My golden nugget is to put together a renter portfolio to submit with every single inquiry you make for potential apartments. In mine I include an introductory letter addressing the most common rental app questions (who am I, what am I about, who’s living with me, how long have we lived together, and why do I want the unit), my resume, 3 personal references, and my entire rental history summarized (addresses, time frames, names of landlords, phone number/email of landlords, names and contact info of previous roommates).

Yes this is extreme, but the market feels so competitive that I try to make it as easy as possible for prospective landlords to asses me as a renter and make a decision. That way nobody’s wasting anyone’s time. I’ve missed out on a lot of units just because another prospect got their rental app in first or had their references ready first.

Best case scenario, they look at the portfolio and think “wow they’re on their shit!”. Worst case scenario, they don’t even look at it and I continue searching.

Good luck, let me know if you find anything reliable. Been looking for three months now, not going great-

Bring a completed application to every showing.

Bring a check and offer to pay the deposit on the spot if you like the place. They won't take it because they haven't review your app, but it will be symbolic and make you memorable.

Also don't rule out offering more than asking if you really want it. The unit next to me went for $200 per month over asking.

That sucks. Sorry to hear that. This sort of thing points at a really bleak future for VT.

My apartment failed inspection (of course, it's a VT rental so it's a dump). I am a single person with no kids making well over $60k per year, and when I get booted out of this place I'll be looking for a job in another state. Makes more sense than looking for another overpriced dump here.

Eventually the businesses will run out of workers and go under and then we won't need people anymore and it'll all work out.

/s

Landlord here - this is spot on. You go right to the top of the list if you respond this way.

We're not trying to be jerks about it, but it goes like this: we put an ad up on craigslist and get 100 responses in 8 hours. Half of them just say "Hey, when can I come see it?". The rest provide some info. A few provide detailed info like the reply above. We don't even answer the others.

We're going to need all of this information. You know you're going to have to provide it. We won't show our apartments unless we have this information first. We won't displace and inconvenience our current tenants to show an apartment to someone who just wants to see what it looks like.

Yeah, this is already happening. Hiring here is an absolute nightmare, and it will only get worse. The workforce issue does not appear to be fixable.