The People You Have To Trust To Rent An Apartment

by The Billfold

First, you have to trust that the Craigslist post is real.

It’s pretty easy to suss out the people who are just in it to pass around fraudulent money orders. But once you get past that part and set up a time to view the apartment, you have to trust that the person you meet at the building is, in fact, the landlord. You have to trust that the unit they are showing you is, in fact, for rent. You have to trust that it is okay to walk into a building with a person you don’t know.

There are checks you can do for all of this, of course. You can look up property records and confirm the person you are going to meet is in fact the owner of the building, but that only proves that the name on the property record and the name on the Craigslist email you received match. So then you start searching online for photographs, to make sure the person you meet matches the photo of the person he or she claims to be.

You’re doing all of this in about 10 minutes, by the way, because you need to be the first person to the listing after it posts.

Read the rest at The Billfold.