A look at the rental market, up close and personal.
The list of things agents do for their clients is long, and includes a few items—like shrub removal—that don't fall into the "all I do all day is drive around in my Mercedes" category. Recently I had the pleasure of helping a seller find rental housing, a task that was part real-world education and part stroll down memory lane.
We were looking in one of the most expensive cities on the mid-Peninsula, and our budget was entry-level: no more than $1200 per month. This ruled out anything that had granite and complementary breakfast, but fortunately my client and I share a blue-collar attitude toward housing. Even so, I'll never sneer at a '70s condo again, not when a significant part of the local population rents housing that was cheap and cramped even when Eisenhower was president.
I don't know what $1200 a month gets you in Dubuque or even Modesto, but here it slides you into something about 600 sq.ft. (or less), with Cold War-era cabinets and fixtures that not even a retro-fan could love, minimal to non-existent amenities and landscaping, and a nice view of a Central Expressway on-ramp. Not that I'm complaining or condemning: I used to manage buildings that offered even less.
And maybe it was my work history that made this experience so poignant. (This, and the fact that my client was moving from a modern 2000 sq.ft. home.) Years ago I was the young leasing agent taking you on a tour of the property, proudly pointing out its nondescript and threadbare features. A few years later I was the stern-visaged property manager, taking pride in my portfolio of nondescript and threadbare buildings. Again, I'm not complaining or condemning—the level of professionalism and commitment I ran across was quite high, the level of egotism much lower than I've grown accustomed to in sales—but it brought home how much bigger my pond is these days.
I was also, for a brief and humiliating moment, in the shoes of anyone who's ever badly wanted a rental and thought they had a snowball's chance of getting it. The neighborhood was great, the rent good, the apartment pleasant and I knew my client liked it, but he was competing with techies making twice his income. Out of force of habit I started selling my client like he was a clean but low-ball offer, which made the property manager nervous, which made me nervous, etc., etc. No harm done, as it turned out, but I should have known better, having been on the receiving end of many a clumsy sales pitch.
"Low overhead" is the byword in this price range, with clean and painted the best you can hope for, and dishwasher and even disposer optional (and not because the property owners are green). Occasionally this penny-pinching transcends dismal to become laughable, like the model at a large, flossy and not-cheap complex featuring laminate kitchen countertops that had been painted to hide their humble 1962 beginnings—how expensive is it to throw new laminate into a kitchen about the size of a walk-in closet? Maybe they could swing it if they cut back on the stale donuts in the "future residents" waiting room.
If there's anything that undercuts the "renting is unalloyed bliss" claims of renters-by-choice, it's the online reviews of apartment complexes and property management companies. Here are two reviews of the company that manages one of the apartment buildings we looked at:
Service is poor, renovations are non-existant(sic), I would never recommend this property management to anyone. In fact, I
would pay extra just to live somewhere else to avoid dealing with these people
and their lack of management, ditsy-minded, and totally incompetent staff.
Poor service, badly maintained properties, and indifference to tenants
characterize [X] properties - unless you get [Y] as a manager. Real dumb
people working there. I cannot understand how such a person is employed not
knowing anything. From the list of job interviewees, is this the "most qualified
person"? Real pathetic!!
Although I do not want to give this company any star rating, I have no choice
but to give one: otherwise, my comments cannot be posted. Apartment manager at [X]'s
Lincoln Park apartments refused to evict unruly ridiculously noisy neighbors.
Music at 4 AM, wrestling, dog playing fetch in the hallway, horrible. Had
audacity to claim we were making it up, as if had nothing better to do with our
time. X had no online rent payment system and a maintenance
request we submitted was never responded to. Bad experience.
A "bad experience"? Renting? Obviously a phony review posted by the National Association of Realtors®.