How to Spot Them!

The famous Blue Dog posters of New Orleans are a local treasure. My dog? He’s just dressed (dyed) for Halloween. This scam is easy to spot, but inquiries from corporate and mid-term rental platforms are not always this obvious. Let’s dig into some red flags to watch for when renting a property OR leasing out your own property. Both sides have to be cautious…

If you’re a tenant, you’re probably aware of the many unsavory ways you might be duped into renting a furnished property. Some don’t even exist! But landlords have the same problem… mysterious tenants with strange requests fill our inboxes; so, what to do?

COMMUNICATION IS EVERYTHING.

Each platform has its own challenges. Craigslist can be a great resource, but there are risks. I have personally met an incoming visitor who was in tears over a Craigslist situation. She had given a deposit to someone, gotten check-in instructions, and arrived to find the property occupied by a tenant who had no idea what she was talking about.

How did this happen?

Very simply, legitimate property pictures were copied from a real rental site from a past ad. They were posted, along with the description and pricing, to Craigslist. The property could be verified by a match on Zillow and a Google map search, but it wasn’t really for rent. The scammer had her deposit, was nowhere to be found, and this visitor found herself homeless upon arrival.

On the landlord side, leads flow in from sites like Furnished Finder on a daily basis. An “ideal” tenant who seems to have no budget limits promises to care for the property like his own and wants to move in immediately. There’s just one little twist, and it’s so tempting because you’ve been looking for a tenant for a month. But… this one wants to communicate from WhatsApp and claims he is out of the country. His father is local and will be paying the bill once he decides on a place.

Landlord or tenant, you can be a victim if you’re not doing due dilligence. And the very simple and obvious piece that often gets missed is simply a phone call. It’s important to go beyond emails, texts and chats. It may seem old-fashioned, but so are the hustles.

Make a simple phone call, and if you can’t speak to your potential tenant or landlord – give it a hard pass. Seriously.

A legitimate tenant wants to know more than just the price and the hard facts. They will be staying a while, and they are going to have questions. They will want to know about nearby grocery stores, whether the washer/dryer is in the unit, is it noisy on weekends, how good is the wi-fi, what days are recycle… and a landlord with any experience knows this.

These conversations also give some insight into the tenant’s daily life and what kind of occupant they will be.

Red flags will include:

• Unable to speak to you, except on an app. If you don’t have it, they’ll want you to download it
• Unable to pay you except one option. Might be CashApp, maybe a money order or cashier’s check… possibly offering to OVERPAY so that some additional request may be met before arrival. (Run, don’t walk, if they offer additional funds in advance of their stay. This is a common set up to get you to deposit a counterfeit money order, dispurse funds from it, then find out in six weeks or so that the instrument was a fake and the funds are now taken from your account).
• The inquiry is awkwardly stated or overly reassuring. “I am a quiet person who loves the beauty of nature and respect for all living things. I will leave any place I live in better condition than when I arrive. I am respectful and kind to all beings and love the chance to see new places.” Perhaps they are foreign, but none of this has anything to do with renting, and versions of this appear in many inquiries, often multiple people saying the same thing.
• You are contacted by someone who is working on a budget of (for example) $1,600 per month. You state that your rental is double or more that amount. They say, “No problem,” and continue to make arrangements. When pricing is not discussed at all, or waved away as unimportant… this is worth digging deeper.

What to do?

Like all of us, as a landlord you are trying to be compliant with housing laws. You want to make a fair and unbiased decision. You do not want to discriminate. But your gut is telling you something is off.

The answer is very simple. You have a process in place for rentals. Follow it. Require your deposit. Require that it is made in the format you normally take; whether it’s a deposit by check, Venmo, credit card, etc. and you are completely within your rights to ask for a background check or references from a previous landlord.

It is best to have a procedure laid out that you follow every time. You can’t go wrong this way, and you cannot be accused of violating fair housing laws if you have the same requirements of each potential tenant.

If you request your ordinary requirements, scammers will often try to get you to change them, or will simply disappear and stop communicating.

As a tenant, you should always ask to see the property before renting. This might be impossible if you are arriving from out of town. But there are ways to tell if the landlord is legit.

First, look for reviews on the property if available. If there are none, ask for a FaceTime walk-through. If you have a friend who lives near the property, ask if they can tour it on your behalf.

Be sure to make payment on credit card for the deposit so that you have recourse if the property is not as advertised or, heaven forbid, does not exist.

Ask for the address and check it on Google maps, look at street view to be sure it matches the advertised description.

And, just like landlords, make human contact and trust your instincts.

It’s about trust, and it works both ways…

Both sides of the equation in mid-term housing must rely on instinct and trust to some extent. As helpful as online platforms and AI chat bots can be, humans connect with humans best in conversation. Get to know your landlord or tenant with a simple phone call, and this will prevent 90% of disasters in leasing sight-unseen for both parties.

** Finally, it is always helpful to use a realtor! I am a licensed broker in New Orleans, and I certainly work with many properties only as a platform, not as their representative; however, working with a professional does take much of the vetting and guess work out of the experience, so consider looking for your place (or your tenant) by using the services available through a local real estate office.