those who are renting an entire house

Did you go through a broker or did you just deal with the homeowner directly?

Can you share your experiences with the rental process?

If you just dealt with the home owner do you have an actual written lease? how detailed is it?

Any info you can share will be helpful! TIA!

Re: those who are renting an entire house

Did you go through a broker or did you just deal with the homeowner directly?

- we saw the house listed on craigslist and dealt with the owner directly. we could have gone with a broker but we were trying to save as much $$ as possible.

Can you share your experiences with the rental process?

- very easy!! the owner had his attorney draw up a lease agreement. since we had already rented we knew what to look for. we actually asked for a couple of changes and the owner readily agreed.

If you just dealt with the home owner do you have an actual written lease? how detailed is it?

- our lease is detailed, but probably not as detailed as an apartment lease, since an apartment complex has a lot more space and potential issues to cover. our lease is 4 pages long and there is a 2 page addendum. it covers everything from utilities to repairs and landscaping.

DH and i looked at several houses before we found this one. we actually beat out a couple of other people who wanted to rent because we told the owner that we would eventually want to buy the house (which was true at the time but the market tanked and we cannot afford the house right now). we are very lucky because there is no basement or other apartment - we have the entire property to ourselves. all of the other houses we looked at we would have been sharing, bare minimum, the washer/dryer and the driveway.

make sure that when you rent the house you are VERY clear as to who is responsible for repairs and general upkeep (like mowing the lawn).

Re: those who are renting an entire house

Did you go through a broker or did you just deal with the homeowner directly?

We looked on MLSLI and i called a few houses to look at and i had a real estate agent tell me that she would look for me so i gave her everything that we were looking for and she found us this house which i also found on my own but it was good that we used a RE that way the homeowners RE didnt get the entire commission... they get one months rent as commission and they have to split it between the two...

Can you share your experiences with the rental process?

it was really easy we look at few houses and we finally found the one that we liked and we put an offer in (you can definately hagel (sp) in this market) and they accepted and we signed a lease and that was it...

If you just dealt with the home owner do you have an actual written lease? how detailed is it?

I would make it as detailed as possible the more to cover yourself with...

I wished we would have asked if they needed to use an exterminator b/c we have been in the house since December 1st and its about two weeks now that we have been seeing little ants (ewww) and if have an infant and a newborn at home so not very nice- especially since i asked them if they had this problem before they said yes and that thye just kept ontop of it.. i wished they would have told us that way we could have done somehting before we moved in all of our furniture !!! so i would defiantley make it as detailed as possible - make sure you specify who is resposbile for what...

With the market the way it is today you can definately negotiate the rental price... what i have noticed is that alot of the houses that are for rent were originally on the market to sell so i guess they are trying to get some money since they are not selling there house...

- also make sure you find out who would be resposible to fix things around the house (ie stove , refrig, etc)

Good Luck . I hope all goes well for you

Re: those who are renting an entire house

Bumping for any more responses

Re: those who are renting an entire house

Did you go through a broker or did you just deal with the homeowner directly?
We saw the ad on Craigs List through the home owner.
Can you share your experiences with the rental process?
Beyond having annoying tenants downstairs that just got evicted, life has been grand here.
If you just dealt with the home owner do you have an actual written lease? how detailed is it?
We have a month to month lease which is great because we can leave at any time. It is the customary lease, with added details from the landlord like no pets, no waterbeds, we pay half the heat, downstairs the other half. We are supposed to split the outside gardening (leaves and shoveling) but the downstairs people do nothing so we do it all because we don't like living in trash.

I just finished typing and reread the subject of the thread, sorry

My brother rents an entire house. He NEVER sees his landlord who lives in Florida. He takes care of all the things around the house including scheduling maintenance to the heating system.