Money Blue Book

Review Of Rent.com and Ways To Make Money While Finding An Apartment

I’ve been renting for quite a long long while and have learned a thing or two about apartment hunting. Because of the bursting real estate bubble, I’m going to be continuing my long lasting rental streak for the foreseeable future. Renting is not so bad. You get to live somewhere different every few years and you don’t need to worry about upkeep or maintenance because the landlord takes care of everything. For college or graduate students, it’s usually the only option, aside from moving back home. Unless you want mommy and daddy to rule over your comings and goings though, I would highly recommend striking it out on your own. Of course, if financial independence is an issue, living with your parents will allow you to better conserve your financial resources until you can stand on your own two feet.

Get $100 For Using Rent.Com To Find Your Apartment

I always try to maximize my money and take advantage of money saving and money making opportunities whenever possible. On the subject of searching for an apartment rental, Rent.com offers a unique deal not offered by most other apartment search sites. This eBay owned company will hand you a cool $100 in the form of a pre-paid Visa debit card if you register with them and find an apartment to rent through their online listing. Their listing is quite comprehensive but only includes sites that have agreed to participate in their program. They have a decent listing of all the major apartment properties out there, but there are a few that have declined to participate. Property participants have to pay a referral fee to Rent.com and that is how they can afford to offer users like you and I the $100 for using their service.

The process is quite straight forward. Register a free account with Rent.com and search their comprehensive listing to find your new home. Then tell the property you found them through Rent.com. Make sure this information is clearly recorded on their welcome visitor form or at the very least on the signed lease. Then you log back onto your Rent.com account and report your lease. It may take Rent.com a few weeks to contact the property management office to verify that you indeed listed Rent.com as your referring party, but afterwards you can rest assured, you will receive your debit card in due time.

There are other apartment search sites like Apartment Guide and Apartments.com, but none provide the same enticing cash back incentive that Rent.com offers. Frequently, many of these sites list the same apartment properties, but if you had to decide which one to go with, the choice should be easy - go with the one that will offer you money back for your efforts!

Use Craiglist To Find Apartment Deals Not Listed Elsewhere

Craigslist is the wild wild west of apartment searching. You never quite know what’s out there since it can be filled with an unregulated and wide assortment of people. You have to narrow your search by geographical location but many deals are available if you are careful enough to weed out the scammers and weirdos.

Established apartment facilities occasionally post on Craigslist but most listings are posted by regular Joes and Janes. Although I found my previous apartment through Rent.com (and received a crisp $100 in the process) , I found my current condo rental through Craigslist. I negotiated and worked out my own terms and was able to secure a pretty nice deal.

Use Apartment Review Sites To Help Your Search

Finding an apartment to live in can be a challenging process especially if you don’t have the time to talk to everyone at the apartment property to see what the neighborhood is like. Is there a roach problem? Rats? Drug dealers? Gang activity? All of these types of things you can discover through online review and rating sites like ApartmentRatings or RottenNeighbor. You should always be very, very leery of extremely positive or extremely negative reviews. Apartment competitors will on occasion post on these forum and review sites to boost their own ratings and bash their competition.

But there is no replacing your own visual inspection of the premises. Requesting a walk through of the rooms and facilities is always your best bet. I’d also recommend driving through the area at night as well. Especially for less upscale locations, it’s remarkable how scary and creepy certain neighborhoods become when night falls.

Unless you are the National Association of Realtors (with their weird predictions), you are living in the realm of reality and are aware of what is going on in the real estate market. Unless you are NAR, you’re probably well aware that most reputable research groups and real estate analysts continue to report a dismal housing market.

The real estate market was so hot for many years and now it’s finally tanked and appears to be poised for a lengthy bear run. I was in the market for a new house but have decided to pull out until markets have bottomed out. I know it’s difficult if not impossible to accurately predict if and when the bottom has arrived, but based on current conditions, I don’t think we are close to the abyss yet.

