Yeah I agree. Unfortunately we were in a bind when we moved in during the peak of the house crisis last year. Now that we have more options we are trying to explore other ideas

Thanks so much!

Yep I know. It’s $40 a month and $200 fee but I have two pets. It’s painful. And the house already had pet damage so it’s not like they even cared to use the last persons money towards that.

No! Surprisingly! They were impossible to work remotely. But I had seen similar charges with them.

Thanks! I’ll look at it later today. Is there a standard way of asking for the application fee to be returned or would that have to go through small claims?

Pro tip: don’t!

I know 😭 they’re forcing me to pay $90 for an air filter! I’m starting to suspect that it is paying for the payment portal where I do online payments. But I don’t see why they don’t just roll it into the rent and don’t tell me

Yep. Mandatory. Don’t provide a step stool or anything either lol. And the first two times they sent the wrong size

Honestly the pet rent doesn’t bother me as much as the $200 per pet non refundable fee up front. I would have been fine with it being a security deposit but non refundable plus rent kind of burns me up

It’s painful!

Oh no I got it through my auto insurance. I just thought that if they were mandating $30 a month and it included insurance then it’s not as much of a scam

That’s the truth! I will definitely reach out if we go that route. Thanks!

Yes we have been considering it. It seems like the market has cooled down and right now isn’t the worst time to buy. Our hold up is that there is a potential for our jobs to be finished here this winter or next summer so we were already on the fence about signing another year lease. If we buy we’d only be in it for max two years and then we would be renting it out too! Not sure we want to take on the pain of it but it’s hard paying someone else’s mortgage.

Yeah I agree it’s not the worst but to us it’s just that final straw of their nickel and diming. I’m glad people are validating what I’ve been thinking

Yeah I agree. I think it is just the last straw for us. We still haven’t decided if we’ll move but I wanted to hear what every one thought

Yeah I tried. I’ve seen a few places do it now since continuing my search. I’m thinking it’s a way for the tenant to pay for the payment portal for the company but they soon it as in all these benefits to you. Originally they said renters insurance was covered in it but then back tracked and said you could buy renters insurance

Honestly wouldn’t mind that for better air quality 😅

I’ll have to look into them. Thanks!

Yeah that’s exactly what it is. It’s robbery. They send one filter every three months. But they put it under the guise of this program that you could purchase renters insurance, it helps “build your credit”, which we don’t need, and some coupons or something. And it’s mandatory! Like just make the rent $30 more if you want the money that bad.

Unfortunately the rent zestimate is no where near accurate.

Yeah we’re not happy about it but so many other places are still charging crazy fees, just not this high. So if we stay we’re at least only out the one time.

Yeah I heard of landlords doing it through Zillow and just collecting the application fee and not renting it. I learned to stay away from listings that had hundreds of applications. One reason is what I just said, but the other was that I just couldn’t compete since I was remotely looking.

I’m wondering now if there’s at least a way to get part of my application fee back but I wouldn’t push it until we move out

Yeah that’s the catch here!

Thanks so much for validating my thoughts. Do you know how to go about finding fair market value? Is there any sort of data base for what’s being rented currently?

Yeah that’s what I thought. There is rarely anything to rent so I can’t compare. We do have a big yard but it’s not very functional unfortunately. It’s on an extreme slope with major dips.