Old Posts
Dec
03
How to Rent an Apartment or House
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Step 1
Be prepared: Create a renter’s re’sume’ with your current and previous five addresses and landlord phone numbers, your employer and length of employment, your current salary and other income, personal references, among other information. Include a copy of your credit report (see How to Shop for a Mortgage, Step 5). You want to look as good on paper as possible to stand out from other applicants.
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Step 2
Look in the newspaper classifieds, apartment hunter publications, college campus bulletin boards, and online for available units to investigate. Ask friends about openings in their buildings.
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Step 3
Consider how much you can afford to pay. A good rule of thumb is no more than 30 percent of your take-home monthly income.
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Step 4
Enlist a rental agent to narrow your search. Depending on the market, this service may be free (paid for by landlords) or cost you a percentage of your rent when you land the apartment.
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Step 5
Turn to a roommate service if you’re looking for cheaper space to share. Be clear what qualities you desire in a roommate, as well as types of people or habits you’d prefer to avoid, such as smokers.
Case the joint
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Step 1
Inspect the property carefully. If there’s any damage, you not only want to ask that it be fixed, but don’t want to be blamed for it later. Make sure such problem areas are addressed in a lease, either by your agreeing to live with it, or the landlord agreeing to fix it by a certain date.
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Step 2
Check out common walls (walls shared with adjoining apartments). The more walls in common, the greater the chance of noise from next door. Also consider a common entrance in terms of how much privacy you may want.
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Step 3
Ask about amenities such as enclosed parking or a garage, a yard, storage, laundry facilities, pool, tennis, gym or concierge services.
Negotiate the deal
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Step 1
If you find an apartment you love but is a stretch financially, ask if there are responsibilities you can take on to lower your rent, such as cutting the lawn, sweeping common areas or taking deliveries. Or if you find a great apartment but it lacks services such as utilities, laundry facilities, cable TV and Internet access
, ask the landlord to throw some in at no charge. Many newer buildings will. Or offer to sign a longer-term lease or give a higher security deposit in exchange for more services. -
Step 2
Examine your lease in detail: How much notice is required prior to moving, how large a deposit you have to make, how much cleaning is required upon leaving to get your deposit back, and other provisions. Some agreements require first and last months’ rent plus a security deposit–a significant chunk of change. Is the lease month to month, or a 6- or 12-month period?
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Step 3
Find out what kinds of cosmetic changes you can make, such as painting walls, or structural changes, such as adding shelving.
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Step 4
Ask for a lease with an option to buy if you’d be interested in purchasing the property down the line.
At Prop2Go we want to make take away some of the pain involved in finding an apartment seeker for your property. With our listing service and software we take away that pain and make things a lot easier. Once you gain several inquiries about your property and begin to choose who you want to live in your property it is important to evaluate the potential tenant. Here we have found an article on how to rent and an apartment or house and the steps you should follow when doing this. This article was found at http://www.ehow.com.
The rental markets in many cities are cyclical: a few boom years with renters scrambling for any available studio followed by a glut in availability. In either scenario, the most desirable rental units are snapped up the quickest. Do your homework, then hit the pavement.
Conduct the search
Dec
02
Apartment Checklist!
Here’s an article I found online at http://www.life123.com. It talks about some important steps when beginning to rent an apartment. Check out the checklist below.
When you’ve agreed to rent an apartment, there is one step that many people skim over—completing an apartment checklist. However, this important process is vital to making sure you and your landlord are on the same page when it comes to the condition of the apartment upon move-in. If, when you move out, you don’t have a complete apartment checklist, you could be liable for damages in the apartment that were there before you.
The apartment checklist is a tool to provide written record of detailed aspects of the rental property. It should consist of a room-by-room breakdown of both visible and hidden features. It’s also a good time to make a list of any repairs that the landlord still needs to make before you move in.
Start in the bathrooms. Check the faucets, both cold and hot water and make sure there are no drips. Turn on the shower as well to check both the hot water and the water pressure. Make a note of any visible stains, chips or scratches on the tub, sink, counter, walls and floor. Record anything out of the ordinary, such as the towel holder being dented or broken, light fixtures or outlets not working or ripples in the flooring from previous water damage. Always flush the toilets and gauge the force of the water.
Check out all appliances. Turn on each burner on the stove until you see the coils start to glow. Turn on the oven and check to see it is heating up. Inspect the freezer and refrigerator, paying special attention to the seals on the doors. Turn on the heater and air conditioner if possible. Any other appliances that come with the apartment, such as a microwave, garbage disposal, dishwasher, washer/dryer or garage door opener should also be tested. Don’t forget to check each electrical outlet in every room as well.
Windows and walls are another area to include on the checklist. Record every dent, ding, peel and hole on all the walls in all the rooms on the apartment checklist. Open and close the doors of each room, checking for sticky spots, loose handles and squeaky hinges. Look behind doors, especially for doorstops so you don’t punch a hole in the wall with the doorknob accidentally. Open and close each window and make note of holes in the screens.