The problem with housing is that it’s no longer about location, location anymore. Now it’s all about supply, supply. Mortgage rates could decrease with further Federal Reserve rate cuts, but so long as sellers refuse to budge from their highly priced home listings, the supply will continue to grow, creating a seller’s bubble of its own.

We Have Only Begun To See the Downturn

Latest research reports show that housing prices have steadily fallen since the summer, although there are pockets of relative tame changes in areas like the Northeast part of the United States. As grim as it may seem, I think the worst is yet to come and I doubt we will see any appreciable recovery for many years, at least until 2010.

The biggest problem right now is the wide discrepancy in pricing reality between buyers and sellers, and the sense of denial gripping many home sellers. Currently there is a very large glut and oversupply of homes in the real estate market that is contributing to the stagnant market. During the summer, reports indicated that the glut had grown to its largest size ever in the last 16 years with more than a 9.6 month supply of homes for sale with figures steadily increasing. Foreclosures are up but sellers refuse to budge from their high asking prices. I think the homes that have managed to sell are the limited few that are contributing to the skewed appearance of stable home prices.

Currently, home builders are reporting terrible demand for new homes and projects. Even with the decline in housing prices, there is still a significant drag in the movement of houses. When sellers eventually realize that they won’t be able to get close to their asking price, they will be forced to lower their prices significantly or face the prospect of not being able to sell their home at all. When that happens, we are likely to see a drastic downward plunge in prices when this oversupply bubble pops.

I know there are legions of people like me who are patiently waiting in the wings for prices to depreciate significantly before entering the market for a home. Prices in my area will need to plummet at least 10-25% before I would even consider buying. I am actually hoping for the mortgage crisis to severely worsen so I can go bargain hunting in 2-3 years in the aftermath of the housing collapse. In the meantime, I am happily renting.

This is for those of you who missed out on the real estate boom of the last few years. I think you’ll know where I’m coming from.

Back in 2004 I was feeling downtrodden. I was only very recently a year out of graduate school and already my friends were snapping up properties left and right. I know it’s not good to be envious of others, but I felt like I was missing out on the greatest boom of the decade.

A few of my friends and acquaintances at the time were making lucrative incomes by flipping houses, and perfecting the art of buying distressed properties, fixing them up, and selling them for quick profits. Some were even working on the side and making good money as house appraisers. I even knew a few people who took trips to Miami and Las Vegas to take advantage of the red hot housing markets there. Many were putting money down for pre-construction condominium projects that gained in market value even before the contract ink was dry. During the boom, it seemed like everyone was making money off of paper gains due to rapid appreciation of housing prices.

Great Real Estate Investing Opportunities Opening Up

Now, everything has changed. The real estate market has cooled and completely caved inward. Housing values are depreciating and foreclosures are up.

In the midst of this doom and gloom, I can crack a smile. The opportunistic eager beaver in me knows that my time to shine will soon be near. Am I being mean by thinking like this? After all we live in a capitalistic society. Even our stock market is based on the efficient concept that for every seller there will be a buyer. The market sets the price. I didn’t do anything to cause real estate prices to tank, but I will certainly be there to catch and cradle the bargains after prices have made their 50 percent drop. It certainly won’t be that much, but the greater the drop the better.

The Real Estate Bear Market Is Not Close To Ending Yet

I currently rent a one bedroom in a brand new condominium complex that many speculators were buying for exorbitant prices during the boom. Now the trapped sellers have been forced to rent them out due to the stagnating real estate market. However, I can tell they are now trying to wage a comeback, but I don’t think many of them will succeed. There are simply too many sellers in my complex and not enough buyers. I can tell the number of condo sellers in my building is starting to grow by the increasing number of padded lock boxes that I see on the gated fence entrance to my building. If you don’t know what I’m talking about regarding the lock boxes, here’s an article to enlighten you. They would probably need to slash prices by 30% before I’d even consider making an offer. I guess I like to play hardball. It’s good to be a buyer in a buyer’s market.

