I have been using Wikipedia.com more and more over the last 6-8 months. If you are not familiar with this site, it is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I find that it has some great and useful information on it. Just look at the page on Leasing. If you are an expert on leases and you want to edit that page – just sign in and start editing! Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Of course the first thing I tried was to create a page about rentals and add a link to my site. But the page did not last long because the volunteers that monitor site thought it was spammy. It didn’t hurt to try – right?

Why would I want a link from Wikipedia? Because Google loves Wikipedia pages so in turn if Wikipedia is linking to you then Google might love your site just a little more.

I looked to see if my top competitors were in Wikipedia, I saw that they were not, so that made me feel better.

I guess if I made a truly awesome page on Wikipedia and did not try to link to my site, they would have kept it, but then where is the fun in that? i
[tags]wikipedia, rentals[/tags]

Just a quick update on the free property mapping tool we are creating.

The tool is working; we have just a few more small things left to do.

We went with Google Maps for now, however we are really thinking of providing the tool with MS Virtual Earth as well. So you can choose which one you like.

Once it is done, we will being beta testing the tool. If anyone is interested please shoot us an email.

That depends on the state you live in. Most states it is 18.

What you need to look for is “Age of Majority”. Age of Majority is the age inwhich the law recognizes you as an adult. At that point you can be bound by contracts such as a lease.

Here is a chart for each state.

continue reading "How old do you have to be to rent?"

To help protect your security deposit take photos of your rental before you move in. It only takes a few minutes.

continue reading "Move-in tip: take photos to protect your deposit."

Of course it is easy to say that renter’s insurance doesn’t cost that much. But try telling that to someone right out of college renting their first place, $10 to $15 a month was a lot!
continue reading "How much does renter’s insurance cost?"

It depends where you live, how long you rented for, if you are in government subsidized housing and some times how many units the landlord owns. In some cases you can make interest off the last month’s rent too.

continue reading "Will I make interest on my security deposit?"

From what I have researched the demand for a section 8 rental is higher than the supply – creating a waiting list.

Waiting lists can last years. Denver Colorado started a lottery system for the highly popular federal voucher. Nearly 8,000 have registered for the voucher in Denver, only about 300 are picked. Not very good odds.

The Denver lottory has some people upset because imagine that you have been on the list for 2 years and then someone registers the day before the lottery and gets picked.

But I guess at least Denver gives you some hope, because in some communities the list is so long that they close the registration process.

Each county has their own program as well so you can’t take a voucher from Denver and look for a home in Arapahoe county or Douglas county. Also, just because the property has a Denver address doesn’t mean that it is within Denver county so you must do the due diligence as there are some homes with a Denver address located in Arapahoe County.

Also,  coloradohousingsearch.com lists homes that will accept housing assistance a site designed for low to moderate income families. It also lists what housing assistance maximums (fair market value) are for specific areas for landlord information. i.e for Douglas, Elbert, and Arapahoe counties a 5 bedroom home FMR is $1,692 per month.

From this web site, they indicate that the national average wait time for a housing voucher is 28 months (this was in 2000 so it could be even longer now).

No renter’s insurance is not required. It is not like car insurance which is required by law. But most leases state that it is highly recommended.

I will be the first to admit that when I rented, I didn’t have renter’s insurance most of the time. Sure renter’s insurance is pretty cheap, but to a person just getting started and who owns pretty much nothing, saving that money went a long way to buying beer and other more important items when you are young. Heck it was tough enough just to pay the rent some months, let alone pay for something that I didn’t understand.

continue reading "Is renter’s insurance required?"