 months rental as agent commission and then a security deposit will be put into an Escrow account, somewhere in the region of 1-2 months rent. If the owner / landlord has an agent as well, the commission is split 50/50 between the 2 agents but you pay the entire commission.

Having said all of that, when we rented out first apartment in NJ, we called the listing agent and worked with them directly. I actually made the first call while we were still in the UK and we viewed the apartment we eventually moved into the day after we landed! We did not have our own agent so the commission went 100% to the listings agent as she was essentially representing both sides of the transaction. That's not that common but it is do-able and the agent really works both sides to get the deal done for a full month's commission! Hope that helps.

Chins

Thanks for the lengthy reply.

Kind of feels strange to pay a commission to an agent for finding you a rental. Understand the owner needing to pay a fee. But it is what it is.

Is the commission based on a months rental including property tax or excluding ?

fbf2006

You don't always have to pay a commission. if for example, you find a rental you like in an apartment building that does its own marketing, there'll be no fee. If you rent an apartment/house directly from its owner, you also pay no fees, unless the owner used a listing agent. I really hate paying fees to rent apartments. it makes no sense to me!

CA-NY

A lot of NJ rentals are highly sought after especially in the NYC commuter towns so it's an owner's market. Most of them don't want to do the leg work to find tenants so they use an agent and the agent needs paid so the bill falls to the tenants. But I agree it's a hard pill to swallow.

Property tax is included in the monthly rent so if your monthly rent is $2500 you write a check to the listing agent for $2500. In NJ, a large part of your rent is covering the owners' property tax. Property taxes in parts of NJ are some of the highest in the country.

And yes to what fbf2006 said, there definitely are some ways to find a home without paying this commission e.g. apartment complexes or direct from owner. Although personally, if I was renting direct from an owner I would want someone qualified (lawyer / realtor) to look over the lease agreement before signing.

petitefrancaise

I think it's a very good idea to start keeping an eye on the rental market for as long as you can. If you are in contact with a realtor then tell them when you will be ready to move but ask them to send you anything that comes in between now and then that fits your criteria.

This gives you a chance to make sure that your proposed rental budget is in the right ball park and lets you know what to expect for your money. The benefit to this is that when you are ready to lease you can make a good decision quickly.

I would also contact all the apartment complexes and get set up with emails of what is coming on the market for those complexes. Realtors are not great at finding apartments when they don't get any commission for it!!! Look at the citydata.com forum for your area and start asking questions too about traffic/safety/facilities. Find out which utility companies supply the area too and you may find big differences in monthly bills there. Is there natural gas available for example? Electric heating can be really expensive - Our area doesn't have a choice of electricity/water providers, so moving one street over can make a difference.

Chins

Thanks for all the feedback 😀

Englishmum

Also check out www.padmapper.com (it lists houses as well as apartments - you choose a town where you think you may want to live and it will bring up a map with listings, photos and contact info.

I've noticed that quite a few listings state that the tenant must pay the first $100 of any repairs! I have no idea if this is only in NJ or throughout the USA?

I live in NJ (New York metro area) and yes, the property taxes are very high. We live in a top rated school district - some friends in our neighborhood are selling up as they no longer need to use the public schools and are having an Open House today. They plan to move just across the town border into the next township; the school district is not as 'stellar' and property taxes are lower.

However....they are not only sick of the high property tax (theirs is $20,500 per year) for a 3 bedroomed house, ours is $18k) but also fed up of the constant maintenance (houses don't seem to be as well built as in Europe and things fall apart more quickly). They are planing to rent a large apartment in a 'Garden Community' (they are to be found in many NJ townships). The rent includes not only property taxes but also heating and hot water. No maintenance to do either!

They will still be within walking distance of Millburn township and the Short Hills train station but their cost of living will come right down. I am sorely tempted to do the same!

Btw; some of the 'Garden Communities' also have outside swimming pools and tennis courts.

Www.gardencommunities.com

Ecto17

I love Milburn and Short Hills, great little towns.
We are in northern NJ and moved here in June. I started researching towns in December by looking at school districts, the nature and cost of the rental stock etc. It was important to us (well me actually!) that we had a community center that was walkable and l was happy to discover that there were lots of these towns in the area.
We were not best pleased to be landed with the realtors commission but it is something annoyingly unique to the area. We did agree to half of it in the end, so always worth asking.
The rent is very high here however this is because the property taxes are so high and as stated this is included in the monthly rent.
I used realtor.com and found this useful for getting an idea of what you can expect for your budget in each area.
I would start looking sooner rather then later as we found that some of the houses we were looking for weren't available as soon as we needed.
Whereabouts are you thinking?

Chins

Thanks again for the advice. Yes I've been using realtor.

My office will be in Cranbury. Princeton is the obvious choice, but not knowing where my wife will get a job makes this a little tougher. I will be travelling pretty extensively, so getting to EWR or PHL will also factor in. No kids, so don't need good schooling. A good bar is more of an essential 😀

penguinsix

Personally I've never had much luck with realtors and rentals, with maybe the exception of NYC proper or some other major metropolitan area where there is a strong rental market. Zillow does show some house rentals on their website, but generally you can also look at smaller rental listings such as a local paper and craigslist.

If renting a house, you can start the process now. Many homeowners are planning ahead for rentals 1-2-4 months away. Many apartments though are in the next 30-60 days, especially if a big complex with many available units.

Pulaski

I wouldn't use a realtor, as most have no interest in rentals, ..... some do in some markets, so it depends on the area you are interested in.

There are numerous rental Web sites, like 20-30, though there has been some consolidation and some are now under common ownership. They seem to overlap considerablely, but some seem to have better coverage in specific areas. Try Zillow and Trulia, or use Google to find others. Some markets seem to favour Craigslist, for example in parts of California, though Craigslist has a bad reputation for scams.

mbox

A website I used a lot is when we moved is www.hotpads.com , it's useful for searching rentals across an area using maps. In my experience it works better on a tablet rather than a laptop. It will give you a good idea of what's about and what the costs are.

In the area we lived rentals moved quickly and agents were only interested if you can view within short notice so there was little value in looking weeks in advance.

petitefrancaise

Realtors are so varied in what they are willing to do. I'm amazed at how short sighted some of them are. I spoke to a realtor today who was unwilling to help with some sub- $2k pcm leases ( not worth her time at about $600 a time commission). She failed to grasp how many of these would come her way but she was very happy to work with me on the $3k+ leases. Sure honey. I'll find a realtor who will work with me on all of them, not just the lucrative ones.

I did find out something purely by chance today when talking to a leasing agent. A 1yr lease in their complex was about $2.2k pcm. A 14 month one was $1.7 pcm. same apartment, same deal but they don't like to have lots of people moving at the same time and so they encourage them to take slightly longer leases.