Rental community or private?

[Radiance]

Is it better to rent at a rental community or directly from a home owner?
I will be short selling my house and need to decide where to rent.

This is what I have so far, on my personal situation:

Reasons to rent at a rental community:
Stability, rental communities are always renting, an owner could decide to stop renting to sell the property or to move in.
In-site maintenance, when renting from an owner you need to call somebody and be there for them to come and make any repairs, at a rental community they typically have access to the apartments and fix stuff while you are at work.
Availability, while availability in rental communities is scarce these days, I see less and less houses for rent.

Reasons to rent directly from the owner
In my area you get more sq feet for your money; 1500 would get me about 1000 sq ft at a rental community but 1400 sq ft if I rent from an owner.
Location, Location, the main reason I am considering renting from an owner is that I could stay in my community, close to my son's school, and an area I love. Unfortunately is all residential, there are no rental communities 10 miles around or in this side of the highway.

[ktmarvels]

I think a lot of it is personal preference and what you can afford. However, I just rented directly from an owner for the first time and had a bad experience: the condo basically is going through the process of foreclosure (even though we paid our rent!). Just something else to keep in the back of your mind in this current economic situation.

[wincrasher]

Good advice - when you interview with a landlord, not only is he interviewing you, but you are interviewing him too.

The pluses of a private part are that you can get more for your money (potentially) and probably less of a hassle of all the rules of these "communities". On the downside, you can get burned if he gets foreclosed and many do not report your timely payments to the credit bureaus.

If you rent privately, you'll probably be in a community of owners, which may be a better neighborhood than people who are just renting. It could be that nobody but you and the landlord even know you are actually renting.

[Radiance]

An update, in talking to a friend of mine who is also a neighbor I learned she was renting, a house even bigger than mine for 1400.

She used a broker company who actually pre screens home owners to ensure they are financially sound to commit to a rent contract.

This is great news for me! I was looking at rental places and got kinda depressed, it was 1400 for a one bedroom, no garage, and the quality of the details and appliances was lower. I had to discard many options because I want washer dryer in the unit, and many have a miniature washer dryer.

And the big plus for me: I would be able to stay at my current neighborhood or close to it. This takes a lot of pressure and trauma from loosing the house which is on sale sffective today. This morning my son went out of the house and the lockbox called his attention he started to analyse it. I was about to start crying. I had to swallow hard and get him on the car.

I need to focus on the positives, no more home owners insurance, no more taxes and less housing... The Lord will take care of us.

[MonkeyMama]

If you live in a heavily foreclosed/underwarer area I would strongly advise NOT renting directly from an owner.

In the boom landlords sold very readily and in the bust many of them are losing homes. I hardly know anyone who rents a home who doesn't have to move every year or so (often with little notice - like a foreclosure notice on the front door, etc.). But they moved just as much in the boom years - then they had to help show the homes.

That is definitely the plus to renting in a rental community - much more stability.

Just beware of the risks and do some digging if you can (real estate friends who can look up mortgage on home, etc.?)

[shubh]

In my opinion, the option of Rental community is better. It gives you piece of mind and better service. Though you pay little more here but even then in long run, it is better if you are going to stay there for long period.

[junosama]

I prefer to rent from an official place not a home owner. I think you have more protection if you rent from like an agency, but I could be wrong.

Plus they want to keep tenants happy so you will probably have things fixed much faster than a home owner would who just wants a few extra bucks a month.

[cicy33]

I personally will never again live anywhere that has a home owners association. We lived in one briefly and hated every minute of it. We did not have any issues with the mowing rules or the water rules or the don't leave your lawnmower out rule, or don't leave your trashcan out past dusk rule. (see where those are going?) No, the problems we had were here: Like many other people in the neighborhood we had parked our car in front of our house apparently the wrong way. Keep in mind so were half the cars on the block, but perhaps since we were new? we had the cops called. Fine, turned the car around. didn't do it anymore. didn't even know there was a rule when you are not on a regular street. Second, our car broke. The engine blew. We were fixing it. It was not messy, we had the car half in the garage and half out. It was a small one car garage and unless you walked up to the front you could not tell what we were doing. At night we kept the garage door down low enough you couldn't see anything from the street. We couldn't afford a mechanic and besides my SO is a mechanic. So we did our own work. cops were called again! apparently it is illegal to fix your own vehicle in your own driveway. So we had to hurry up and fix it by working very long hours while of course trying to work a regular job. Now, of course the guy down the street could work on his car. After about 6 months of this we said forget it and moved out of. Told the landlord to keep the deposit. wasn't worth the stress. I have never had trouble like that before or since.

[lizzy_09]

Good advice - when you interview with a landlord, not only is he interviewing you, but you are interviewing him too.

The pluses of a private part are that you can get more for your money (potentially) and probably less of a hassle of all the rules of these "communities". On the downside, you can get burned if he gets foreclosed and many do not report your timely payments to the credit bureaus.

If you rent privately, you'll probably be in a community of owners, which may be a better neighborhood than people who are just renting. It could be that nobody but you and the landlord even know you are actually renting.

Totally agree on this. Aside from that, if you have cases like you can't pay rent on time, you can discuss other arrangements with the owner. Just weigh your options in which gives a more positive outcome for you.