Boolean and Jane.
Excellent. Just listed at Zillow.
Thank you.
Huh? Thought you have been self-managed. I have self-managed CU rentals till moving to Austin. If you are not doing the simple repairs yourself, you need to get a handyman, usually your gardener can double up as one. Is a good idea to repaint your interior and exterior the first time you rent out the house and every 10 years. Get a good plumber, you would need it, houses in Bay Area are shacks that frequently have plumbing issues.
Jil, zillow, trulia and craigslist. Just be careful about scammers and do careful ID and credit checks, change the locks, etc. Reading about rental fraud has made me waryā¦ hope things go well for you. I havenāt posted much but I miss reading your posts!
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Did you have umbrella insurance?
I have umbrella insurance and assume it would cover full legal cost within coverage.
Maybe my assumption is wrong?
Frankly, I guess scammers are there and automatically grabbing all info from zillow/craigslist etc.
They usually send the scam e-mail to people who are looking for cheap rental at unreasonably low rent.
I ran into a couple families asking questions about scam e-mails that they received while I was at the property for something else (rather than scheduled viewing).
However, other than letting them know that is scam, there is nothing I can do because their scam listing is through private e-mails rather than in public listing. I urge them to report it to police but they seem to know that it is scam already and donāt bother.
Of course, people who sent inquiries through zillow/hotpad/trulia were contacting me for my own listing.
Regardless, smartMove background check is quite thorough, IMO.
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Most of the cost is eaten by lawyers. Insurance said the coverage for lawyers is $150/hr while my lawyer charged $475/hr. Insurance approved lawyers may charge this much, but may not properly handle the case. We can not find such low cost law office in bay area, but may be from elsewhere in the country, remotely engaging the case. Yes, even with umbrella, the same coverage.
yes, I hear from the TV often. I visit the property often so that to avoid such issues.
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I came back again for help !
I posted in zillow for rent $3500, but someone claiming as owner posted another add for $7387.
When I try edit, it shows me only 3500 based on my login id.
Looks like someone else has created another ID and listing for this $7387. What should I do, call zillow?
This is bizarre.
You should contact zillow help center but i suspect this may be technical glitch?
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Same house that had an evicted tenant?
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Yes, but they wonāt do anything against (at least directly or openly).
It is not technical glitch, but zillow system allows (it seems) to people register with separate logins to list the same house. When 2nd person listed, system sends email to both the parties, that is why I have received an email like this.
If someone reaches scammer email, the scammer will take away deposit+first month rent and run away.
This is what happening in bay area like this.
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This scam only work with vacant properties.
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This is awfulā¦ Much worse than I thoughtā¦
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Thatās horrible. First, I added you changed all the external locks and maybe reset garage opener code so previous tenant canāt get in.
You can also ask in the listing to call or text you only instead of email.
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Yes, I always change the locks every time tenant moves and here too I did. I also reset the garage opener code. This is detached garage and they can not get into home. I do not have any lockbox as I do not share the key.
I also visit daily as this is a short trip between my home and office so that I monitor.
With this spam, I am thinking to put my nest camera (with some internet access) or security system (like ADT) to avoid anyone getting in without my knowledge. With nest I can record 24x7 in google cloud and can get alert in my cell any time someone is spotted within a range.
Soon I will have a some plan for this.
Thatās some real bad luck though. Your first time with Zillow and you have to deal with this crap. Iām sorry.
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This scam is nothing tough, easy to manage with some due diligence.
Iām glad youāre in good spirit about it.
Iām well aware of this scam. It feels like this has been going on for years. Iām just surprised Zillow hasnāt devised a better system to address it.
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Gee, they sure didnāt take much time to duplicate your listing. Does Zillow provide a means to flag it like craigslist does?
Being able to check on it yourself easily gives you a great advantage over a PM, @Jil. Another type of scam that concerns me is tenants posing as the landlord and leasing out the property to others. I suspect that a couple of the airbnbs where I stayed were actually listed by tenants.
Bay Area has the highest rate of rental fraud in the US, probably for the sums of money at stake and SFH rentals are targeted more heavily as well.
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Depending on your location I guess. Just search for top classified ads sites