realtor rental listings-are they shared amongst realtors?

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

For *rentals*, do realtors in Somerville share apartment listings or do they each have their own?    Would it be a mistake for a landlord or a tenant to use a smaller realtor, because they would not achieve critical mass of prospective tenants/apartments?   If that is the case, which realtors have a sufficient volume of listings/tenants?

Comments

[idealforcolors.livejournal.com]

My experience looking for rentals in the last two months has been that tons of landlords list with multiple realtors, so lots of listings are not exclusive. I'm not sure what the benefit for landlords is exactly, since rentals are in such high demand that I can't believe you wouldn't achieve "critical mass" with one smaller realtor, especially in this age of Craigslist, and one realtor wouldn't approve and pass on applications for tenants without suitable income and credit anyway. But I'm sure you could have peace of mind that you will get tons of applications. Also, you can even ask to personally meet and vet all the pre-screened tenants, including the ones who will have to make additional trips in from out of town, to make sure you get the most likeable out of the bunch...and then reject the rest!

I will note that from a prospective tenants' perspective, this practice really stinks, though. It means that landlords can hold on to several approved applications at a time, so you have to put down deposits and then wait around after the realtor approves your income, credit, and references for the landlord to decide which application s/he likes best. If they pick someone else or just won't make a decision on the timescale you need to move, you have to start over. (That happened to me four times, and I only lucked out in the end by finding an exclusive listing. And my applications were approved for income, credit and references, so we're literally just talking about landlords "shopping" for tenants while leaving applicants and their four-figure checks hanging.) If you do go with multiple realtors, please be considerate of the people who are waiting on your decision, and make it snappy so they can move on.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info, I usually advertise through craigslist, but since it is a bad time of year, I might need to use a realtor this time. Property is in east Somerville, which while now getting hot is not Davis where totally liquid all year round, plus it is a whole house and brand new so not as easy to move as a standard 1 BR apartment during winter. Maybe I'll try one realtor and see how it goes.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

I believe this must be the case; owners going with multiple agents or even on there own at the same time. An observation of craiglist/trulia is that the same property is listed multiple times basically with different wording. From the owner perspective for my property if the credit check and reference work out and over all the person seems nice I don't see why someone should wait to decide on an individual or group.

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

We use Apartment Rental Experts on College Ave in Davis Sq, and have been very happy with them.