Rental Scam: Things you need to be aware of when looking for your Albuquerque home

(Transcript Snippet): “Tracy:

Okay, so we’re going to talk about something else. Okay. We’re going to talk about rental scams. So we’ve had two of our rental houses come up, um, and be available lately. And we know this happens regularly, but boy rampant, rental scams out there. Right? Well,

Tego:

We hear about it all the time. We’ve seen our homes that are for sale. Let me just kind of explain what the scam is. The scam is somebody they’re probably not even in the United States, right? They take the photos that are posted for either a home for rent or a home for sale. They post it on a website, like a Craigslist, or like a Facebook marketplace, you know, somebody someplace where you can just post a free, you know, ad right. A home for rent. And, and what they’ll do is they’ll get some sort of, you know, phone number. That’s not a real number. It’s just some like a

Tracy:

Google number, like a Google voice number. But if they get

Tego:

A real number, it might even be a local number. Sometimes it’s not a local number, but a lot of times it’s local number. So it’s just, you know, it doesn’t matter. And then they, they start, uh, you know, you reach out to them, they start communicating with you and telling you they’re the owner. And then they say, oh, I’m in the hospital. Or, you know, all, I had to leave town right away. And I just need somebody to take care of my home. They give you some sob story. And, and the scam is they’re trying to get you to send the, you know, the deposit

Tracy:

Deposit in first month or whatever. I’ve

Tego:

Had some, some people pro prospective tenants say that they actually send an application, you know, to fill out and it’s, it’s a total scam. And so if you know anybody that’s, you know, renting or looking to rent or going to be renting or looking for rental properties, tell them to please, please, please, please be careful. And please, you know, have your, your senses up because it is rampant it’s happening on all on all the time. It’s just all the time. And I would guess that half of the homes that are listed for rent on Craigslist end up being scams.

Tracy:

So let’s talk about where, where do people find rental property? So as realtors, generally, generally, we don’t work with rentals, right? Our MLS, a few of them end up in our MLS. They’re reliable, right? Yeah. Um, Google Albuquerque, property management, you’ll find Tyson properties, AME property management, Maddix and company, uh, sky management, all these different companies that are real property managers. And you go to their website specifically and see what’s available, right. Or get, get with one of those folks that literally works with rental properties. And then, you know, you’re safe, right? Yeah. Um, unfortunately our MLS isn’t heavily used by the rental market. So we don’t have one great database just to go to, to find a lot of rentals. You, you would really have to just find property managers, you know, by Googling Albuquerque, property management or Rio Rancho property management, and going directly to their sites or giving them,

Tego:

I will say this, but I want to put a caveat on it because you know, scams are scams and scammers always figure out ways to trick people, but websites like Zillow websites, like apartment.com, you’re going to have a better chance of them not being scammed because for a landlord to post on those websites, they have to do some more verification. They may even have to pay a feed to post it there. So most of the scammers use again, free posting websites like like Craigslist or Facebook market, Facebook marketplace rampant. These days, it is rampant. Uh, my, the one that, that I’m actually renting right now, or, you know, uh, have, have listed to rent light right now, it’s gone on and off both of those websites, probably four times it keeps, they keep putting it back up. I flag it as a scam a day later, it goes back up again and it’s, it’s just, oh, it’s so frustrating.

Tracy:

One of the things that’s pretty typical besides them having some sort of story about why they can’t be meet you. I’ve had scammers though who do meet. So be careful, um, is oftentimes the rent price is a little below market or a lot below market. So if the price seems too low, that’s a really good indicator. So just be careful

Tego:

If it sounds too good to be true in the story is sounds off to you. It’s probably a scam. Yeah. Yeah. So just be careful, spread the word, tell all your friends to watch out for scams on rentals. We just really need to shut these people down because they’re just, they’re really just awful people. I’m sorry. They’re just awful.