Do a complete inspection of each room in the apartment and its features. Some other things to remember on the apartment checklist are checking the door locks, inspecting the furnace and water heater, testing the smoke detectors, caulking around sinks, tubs and showers and carpet tears and stains.
Once you’ve done a complete walkthrough and finished a detailed apartment checklist for the apartment, sign the document. Your landlord should sign it and both of you should receive a copy. When you move out, the apartment will be compared to the condition as outlined on the apartment checklist.
Nov
30
Prop2Go Promotion
This week only! Quote this promotion and Prop2Go has a 2 for 1 deal, post one property for 29.95 and get the second listing free! And as always with our guarantee if the posting doesn’t rent in the first month, we give you the second month free!
Nov
26
Telegraph Journal – Local rental property website ready to take on the big boys
SAINT JOHN – In 18 months Jason Richard, owner of Prop2Go, hopes to be running the leading apartment listings service in most major Canadian cities.
Noel Chenier/Telegraph-Journal
Jason Richard, owner of Prop2Go, has recently hired eight new people for the company’s sales and marketing departments.
“I want to become the name to know if you’re going to find rental property,” Richard says.
In preparation, the 30-year-old recently tripled his staff by hiring eight new sales and marketing people. The new team will be helping develop and implement a plan to break into the Ottawa and Toronto markets before moving west to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver in about six to 12 months time. Richard plans to target landlords with more than 100 units.
The Saint John-based online listings business, which launched in January 2007, has done well in the Port City, Fredericton, Moncton and Halifax, now getting 200,000 to 300,000 hits per month.
But with an aggressive marketing campaign planned for the expansion, Prop2Go, which had $180,000 in revenue last year, is looking to raise between $250,000 and $500,000 by selling shares of the privately held company.
“We were profitable last year,” Richard says.
“Which is saying a lot that we were profitable in year two.”
He wouldn’t reveal the firm’s operating cost for 2008.
Kerry Munro, a Toronto-based digital marketing consultant and former managing director of Yahoo in Canada, says locally focused websites are growing.
But with plenty of competition for apartment listings, Munro says Prop2Go will have get enough listings from landlords to make the site interesting for renters.
“In order for them to be successful they’re going to have to”¦ find some value proposition that others don’t provide,” Munro says.
“The faster they can build their scale and quality the more success they will have in the long run.”
Richard says because Prop2Go is aimed specifically at rental listings, it provides a better service than free classified websites such as Kijiji or Craigslist.
The site can filter apartments based on 14 different features. Prop2Go users can also set up alerts, and the site keeps all information on file for landlords’ convenience the next time the apartment is on the market.
Richard, a software developer by trade, is working on a nine-month research and development project aimed to make the site more user friendly.
On Kijiji and Craigslist, posts can be buried within hours since listings get bumped down as others come in. But Richard says Prop2Go is going to be different.
“They’re still going to be able to find you (even if the listing is buried) because their going to have the tools on there that make it easy to search for property online,” he says.
To get landlords and renters interested Richard’s marketing campaign will be mainly online, including a heavy social media component.
But he also plans to use radio and print ads to get the word out, as well as attend events and meet with large landlords.
Richard says he will likely hire sales and marketing people in the targeted cities in the coming months.
Nov
26
Interview with Jason
Here’s and interview taken from the past about Prop2Go with the owner and CEO Jason Richard.
Name of your website?Prop2Go
Your name?
Jason
Your Location (city, etc)
Saint John
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Prop2Go is a software company dedicated to creating software solutions for the realestate industry. Currently, Prop2GO has created an initial prototype web application called Prop2Go. The software is used by property owners across Canada to manage and promote their property. Prop2Go uses the Prop2Go software as a medium to connect property owners and property seekers. The Prop2Go software allows property owners to advertise their property (e.g. houses, apartments, condos, commercial property, and land) that is for sale, rent, and lease online.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Prop2Go wants to make it easy to find and sell real estate online. Our software is a medium to connect property owners and property seekers.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
In February, 2007 Prop2Go was launched.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I was trying to find a .com that somewhat matched what our company was about, which can be very tough. We found Prop2Go and went with that.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
We service all property types, real estate for sale, apartments for rent, commercial for sale and lease. We also provide notification services for property seekers, to make it easier to find property. We also provide a portal to property owners. This is atypical of competitive software companies and property sites.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To service a global market.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Business is going very well.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Our software would grow more rapidly, with many new features.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes, our application was designed to be very scalable.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Raising capital has been a challenge at times.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Finding good resources.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Traditional and online marketing.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not much different from what I expected, I have been developing software and web applications for over 12 years now.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don’t enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site has been up for over a year now. I have no plans on taking it down.
What is your website address?