Rental Market

[eddly]

My wife and I are currently renting. After just 18 months of renting our current house, our landlord is putting the house up for sale so we are forced to find another rental. Bad luck on our part as this happened to us two years ago too (landlord selling home). We are building a house which will be done next year so the end of your renting days is on the horizon at least.

I find the process to be pretty bizarre here in Calgary for finding a rental. I expressed interested in a property today and this is the response I got back:

Thank you for your interest of the subject premise.

The owner is asking for $1800.00 + utility. Absolutely no pets and no smoking allowed in this premise.

According to our rental policy, we would like you to aware if you like the place after viewing, you are required to submit your application with $200.00 in cash as the deposit for the application. If your application is accepted, your $200.00 will be part of your security deposit. If your application is rejected, the $200.00 will refund back to you in full.


Really? How many people are they collecting $200 from and for what purpose? I guess it weeds out people who don't have $200. Why not a cheque for $200 so there is at least a record of the transaction...



Another rental we looked at a few days ago has a detached garage but the owner is renting out the garage to another family and there is no parking on the street. What is this crap?

[WilsonFourTwo]

That sounds totally scamalicious. I wouldn't go anywhere near that.

The upfront payment is insane and frustrating, the cash requirement makes it a total scam opportunity.

This is not the home you're looking for, move along.

[ken0042]

I just had to look for a rental again; as we are building a new house as well. The market is tight, but not that tight that I would have risked handing over cash.

[rain_e]

Definitely sounds like a scam.

[Drummer]

Scam

[ken0042]

I wonder if you should call the police non-emergency line to report it. At some point you would have to hand over cash; they might want to investigate or even setup a sting if this is a major problem.

[YYC in LAX]

The poor grammar of the excerpt actually raises a red flag with me.

[photon]

I've seen it before with large companies (which probably seems a bit safer, a big company wouldn't get far scamming every applicant). I'm not sure what it accomplishes other than getting rid of the tire kickers. It's annoying to process an application and then have the person change their minds, I guess if that was really frequent a deposit might help.

I've had applicants offer me the same thing from time to time; want to give me cash along with their application to hold their priority or show they were serious.