Renting a Home, Part 2: Timesaving Tips
This week, massage therapist Rebecca Naugler continues her 3-part blog with some tips to narrow down and save time with your rental search.
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In Part 1 last week, I gave some criteria, websites, and a tracking template to help with your search for a new home to rent. This week, I’d like to share some tips and tricks for finding the ideal place to rent.
Ask everyone you know if they or someone they know has a property for rent. I asked all my patients (I’m a massage therapist) and I was truly surprised how many owned property.
If someone sent me a listing on social media, I used the thumbs-up or thumbs-down emoji to comment on that specific post so I knew I’d taken a look already and what I thought of it.
I wrote a blurb that I saved on my computer and would copy-and-paste into initial rental inquiries. Just a bit of detail introducing my family and that we were looking for a long-term rental.
If you want to know what schools service a house or if a bus is available, use this website: https://www.findmyschool.ca/Eligibility
Save yourself some time driving around by using Google Maps to peek at each property. It might not be a recent photo, but with the street view you can get a feel for the neighbourhood, parking, and size of the building. We ruled out several options this way because we had specific requirements like a garage, a place to park a trailer, and 2 parking spots.
Sometimes properties listed only one bathroom but actually had one full bath and one powder room. I looked for the differences in the pictures or if a full house was being offered, I’d ask the landlord to confirm the actual number of bathrooms.
A lot of landlords just wouldn’t bother replying to messages. I got into the habit of adding a sentence in my follow-up inquiries mentioning that I would be in touch again soon. In other words, I implied that I would keep turning up in their Inbox until I heard back. The reply rate went up dramatically! LOL
Some places included utilities on a per-room pricing. Instead, I would ask for the price if utilities were not included, because my family wouldn’t use the same amount of energy as a group of students or individuals that each cooked for themselves, did their own laundry in small loads, etc.
Things move *fast*! Be prepared with all your documents. Bring a hardcopy of your documents when you go to a showing and have an electronic version handy in case you’re asked to send them. For example, a landlord has the legal right to ask for a credit report, a letter of employment, or recent pay stubs. I also read that you might be asked for, but are not legally required to give, your SIN number.
Some landlords might request that you submit a Naborly (https://www.naborly.com/) tenant-screening application. It’s a legitimate service, but I didn’t like it. It’s $25 per person applying and it runs identity, income, employment, and credit checks. You need to do this each time you apply for a place, because your application isn’t attached to you—it’s attached to the home you’re applying to. If you’re serious about renting a property, feel free to comply with the landlord’s request, but a couple of places used this service to screen people out before we could even view the place; we refused to proceed with these rental queries.
Next week, I’ll review some of your rights as a tenant and share one regret I had that led to losing on some wonderful rental options.
Restore Massage Therapy is based in the south end of Guelph, Ontario and is owned and operated by Rebecca Naugler, RMT. Rebecca has been providing caring, therapeutic massage since 2000. To book an appointment, contact Rebecca at rebecca@restorermt.ca or visit