Who has rented their home directly using Villagers Homes 4 Rent or Rent From Villager

[jimmyinvillages]

Hi Folks,

Looking to hear experiences from landlords who have rented out their homes directly themselves using either Rent from a Villager or Villagers Homes 4 Rent?

-how did you find the two sites in terms of tenant interest/inquiries?

-how long on average did it take you to rent out for long-term leases only (not looking for short-term)

-any key learnings/recommendations?

Not looking to rent out immediately but gathering some info and interestingly all the reviews from the established property management companies are all terrible, so curious if people loved/struggled trying to rent it out directly themselves.

Thank you for any helpful advice.

[asianthree]

Only used Village4rent. From 2011-2022. Long term only. Each home started with one year lease, with option to renew 90 days prior to lease end date. Our average yearly response 65 applications. Narrow to 5 within a week. Ran background, references sometimes can just a a friend or family, not a previous landlord. No Pets, No Smoking.

Of our three rentals the tenants stayed 3-11 years. Zero issues but sometimes gut feelings made our decision, which worked well. We required deposit of one month, plus first and last month rent.

No idea how the market stands today, but the type of home make a difference

[dougjb]

Villages 4 Rent was reasonable and easy to work with.

With that said, I have always found it to be very important to screen my tenants very carefully. I do not want to have problems. I do not want tenants to move in and out on a regular basis. I check references (but whoever can't come up with a decent reference is probaly a real loser), I check the vibe. I have found some great tenants through the above service. But, they just referred prospects to me. The rest was on me...which it should be!

I tried using Down Home once. That was more than enough. They were terrible. They rented my place for less than what i asked for. As an out of town landlord, I thought I needed a property manager. They failed that test. They were not responsive to telephone calls. They were not responsive to emails. But, they did take their share of the rent money. I would NEVER recommend Down Home to anyone...whether they be landlord or tenant!