I am currently not a home owner, but just a few months ago I wanted to be one. But now with the housing bubble pop in full swing, I’ve decided to hold off on my original plans until the housing environment improved. The bubble correction is still rippling through the real estate market, and the effects from the mortgage and credit crisis are likely to last for a while.

The Funniest Prognosticator Of Them All

I have been following the real estate market for some time and try to track the various projections out there. Of all of the market opinions that I follow, there’s none funnier than the regularly issued opinion releases by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the largest trade group in North America representing real estate agents.

Prior to and during the recent downturn of the housing market, NAR was represented by their chief economist David Lereah, who served as the association’s spokesman and cheerleader on forecasts and trends affecting the U.S. real estate market. He has been frequently criticized by many for his perpetually rosy and outlandish spins on the state of the housing market, and has even been accused of encouraging the rise of the real estate bubble. He finally stepped down from his position earlier this year and was replaced by the new chief economist Lawrence Yun.

I’ve always found NAR’s opinions to be very entertaining. As the real estate ship Titanic slowly sank, you could be sure the NAR’s chief spokesman was busy running the decks proclaiming how wonderful of a day it was and how nobody had anything to fear because the ship was running just fine. Before the pop, Lereah was busy calling bubble believers “Chicken Littles,” while trying to keep the hype going. The image and message displayed at the top right of this blog entry was even part of NAR’s $40 million “It’s A Great Time To Buy Or Sell A Home” advertising blitz campaign that started on November 2006, advising consumers to take buying or selling action now while conditions remained favorable. Such eternal optimists.

As CBS Marketwatch bluntly pointed out:

There are two universal truths at the National Association of Realtors: 1) It’s always a good time to buy or sell a home; and 2) We’ve seen the worst of the housing market correction.

Just for kicks, let’s take a look at the National Association of Realtors’ predictions and compare them to what actually happened:

December 2005 - NAR predicted the national median home price would rise about 6.1% in 2006. Over a full year, it “has never declined since good record keeping began in 1968,” NAR boldly stated.

• The Reality: Through October 2006, the median price of residential properties was down 3.5% from a year earlier. The median price decline is even worse if you take into account all the extra cash and financing incentives that were thrown on new home buyers.

January 2006 - David Lereah’s forecast: The market is in the process of normalization and “The level of home sales activity is now at a sustainable level, and is likely to pick up a bit in the months ahead.

• The Reality: Fourth quarter sales fell at an annual rate of 12.6% to 6.94 million annualized.

April 2006 - NAR’s forecast: Home sales will move up and down somewhat over the remainder of the year but stay at a high plateau.

• The Reality: First quarter sales fell at an annual rate of 8.6% to 6.79 million. Lereah’s explanation: This is additional evidence that we’re experiencing a soft landing.

July 2006 - NAR’s forecast: The market should even out just below present levels.

• The Reality: Second quarter sales fell at an annual rate of 6% to 6.69 million. Lereah’s explanation: The market is stabilizing.

October 2006 - NAR’s forecast: We expect sales activity to pick up early next year.

• The Reality: Third quarter sales fell at an annual rate of 22.2% to 6.28 million. Lereah’s explanation: This is likely the trough in sales.

January 2007 - Lereah announced: “After reaching what appears to be the bottom in the fourth quarter of 2006, we expect existing home sales to gradually rise all this year and well into 2008″

• The Reality: Fourth quarter sales fell at an annual rate of 2.3% to 6.24 million. Lereah’s explanation: It appears we have established a bottom.

September 2007 - NAR’s new chief economist Lawrence Yun confidently proclaimed: “Mortgage disruptions will hold back sales over the short term, but long term fundamentals are favorable. A modest upturn is projected for existing home sales toward the end of the year, with broader improvement to include the new home market by the middle of 2008.”

Let the games begin.